5 Feet of Fury

Colby Cosh smacks down CJC

(Now with better hyperlink)

“With all their talk of swastikas on synagogue walls and ‘white supremacists,’ one might imagine that Pamela Waechter was murdered by some rampaging neo-Nazi skinhead. The perpetrator was in fact one Naveed Afzal Haq, whose Pakistani father founded the local Islamic centre and who shouted at his victims, ‘I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel.’ In a call to 911 operators Haq also said, ‘These are Jews and I’m tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.’

“It is bizarre, and definitely in questionable taste, for officials of the CJC to use such a case as a pretext for defending laws which have become controversial because Muslims have been using them to suppress implied criticism of their faith.

“Hate laws that are only ever used against the official-language media, and that essentially stop at the door of the family home and the mosque, won’t do much to save Jews from Muslim fanatics. Some free, frank and timely discussion of Islam’s compatibility with Western society just might.”