Toronto Star social and racial justice columnist Shree Paradkar raised more than a few eyebrows on Friday with a column attacking former prime minister Stephen Harper for a tweet expressing solidarity with Israel’s wartime government.
She took issue with Harper’s characterization of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks, which violated a then-existing ceasefire between the terrorist group and Israel, as “unprovoked,” calling Harper’s tweet the “latest reminder of the depth of Western bias” on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Paradkar also objected to the ex-prime minister’s use of the phrase “end(ing) the threat of Hamas” in the same tweet.
“Harper’s ahistorical and disingenuous framing… reflects the extent to which what we’re witnessing from the powerful is an attempt to promote a simplistic viewpoint of `good’ and ‘bad,’” writes Paradkar.
Paradkar is, of course, far from the only public figure in Canada who’s played footsie with Hamas supporters over the past four-and-a-half months, but her latest column goes well beyond the pale. It’s hard to believe that it was even published under the umbrella of Canada’s largest daily print newspaper.
It’s equally hard to figure out where to even start when it comes to rebutting an article that’s so totally untethered from reality — but I’ll give it a try anyways.
Paradkar uncritically repeats Hamas commander Mohammed Deif’s claim that the Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people, and the kidnapping of 240 more, was meant to avenge Israel’s “brutal” spring 2021 incursions into East Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque. She conveniently left out the detail that no deaths were reported in the clashes. (Israeli security personnel used rubber bullets and stun grenades to suppress unruly worshippers).
She’s also sure to mention that the Al Aqsa fighting took place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, omitting the fact that Hamas has repeatedly attacked Israel at its most vulnerable during Jewish holidays. The Oct. 7 attacks themselves were launched on the first day of Simchat Torah, a festive occasion that marks the start of a new annual cycle of reading the Jewish holy text.
“Hit the Zionists on their holidays,” is one of the most frequently called plays in Hamas’ playbook, ranking right up there with “use Palestinian women and children as human shields” and “dig here” (next to an ‘X’ marking UNRWA HQ on a map of Gaza).
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And even if we take Paradkar’s rubber-bullets-to-mortar-shells comparison at face value, her account still leaves out the fact Israel and Hamas fought a war at the time, where Hamas bombarded Israel with rockets and Israel responded in kind. She also neglects the key detail that the 2021 unrest was brought to an end by a “mutual and unconditional” Gaza ceasefire in May of that year. (The truce was negotiated by Egypt).
Does Paradkar agree with Deif’s specious reasoning that the spring 2021 Al Asqa mosque raids — which, again, produced zero casualties — justified Hamas unilaterally violating a subsequent ceasefire with Israel two-and-a-half years later?
Did the bloodless Israeli security operation give Hamas carte blanche to indiscriminately slaughter Israeli civilians at any time of their choosing? Would Commander Deif’s invocation of the 2021 events ring equally credible if used to justify an attack launched in 2025? 2030?
Paradkar’s silence on these questions is telling. Instead she writes, “Israel wants vengeance for Hamas’s attacks. Hamas wanted vengeance for Al Aqsa,” as if the Oct. 7 slaughter was an insignificant tit for tat.
And this somehow isn’t even the article’s most glaring logical fallacy. Toward the end of the column, Paradkar suggests that Hamas’ bloated bureaucracy automatically makes it less nefarious than likeminded Islamist group ISIS.
“Hamas is not ISIS, who were a bunch of armed and violent men with delusions of grandeur,” she writes, oblivious to the obvious comparisons between the two terrorists groups. “Not only does Hamas have a military wing, but it has, in its 16 years of rule, built a system of government that includes tens of thousands of teachers, civil servants and police.”
Hamas is far from the first terrorist organization to adopt a sprawling administrative apparatus comprising both paramilitary and nominally civilian wings (see, for instance, the IRA/Sinn Fein), and it’s structure has absolutely nothing to do with its murderous intent to wipe Israel off the map.
What’s more, Paradkar’s dismissal of the comparison between Hamas and ISIS falls down even further by the fact that ISIS itself had a system of government.
She isn’t, however, entirely wrong when she says Hamas is not ISIS. ISIS hasn’t been given billions of dollars from UN agencies and other “humanitarian” groups to build a thriving favour-trading network that robs Gaza’s poorest. ISIS can only dream of this sort of foreign patronage.
True to her “social and racial justice” bonafides, Paradkar tut-tuts the western media for “Reducing Hamas’s violent actions to an act of Islamic extremism,” as if deaf to the cries of “Allahu Akbar” that rang through the streets of Gaza on Oct. 7.
Friday’s truly repugnant article sheds new light on the reported controversy over Paradkar’s role as the Toronto Star’s internal anti-discrimination ombudsperson. Her position was eliminated in December after she made several social media posts that Star staff “felt were antisemitic,” according to CanadaLand. (Paradkar was named “equity advocate” in a union-only role).
It’s hard to fathom how someone with so many of her own evident blind-spots was ever put in a position to guide the newspaper’s nondiscrimination policies. The fact that the screed was even published raises serious questions about the Star’s suitability as a workplace for Jewish employees.
The Star’s willingness to publish an article that veers so wildly beyond what should be acceptable both in terms of editorial fairness and good taste is shocking.
Emilio De Luigi 