An unofficial response

Editorial

Last week’s machete attack on a pair of Ottawa students has elevated concern over the impact of anti-Israel extremism in Canada to new heights. But the resulting “discussion” still misses the key elements and exhibits a complete naiveté about this reality.

On April 6, Nick Bergamini, the 22-year-old vice-president of Carleton University’s students association and a vocal non-Jewish supporter of Israel, and his Israeli roommate, Mark Klibanov, were reportedly confronted by a sizable gang of men as the two walked back to Ottawa from a Gatineau bar. As Bergamini has related to media, the men were in a car, they pulled over, yelled antisemitic insults at Bergamini and Klibanov, then pulled a machete from the trunk, swinging it within inches of Bergamini’s neck. By press time, no charges had been laid.

What is almost as disturbing as the attack itself are the “official” responses. Part of the problem is the value Canadians place on equanimity, which sees both sides as responsible for anything untoward, as if disagreement itself, rather than violence, is the crime.

Jason MacDonald, a spokesperson for Carleton University, said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a source of emotional debate and that the university is trying to encourage discussion where nobody gets hurt.

“Our job is to make sure that these debates can happen without anyone’s personal safety being threatened,” he said. “We have met with student groups on both sides of such issues and told them that we are not here to tell them what to think, but certain kinds of behavior are not acceptable.”

First of all, MacDonald needs to rethink the definition of debate – as Ezra Levant writes on his blog of the incident, “A machete isn’t an argument. It isn’t speech, even offensive or ‘hateful’ speech. It is a tool of violence.” (Everyone should read Levant’s entire article, at ezralevant.com.)

Second, why is Carleton meeting with student groups on both sides? Consistently, there has been only one side in this “debate” that needs talking to, that routinely crosses the bounds of civil discourse, and it is not the Jewish and Zionist students on campus, who have had to face more than a decade of appalling harassment and aggression from anti-Israel activists. And others have learned from the anti-Zionists’ tactics, as evidenced by security concerns preventing American pundit Ann Coulter from speaking at the University of Ottawa recently.

Who in their right mind would consider wielding a machete acceptable behavior? To state the obvious, not anyone interested in civil discourse or debate. As journalist Mark Steyn has written about MacDonald’s comments: “Gotcha. So you’ll be issuing a memo saying machete slayings fall into the ‘not acceptable’ category. Excellent. Bound to do the trick.”

Moral relativism just won’t do in this instance. Levant is correct in pointing out that “we don’t have a ‘hate speech’ moment here. We don’t have a fake ‘right not to be offended’ moment. We have an assault with a weapon. It’s in the Criminal Code, not some politically correct speech code.” Attacking someone with a machete is, by law, unacceptable behavior.

This is what makes the response from the Ontario regional director of Canadian Jewish Congress, Len Rudner, particularly egregious.

“Maybe we should consider the impact that words can have in accelerating the argument to the point where people feel that this kind of behavior is acceptable,” Rudner is quoted as saying. Steyn’s response is dead-on when he wonders, in language that can’t be reprinted in a family newspaper, but can be found online (steynonline.com), why, if Rudner, is “such an expert on ‘the impact that words can have,’” he doesn’t “try using some that would have an impact.”

What exactly was Rudner trying to say? Was he calling for more censorship? Because all the human rights commissions in the world won’t prevent a bunch of bullies from attacking someone else because they are incapable of stringing together the sentences needed to counter an opinion with words. In this case, words weren’t the problem, but rather machete-wielding thugs. In fact, words rarely are the problem. The troubles arise when people refuse to, or are unable to, argue their views intelligently and persuasively. The threat comes from people who are not willing to let other people have different opinions, and use brute force to try and silence their discomfort with diversity.

Maybe Rudner was caught when he was just waking up, and so didn’t have time to construct an appropriate response. Whatever the reason, both official spokesmen and the institutions they represent have failed Canadians. And, sadly, they are not the only ones; nor are they the first, nor will they be the last. Too often, the world over, violence trumps argument, intimidation silences opposition. Nonetheless, for those of us who still believe in the human right to freedom of ideas, association, etc., there was only one correct official – or unofficial – response to the machete incident: “It was horrific and appalling. The allegations should be taken seriously, not just by police, but by all Canadians. Criminal behavior must be dealt with as criminal.”

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