KINSELLA: Jew hate making headlines again after brief lull

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It’s getting bad again.

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At the start of the Summer, many of the anti-Israel occupations at universities and colleges were shut down, or moved on. In the streets, the pro-Hamas protests seemed to be happening less often. Things seemed to be getting a bit quieter.

Then this week happened.

Here’s a recap of the past seven days:

Across Canada, more than 100 Jewish organizations and people – from physicians to hospitals to synagogues – received a written death threat: “We placed many explosives inside your building. They are placed in black backpacks. You will all end up in a pool of blood, none of you deserve to keep living.” Police took the bomb threat seriously, and evacuated multiple locations to search for bombs.

At the Democratic Party’s national convention (DNC) in Chicago, thousands of Israel-haters surrounded the United Center while Kamala Harris, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton spoke. They burned American and Israeli flags, they breached barriers, they assaulted police, and they repeatedly called for violence to – as one sign put it – “end Israel [and] stand with Hamas.”

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Meanwhile outside the DNC, a Nazi flag was held aloft, and greeted with Nazi salutes.

After a long, long delay, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) finally asked their national vice-president Fred Hahn to step down for posting a wildly anti-Semitic video. However, they notably did not ask Hahn to step down as president of Ontario’s CUPE branch. And, the next day, they abandoned all decency and called criticism of Hahn’s anti-Semitism by Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Labour Minister David Piccini “completely revolting and unacceptable.”

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An undated photo surfaced of Toronto’s Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik speaking at an anti-Israel rally beside the flag of Hezbollah, a listed terrorist entity in this country. Toronto’s Mayor Olivia Chow neither condemned it nor disciplined Malik.

Anti-Semitism and extremism, clearly, have come roaring back. They never completely left us, of course – there have been too many documented cases of arson and vandalism and threats throughout the Summer of 2024 – but it felt, for a fleeting moment there, that things just might be getting a little less awful.

Not so. The beast of Jew hate – and the hatred directed at the majority of non-Jews who support the Jewish state – is back, slouching through our streets towards its ultimate goal, a dark and antediluvian caliphate.

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When we look at footage of the Israel-hating protests at the DNC or in our own streets, something is readily seen. It’s not that the majority are self-professed Muslims, necessarily, or that they belong more to one race than another.

It’s this: in Canada, in the United States, in Europe, the ones who detest Israel and the West the most are young. Specifically, Gen Z (from ages 19 to 24, roughly) and Millennials (from age 25 to 39 or so). Polling confirms the same thing: anti-Semitism – and even pro-Hamas sentiment – is surging among young people. But why?

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Avi Melamed is a former Israeli intelligence officer. He has been paying close attention to the rising tide of Jew hatred both before and after the pogrom of Oct. 7.

In an interview, Melamed says this: “Young people very, very easily fall for sensationalized, romanticized images and rhetoric and symbols. It’s very easy to capture their hearts and minds and manipulate them. When you don’t have knowledge, when you don’t have basic educational skills like critical thinking and media literacy, you are not going to be looking for context and nuance. And it can lead to disaster.”

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He pauses, then adds: “As long as you’ve got a combination of fast-food information, and young people who lack the basics in education, groups like Hamas will continue to excel on these social media platforms.”

And capture support and recruits.

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Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, the brilliant head of Internet watchdog CyberWell, pays close attention to anti-Semitism online and brings it to the attention of Meta (who own Facebook and Instagram), Elon Musk (who owns X), and others. Younger people rely on the online world more than any other demographic, she agrees.

“We know from history, and we know from the Holocaust, that anti-Semitism is one of the most destabilizing social conspiracy theories for any society,” says Cohen Montemayor. “When [CyberWell and others] warn about the popularity or the trendiness, the boldness of anti-Semitism in online spaces, we are warning about it for this reason: history has shown what a destabilizing conspiracy theory it is.”

“And every Western democracy is under the threat, right now,” she adds.

The evidence, Melamed and Cohen Montemayor and other experts agree, is everywhere to be seen: anti-Semitism is worse, now, than it has been since the Nazi era.

And young people, shockingly, are falling under its sway.

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