The Special Representative on Combating Islamophobia, Amira Elghawaby, has just been exposed by Blacklock’s Reporter as using her office to advocate for federal employees “speaking out on Palestinian issues” while simultaneously lobbying against B’nai Brith, Canada’s oldest human rights organization.Censored documents detailing activities of this highly paid ($191,300 annually) special representative were disclosed on October 15 through an Access to Information request. “Anti-Palestinian racism takes various forms, including justifying violence against Palestinians, failing to acknowledge Palestinians as an Indigenous people or as having a collective identity, erasing the human rights and equal identity and worth of Palestinians, and defaming Palestinians and their allies with slander that seeks to represent them as threatening, violent, or opposed to democratic values,” Elghawaby, an Egyptian-born Muslim, said in scripted comments for a 2024 videoconference..CURNISKI: No, AI will not teach my children.It is hard to call this “anti-Palestinian racism” when Jewish Israelis are the true indigenous people of the disputed territories between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. As for a sense of “collective identity” among the so-called Palestinians, it was slowly born no earlier than the late nineteenth century in reaction to diasporic Jews returning to their aboriginal homeland.More questionable still is her claim that the Muslim occupants of the West Bank and Gaza are not “threatening, violent, or opposed to democratic values” when they fomented or led wars and other battles against Israel in 1947-1948, 1967, 1967-1970, 1973, 1982, 1987-1993, 2000-2005, 2006, 2008-2009, 2012, 2021, and 2023-present..Without providing any examples, Elghawaby also claimed, “In the workplace, Islamophobia can take the following form: escorting an employee out of the workplace for making pro-Palestinian remarks.” These remarks by Elghawaby were made to the Muslim Federal Employees Network, a volunteer group founded in 2021. Records show Elghawaby was in frequent contact with the group and advocated on their behalf with deputy ministers and others. A total of 6,350 of 279,396 federal employees identify as Muslim, about two percent, according to a 2024 survey.The Employees Network was active only days after Hamas terrorists’ heinous October 7, 2023, murder and kidnapping of Jews in Israel, including eight Canadians. On October 16, the Employees Network cynically hosted a videoconference entitled Free Expression and Safety in the Workplace..OLDCORN: Time to end the Alberta teachers’ strike now.In its correspondence, the Office of the Special Representative repeatedly referred to the Hamas invasion of Israel. In an October 9, 2024 email, one year after the unprovoked killings, a senior analyst expressed sympathy for Muslim employees during anniversary observances. “I hope you are well, especially during what is a very difficult week,” said the email. “Know that our office is thinking about you and your members.”Elghawaby, in separate notes for an “anti-Palestinian racism event,” said the Hamas attacks were difficult for Muslims. “Anti-Palestinian sentiments are on the rise in Canada,” she wrote. “As I know everyone is aware, the Islamophobia landscape has greatly evolved. There is a series of recent incidents just since mid-March which demonstrate how targeted the Muslim community has been in the aftermath of October 7, 2023.”.“This has had a negative impact on Muslim Canadians who have been left feeling scared and threatened in their communities,” said Elghawaby. “I continue to raise this as a concern with government leaders and officials when I meet them.”What Elghawaby seems totally unconcerned about is that the level and proportion of anti-Palestinian/anti-Muslim racism in Canada is far below its Israeli/Jewish counterparts.Elghawaby also needs to be held accountable for privately lobbying against B’nai Brith after the Muslim Federal Employees Network forwarded an anonymous complaint against the Jewish group. The grievance cited 2024 submissions by B’nai Brith to the Commons finance and science committees regarding taxpayer funding for overtly anti-Semitic academic research..SLOBODIAN: BC’s barbaric secret — Teen girls mutilated in ‘gender affirming clinics’ while NDP politicians cheer.“As I was going through the briefing documents, I noticed the following document submitted by B’nai Brith,” wrote the complainant. “This document presents a narrative of October 7 and makes recommendations to the Standing Committee on Science and Research. The document contains an appendix of federally funded researchers whose publications contain anti-Semitic content and are, at the same time, examples of anti-Semitism. All the researchers have Muslim, Middle Eastern, or Southeast Asian names.”“It is important these House of Commons committees receive regular briefings presenting a narrative in support of Palestinians,” wrote the complainant. “A strategy to counteract the racial and religious profiling of researchers by B’nai Brith may be warranted,” the letter added..“Thank you,” replied Elghawaby. Complaints about B’nai Brith were “greatly appreciated,” she said: “We recognize the importance of fostering balanced and inclusive narratives and addressing racial and religious profiling.”“While we recognize concerns you’ve raised are of significant importance, they fall outside the direct scope of our mandate,” wrote Elghawaby. “Rest assured, we will forward your concerns to the appropriate authorities for further attention.”Elghawaby was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on January 26, 2023, for a four-year term as Canada’s first special representative on combating Islamophobia. Her office has a budget of $5.6 million to cover the first five years of activities. .The National Council of Canadian Muslims described her appointment as a “historic moment for Muslims in Canada.” But days after her appointment, Quebec Premier François Legault called for her resignation, after La Presse reported that Elghawaby had written that Quebecers seem “influenced by anti-Muslim sentiment,” in a 2019 column in the Ottawa Citizen. The same La Presse article also reported that in May 2021, Elghawaby wrote “I’m going to puke” on Twitter in reaction to an opinion editorial by Joseph Heath, a philosophy teacher at the University of Toronto, who argued that French Canadians were the largest group in Canada to have suffered from British colonialism. On August 30, 2024, Elghawaby sent a letter to Canadian college and university heads, suggesting that to improve the dangerous climate on campuses and to ease tensions since the war between Israel and Hamas, educational institutions should support freedom of expression, brief campus leaders on Islamophobia, and hire more professors of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian origin. .BARBER: The digital ID is here.Quebec Premier François Legault and higher education minister Pascale Dery were opposed, with Dery noting that hiring professors based on religion goes against provincial principles of secularism. Also in response, Dery referred to the alarming rise in antisemitism on campuses and stated, “I will spare no effort to ensure that our institutions do everything they can to restore a healthy and safe environment for all students and to counter bullying and hatred.”With all this biased ethno-religious baggage weighing down on her, only some of which is listed here, it is small wonder that calls for Elghawaby’s dismissal have never subsided.Hymie Rubenstein, editor of REAL Indigenous Report, is a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
