Underdog (26 page)

There was no doubt in my mind coming into 2012 that Ms. Wong-Tam was not prepared to allow the ban on QuAIA from participating in the parade to become a permanent ruling. She had too much invested in the group, and using Mr. Ford's snub of Pride as a basis, she wanted to be seen as the “progressive” (progressively Machiavellian, that is) voice on council. To this day, we are not sure where Ms. Wong-Tam's apparent antipathy toward Israel comes from. Born in Hong Kong, she was raised as a Buddhist and moved to Canada
with her family at the age of three, settling in Regent Park. It became increasingly clear that she perceived those of us trying to fight QuAIA as the enemy. In early June 2012, Denise, attempting to do Martin a favour, arranged to drop off his second film – this one called
Why Is It Hate? –
to all city councillors. This film tried to illustrate the clear arguments made at City Hall by credible human rights groups and individuals showing why the messages and slogans of QuAIA were hateful and contrary to the city's own policies of tolerance and inclusion. Denise had become friends with Councillor Mike Del Grande through me, and with his kind permission, one of his assistants took her around to each councillor's office, including Ms. Wong-Tam's, where she was met with icy hostility. Ms. Wong-Tam must have let her pal at
Xtra,
Andrea Houston, know what was happening. Around 11:45 p.m. the night before we were due to catch an early flight to Vancouver, Ms. Houston called Denise for comment on whether she'd done the drop-off for me, claiming she was on deadline. Denise practically hung up on her, refusing to comment, and Ms. Houston's attempts to embarrass me by alleging that I was trying to lobby councillors through Denise (not true) never really got off the ground.

To add insult to injury, a woman by the name of Uzma Shakir, Toronto's new director of equity, diversity and human rights, was assigned by the city manager to revamp the city's anti-discrimination policy. After checking into her background, I discovered that Ms. Shakir had written several articles for
rabble.​ca
, a virulently anti-Israel website that strongly supports Israeli Apartheid Week and the BDS movement. It was no surprise, given her apparent bias, that her report claimed the phrase
Israeli apartheid
did not violate the
city's anti-discrimination policy. What happened next was entirely predictable. Once her secret was out, the city bureaucrats circled the wagons. Joe Pennachetti, the city manager, contended that Ms. Shakir was “very highly regarded” in the equity and human rights community. Then the cat-and-mouse game began. Martin said her report on the messages carried by QuAIA – he was far kinder than me in that I called it eight pages of drivel – had no human rights case law or authority behind it. He said by the standards of procedural fairness – which clearly don't exist at City Hall – the report should have been discredited and tossed out for its apparent bias. Believing she used her position to espouse her personal views, Martin and several others in the Jewish community filed detailed formal complaints about Ms. Shakir's apparent bias. The complaints were handed to her boss and the person who hired her, the very ambitious left-leaning (now retired) deputy city manager Brenda Patterson. I was never a fan of Ms. Patterson because I thought her one of those typical bureaucrats who was far more adept at doing what it took to survive and saying what was necessary to move up the ladder, than at actually doing her job competently. She had all the warmth of a block of ice. I remember practically chasing her into a washroom demanding to know whether Ms. Shakir had a conflict of interest. Ms. Patterson actually had the unmitigated gall to send Martin an e-mail in September 2012 indicating that Ms. Shakir did not pen the section of the city report that commented on whether the term
Israeli apartheid
is a violation of the city's anti-discrimination policy (even though Ms. Shakir's name is on the report). Then Ms. Patterson provided her ruling – that she found “no basis” for Martin's complaint against Ms. Shakir. Of course she didn't.

What this response told Martin was that City Hall was seriously broken and that personal agendas drove public policy, with few checks and balances. Ms. Shakir's report fit perfectly with the ideology of the left on council, their union supporters, and of course QuAIA, and so it suited them to embrace it. Other councillors simply did not have the depth to understand what QuAIA and their hate messenging meant for Pride and for gay Jews. And of course it came as absolutely no surprise that QuAIA was approved to march in the July 1 parade of 2012. Now councillors could hide behind Ms. Shakir's report and the sham of a dispute resolution panel set up by Rev. Hawkes to mediate any complaints.

The theme of the parade that year was “Celebrate and Demonstrate,” which was why QuAIA was approved to march. No one saw it as ironic that their “demonstration” had absolutely nothing to do with gay rights, or that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East that accepts homosexuality, has two gay pride parades (in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem), and grants asylum to many Arabs who can't be openly gay in their own countries. No one saw it as ludicrous that Israel was being singled out while no one “demonstrated” against the seventy-two countries in the world – including Egypt, where Mr. Greyson was held hostage for fifty days – where one can be imprisoned, tortured, or killed for being deemed homosexual. The farce continued when the so-called dispute resolution process cooked up by Rev. Hawkes and gay lawyer Doug Elliott, his partner in crime on the CAP, heard its first complaints just prior to the July 1 parade. B'nai Brith filed a complaint about QuAIA in good faith and found out pretty quickly they were wasting their time. To the surprise of Anita Bromberg, former national director of legal affairs
with the well-respected organization, one of the dispute resolution panel's allegedly unbiased arbitrators actually interceded during her testimony to present evidence as to why the term
apartheid
could apply to Israel. Given our knowledge of Ms. Bromberg's experience and those of others involved, Mr. Elliott and Mr. Hawkes must have been delusional to think Martin and I would be fooled by their kangaroo court.

By the spring of 2013, we were all growing weary of the never-ending saga of QuAIA – even some councillors, like James Pasternak, who'd been bravely behind efforts to get the group out of the parade. Martin and I felt bruised and battered. Both of us had been repeatedly attacked personally in
Xtra,
and labelled as members of the “Jewish lobby” and supporters of Rob Ford. Martin believes the intent was to make what he was doing sound “nefarious and evil,” even though he was not associated with any organized community group. Martin was speaking in his personal capacity as a gay man worried about the anti-Semitism and hate that was infiltrating the parade. Even though he's gay, a devoted vegetarian, an environmentalist, and a former Green Party member, he was branded right-wing. The left-wing media and QuAIA supporters attempted to denigrate my passion for Israel and for doing what's right by labelling me a puppet of Rob Ford. It didn't matter that I'd repeatedly criticized him for not supporting Pride events. Facts didn't matter, and that's what we found so depressing.

Throughout this whole sad saga, I realized that those of us fighting for the underdog – Israel – were also underdogs, even though it should not have been that way. That didn't bother me, and I know Martin felt the same way. What did incense me was the tremendous hypocrisy of everyone who was either closely
allied with the QuAIA movement or had turned a blind eye to its hateful message. That hypocrisy came out loud and clear in early May 2014, when a cast of QuAIA enablers – Ms. Wong-Tam, Rev. Hawkes, Kevin Beaulieu (CEO of Pride), and TD Bank's Scott Mullin – spoke to the Empire Club about the impending WorldPride event in late June. I nearly choked as Mr. Beaulieu told the mostly gay and lesbian crowd and the requisite Pride supporters that the 2014 WorldPride event in Toronto would be the fourth that has occurred around the world as “part of a global movement” of LGBT folks seeking a strong identity. And where have the other three been held? Rome, London, and Jerusalem, Israel. Yes, WorldPride was held in Jerusalem in 2006. Beaulieu, forced to mention Jerusalem, tried to whisper it. But I heard him. I also heard him say the key aspect of WorldPride is “the struggle for human rights.” Ms. Wong-Tam, without even considering the irony of her words, piped up that there are a lot of “countries where gays are persecuted and prosecuted” for what we are freely permitted to do in Toronto. I'm guessing she'd never admit that one of those areas is the Occupied Territories (Palestine), which QuAIA is so concerned to defend. Rev. Hawkes, promoting the human rights conference that would occur at WorldPride, told the Empire Club luncheon crowd that day that there are sixty-eight countries around the world where someone would be executed for being gay (the number is actually seventy-two) and that he hoped to use WorldPride to build a movement. He said they need to determine what is the “right way” to help countries like Uganda and Russia.

Then, after patting themselves on the back for all the wonderful human rights they would recognize at the fourth WorldPride event, following in the footsteps of Rome,
London, and Jerusalem, Mr. Beaulieu, Rev. Hawkes, and Ms. Wong-Tam very decisively deviated from what is normal practice at the Empire Club and refused to open up the floor to questions. I repeat, those very same people who advocated for QuAIA because of the group's supposed right to “free speech” chose not to take questions from the crowd because they knew they'd have to deal with questions about the presence of QuAIA at WorldPride. As for helping countries like Uganda and Russia, Rev. Hawkes might want to make a fresh start (now that QuAIA has disbanded) by speaking out against such countries for their lack of gay rights – after spending six long years pandering to a group that singled out Israel. That's what moral leaders are supposed to do.

It began quite innocently on the night of October 22, 2012, when Denise and I decided to attend the last U.S. presidential debate being broadcast at an open-air theatre in Boca Raton, Florida.

The theatre at Mizner Park was just a few miles away from the security zone around Lynn University, where President Barack Obama and his opponent, Mitt Romney, were exchanging sharp words on foreign policy. I was particularly interested in hearing what Mr. Obama had to say about Israel, considering that during his first term he'd wasted no time visiting Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt – all within six months of being sworn in. But not once during that term had he set foot in Israel. At the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, he warmly greeted Hugo Chavez – a notorious dictator and anti-Semite with strong ties to former Iranian president and despot Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I'd hate to suggest that Mr. Obama gave a
whole new meaning to that well-known expression adapted from the Book of Proverbs: “You are judged by the company you keep.” But he certainly did.

I could not understand how the leader of the world's greatest superpower could pander to despots while treating the only real friend to America and the only democracy in the Middle East – Israel – like a reviled third cousin. Indeed, Obama showed his true colours in March 2010, when he endeavoured to publicly humiliate Israeli prime minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu during a White House visit. Leaving him to sit and stew with his aides, Mr. Obama told Mr. Netanyahu he was heading off to have dinner with his wife, Michelle, and his daughters. It was in this context that I wanted to see what Mr. Obama would have to say in the debate to convince America's liberal – and in my view, wilfully blind – Jewish community to return him to office.

I did not consider Mr. Obama a friend of Israel then, and he has done everything to convince me since that time that he's made a point of singling out Israel for alleged slights against its Arab neighbours. Still, I should not have taken my BlackBerry with me to the debate in Florida that night. What was I thinking? True to form, with the BlackBerry there and Twitter readily available, I couldn't sit silently without commenting as I listened to Mr. Obama, disingenuously, declare his devotion to the Jewish state. He wasn't just lying; he was insulting my, and the rest of the audience's, intelligence, even though he was just behaving like a typical politician, saying whatever needed to be said at the time to maintain Jewish support. “Obama says he will stand with Israel if attacked and they are a true friend. His nose is growing again. #MuslimBS,” I tweeted. The tweet would have been absolutely fine if I had
not added that hashtag. I don't know what possessed me to do so.

All I can say is that I should have anticipated it would be all the impetus my detractors on Twitter – and there are many – needed to attack me. And they certainly did, claiming I was suggesting Mr. Obama is a Muslim and calling me a “birther.” At the time, I had no clue what the word
birther
meant. But I quickly learned that I was being likened to right-wing Tea Party wackos who believe Mr. Obama is not entitled to be president because he was not born in the United States. I didn't mean that at all. What I did mean by the hashtag was that I felt Obama, by his deeds and actions during his first term, had a soft spot for and an affiliation with Muslims. I also thought him narcissistic enough to believe that he, and he alone, without a shred of foreign policy experience before coming to the presidency, could actually sweet talk the dictators of the Arab world into making peace in the Middle East – ignoring, by design, the very fact that most of those countries will not rest until Israel is annihilated entirely. What was particularly disturbing to me was his speech in Cairo in 2009, in which he talked of a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world. It's not difficult to read between the lines.

Of course, none of these beliefs could be explained in a two-word hashtag or in a 140-word tweet. I opted not to delete the tweet that night, figuring I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't. Instead of endeavouring to explain my sentiments on Twitter, I angrily attacked my detractors. Twitter admittedly sometimes brings out the fighter in me. Things quickly escalated. The attacks on me continued throughout that night and for days. Unknown to me because
I was still in Florida and no one endeavoured to reach me for my side of the story, radio talk show hosts in Toronto, the
Huffington Post,
and other leftist online fringe news services and bloggers took turns taking shots at me. I made the wire services and CNN. My editor-in-chief at the time, James Wallace, was very understanding, notifying me in Florida that they intended to run a Twitter comment distancing themselves, understandably, from my inflammatory, politically incorrect tweet. When I returned to Toronto a few days later, I took the opportunity to explain what I meant on the radio during my stint with Talk 640's John Oakley. I said then, and I still believe more than ever, that Mr. Obama, while born in America, has very strong allegiances to Muslim culture and has deluded himself into thinking he can counteract Muslim extremism. I continue to believe he has no love for Israel and probably not for the Jews, especially given his attempts to interfere in the 2015 Israeli elections with the sole purpose of unseating Mr. Netanyahu. Thankfully, his efforts did not work. I'm sure he has never been above accepting campaign donations from anyone in the Jewish community who will cough them up, however. There are indeed still many liberal Jews in the United States who align themselves with the Obama camp.

To see evidence of Mr. Obama's stance, one has only to look at the influences on him and what he has done, or not done, since being re-elected to office in 2012. Barack Obama actually believes that the terrorist government in Iran will respect his calls to cut back on their nuclear program. They've done quite the opposite and I believe they will continue to do so, leaving Israel vulnerable to nuclear threats. The Iran nuclear deal has truly left Israel to defend itself. Photos of Mr. Obama
on the phone trying to tell Vladimir Putin to get out of Crimea, or else he'll adopt some ridiculous weak-kneed sanctions, were laughable. Americans should be horrified at what a foreign relations joke their president has been. Yet while the world imploded around him in the spring of 2014, with the escalation of the civil war in Syria, Obama stepped up his rhetoric against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel. It was as if he alone had insights into how to craft a two-state solution when the only solution for the Palestinian terrorists and the Muslim Brotherhood was the absolute destruction of the Jewish state. To this day, I believe that while Twitter was not the right forum for expressing my opinion, I mouthed what so many others feel about Mr. Obama's ties to the Muslim world. What I became a victim of that October 2012 night was the absolute political correctness that comes into play when anyone dares question Muslims and the insidious ways the religious fanaticism of the extremists is being allowed to creep into and define our culture here in North America and in Western Europe.

But so what if Mr. Obama has Muslim sympathies or has had Muslim influences in his life? The question we should be asking is why he has gone out of his way to hide it so much. The reaction to my tweet showed me just how ready we Canadians are to bend over backwards at the mere mention of the “M” word and to attack anyone who dares question their politically correct view of Islamic extremism. The fact is, all of Mr. Obama's ties have shaped his view of foreign policy and the Jews, whether the liberal Jews or the so-called progressive media in the United States choose to turn a blind eye to it or not. It is my feeling that we are not doing ourselves a favour, here in Canada or in the United States, by simply accepting in the name of political correctness what the
Muslim community foists on us as our new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems bent on doing. We cannot ignore that what is happening in England and the terrible tragedy of November 2015 in France, along with the death and destruction in Belgium in early 2016, are warning signs, along with the parallel rise in anti-Semitism around the world, but particularly in Europe. Once the door is opened a crack, it is just a matter of time before Islamists start to impose their beliefs on our everyday lives in ways that are highly inappropriate. I'm afraid, in fact, that they already are. In the spring of 2014, a sign was posted in an east London park informing dog owners not to walk their dogs there anymore because it was an Islamic park and Muslims don't like dogs. I experienced something similar a few months before the Obama tweet incident. It could perhaps be considered a minor event in the grand scheme of things, but it is nevertheless very indicative of the hold Muslims have on us in Canada.

In the wee hours of the morning in July 2012, I arrived home from Florida with my dachshund, Kishka, in tow. Kishka, a cream-coloured dachsie with real attitude and, at eleven years old, more comfortable chasing squirrels than spending time with people, has several nicknames. The most politically incorrect one is “The Terrorist.” He earned that name because when Denise and I met, Kishka decided he wasn't too happy to share me and proceeded to mark all of the Persian carpets in Denise's home and scratch up her leather couch. He also likes to tell everyone off who dares come to our home for having the nerve to invade his turf. A few years ago, I bought him a soft kennel on wheels that not only fits under the seat in front of me on the plane but makes it easier for me to transport him through customs and to the gate – given that he's a robust
boy, earning him another three nicknames: “Kishka Craig” (à la Jenny Craig), “Shelley Winters,” and “Boomba Butt.” I came out of Pearson airport at 1:30 a.m. with Kishka in what we now jokingly call his “burka bag,” looking for a limo to take us home. The bag is black, Kishka is totally covered, and only his eyes show through the black mesh. The limo driver started to load my luggage, the burka bag included, with Kishka fast asleep inside. The sudden movement made a startled Kishka pop his blond head out of his bag. Without missing a beat, the driver practically threw my luggage and Kishka back on my cart and waved me away with a decided, “No!” A second limo driver turned me down the moment I approached him, leaving me standing on the platform alone.

It didn't take me long, after I posted my plight on Facebook (I couldn't help myself), to realize I'd opened a real can of worms. My Facebook friends were not only upset that I was refused a ride at 1:30 a.m. but angry that drivers who were licensed to deal with the public were being permitted to pick and choose who they'd take (for reasons unbeknownst to me at that point). I was urged to do a column exposing what had happened and why. I soon discovered this wasn't an experience unique to me, and it was done for religious reasons. Muslims consider dogs unclean and believe that if they carry one in their cars, they must go home and shower afterward (before they pray). But the story got even better – or worse, depending on how one wants to look at it. The limo company that employed the drivers who turned me down passed the buck to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), saying they have to abide by that body's rules. I learned that the GTAA, which licenses the limos, has pandered to the drivers' religious demands, even though there is a limited pool of limos licensed to pick
up passengers at the airport, and notwithstanding the fact that they are in a service job in Canada. Let's not forget either that dogs can't travel on an airplane without being housed in a soft kennel. So it's not as if Kishka himself would be sitting right on their seats or that he was some vicious breed that has a history of attacking cab drivers. He's Kishka, for heaven's sake: a little chubby, at that time of the morning very sleepy, and more often than not, afraid of his own shadow. But the GTAA told me the Muslim drivers – who, let's remember, are licensed to serve the public in the country of Canada, not in the Middle East – are “not required” to take passengers with animals, and if they do, they must give their vehicles a “full interior cleaning” after a ride to protect other passengers against dander and allergies. This was absolute hogwash. It sure sounded to me like a case of the tail wagging the dog, so to speak. These rules have been driven entirely by the religious demands of the Muslim drivers, proven all the more by the concerns addressed by the GTAA's Consultative Committee (
consultative
being the operative word) on Taxicabs and Limousines.

In recent years, that committee – stacked with drivers who are of Muslim and Hindu descent, which gives them strength in numbers – has focused on such issues as where to locate the Muslim prayer room in Pearson's Terminal 3 and whether special trailers should be set up in the winter months in the driver holding area for those who have to pray five times a day.

Many of the 750 limo drivers who are not licensed by the GTAA told me that the licensed drivers, the majority of them Muslims, get kid-glove treatment from the Airports Authority. Their compound has a full-service cafeteria, their own shower stall, a variety of washrooms, and special signage advising
which flights have arrived. When I was taken by their compound, I noticed several GTAA drivers gathered under a shady overhang, some saying their prayers on mats while others played cards at bridge tables. By contrast, the unlicensed drivers – who must charge their fares an extra fifteen dollars simply for the privilege of picking them up – are expected to wait in a compound with no shade, two pop machines, and just two washroom stalls.

But here's the irony. The unlicensed drivers told me that despite the lack of a level playing field and the fact that they must charge fifteen dollars extra to pick up passengers at the airport, their business keeps increasing because passengers are not interested in feeding into the religious demands of the Muslim drivers and the nonsense I went through. After the stories of my experience appeared in the
Toronto Sun,
I discovered that passengers with dogs and alcohol are being turned away by Muslim drivers in Melbourne, Australia; in various parts of England; in select U.S. cities; and in Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary. In the spring of 2014, about two dozen Muslim cabbies in Cleveland, Ohio, refused to drive cars with advertising for the Gay Games atop them. I would have fired them all.