The hate that is everywhere - including here

YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE.

That’s what they scrawled on the window of my partner’s business, below a Palestinian flag sticker. Earlier, they had worked to remove her from charities she’d supported for years. She was inundated with hateful messages when she took some of her mother’s ashes to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Around the same time, we heard there was a “Jew list” circulating in Prince Edward County, and her business - a coffee shop and bakery - was on it. To be boycotted.

She’s not a Jew, my partner. She doesn’t occupy public office, she doesn’t give speeches. She just happens to live with an Irish Catholic guy who writes newspaper columns and books about the epidemic of antisemitism and hate that has gripped the world since October 7, 2023. There’s been a lot to write about.

Before that, around here, there had been a Bloomfield business that had promoted a “global strike in support of Palestine,” which was a concoction of the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces, whose membership includes Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Both designated terror groups.

When I wrote about that for this newspaper, I was targeted by the chef at a popular brew pub in Wellington, and was later banned from another restaurant in nearby Consecon. ZIONISTS are not welcome there, I was told, all-caps. And, as I write this, a neighbour across the road has a big “FREE PALESTINE” sign in her window. In hamlet of maybe 65 people. Just to send us a message, perhaps, that we are unwelcome.

It’s everywhere, in towns and cities in Canada, big and small.

And, now, it has come to little Belleville, Ontario. The place that was known as The Friendly City is now known for something quite different. Now, it may forever be the place where an armed, anti-vaccination lunatic showed up at a synagogue where 25 people had gathered to pray. “You are going to die for the Jews!” he screamed at two Belleville police officers who appeared in time to prevent a slaughter. Those two officers - one grievously wounded - saved many, many lives.

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