Man the ramparts, the Muslims are at the gates!

“Man the ramparts” is a phrase meaning to defend or stand guard at a defensive wall or barrier. It is used literally to mean soldiers guarding a fortification or figuratively to mean standing ready to protect something against threats. The term is famously featured in the US national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” where the line “O’er the ramparts we watched” refers to the flag of the United States still flying over the protective walls of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore, a naval assault during the War of 1812.

The closely related expression “at the gates” refers to a dire, imminent threat, stemming from the Latin phrase Hannibal ad portus!” which means “Hannibal is at the gates!” It was used by the ancient Romans to express panic when the Carthaginian general Hannibal was threatening Rome. The phrase is still used today to describe any crisis or emergency that requires immediate attention.

Few commentators are employing either expression to describe the destructively un-Canadian policy changes that are now being demanded by Muslim immigrants and their descendants, including Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s Special Representative on Combating Islamophobia.

Elghawaby’s most recent initiative 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 special federal government 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.

It is hard to call this “anti-Palestinian racism” when Hebrew-speaking Jewish Israelis are the true indigenous people of the disputed territories between the Jordon 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 19th 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 has claimed, “In the workplace, Islamophobia can take the following form: escorting an employee out of the workplace for making pro-Palestinian remarks.”

Remarks like these from Elghawaby were made to the Muslim Federal Employees Network, a volunteer group founded in 2021. A total of 6,350 of 279,396 federal employees identify as Muslim, about two percent, according to a 2024 survey. Records show Elghawaby was in frequent contact with the group and advocated on their behalf with deputy ministers and others.

The Employees Network was active only days after Hamas terrorists’ heinous October 7, 2023 rape, murder, and kidnapping of hundreds 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.

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 torture, killings, and abductions, 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.

In 2024, most police-reported hate crimes targeting religion were directed towards Jewish (68%) and Muslim (17%) populations. This figure grossly underestimates the actual number and proportion of these hate crimes because many of them go unreported.

According to the 2021 census, there were approximately 1.8 million Muslims in Canada, making up some 5% of the total population. The same census showed that 335,295 people reported their religion as Jewish, accounting for less than 1% of the Canadian population.

According to the Canadian government’s Office of the Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism:

“Antisemitism in Canada has deep historical roots, manifesting in systemic discrimination and societal prejudice. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Jewish immigrants faced widespread exclusion and hostility. Universities implemented quotas to limit Jewish enrolment, particularly in professional degree programs. McGill University, for example, had a notorious quota system, ensuring Jewish students made up no more than 10% of certain programs well into the mid-20th century.

“Rates of antisemitism in Canada have been steadily on the rise since 2019 with the number of police-reported hate crimes increasing year over year. In 2021, there were 482 reported, compared to 331 in 2020, which was a 47% increase. The epidemic of antisemitism in Canada has only gotten worse in a post-October 7th world. According to Statistics Canada, the escalation in antisemitic hate crimes was particularly pronounced following the events of October 7, 2023. During October to December 2023, the average number of monthly hate crimes reported against the Jewish population was 148, compared to an average of 51 per month in the preceding nine months. Unfortunately, this trend has continued. The most frequently reported hate crimes in Canada in 2023 were directed towards the Jewish community, accounting for 19% of the total number of hate crimes, despite Jewish Canadians making up such a small fraction of the Canadian population. Of the 1,284 religiously motivated hate crimes in 2023 in Canada (67 percent increase year over year), 900 (70%) targeted the Jewish community. There were more than four times as many antisemitic hate crimes compared to the second-most targeted religious minority.”

This “second-most targeted religious minority” were Muslims.

In 2024, Canada’s largest city, Toronto, whose metropolitan area houses the country’s largest Jewish and Muslim populations, anti-Jewish occurrences accounted for 40% of the reported hate crimes (177 occurrences). In the same year, there was a 15% decrease in reported anti-Muslim occurrences (28 occurrences) over 2023 (33 occurrences).

Mischief-related occurrences (i.e., graffiti and vandalism) continue to be the leading occurrence type, representing more than half of all occurrences. In 2024, there were 240 occurrences, representing a 23% increase over 2023 when there were 195 occurrences. Anti-Jewish mischief-related occurrences represent the highest, 33% (148 occurrences) of the total reported hate crimes in 2024.

In short, taken together, all these figures show that antisemitic hate crimes are numerically and proportionately much higher than Islamophobic hate crimes.

Elghwaby 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.

“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 combatting Islamophobia. Her annual salary is $191,300, while 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 Quebeckers 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.

Quebec Premier François Legault and higher education minister Pascale Dery immediately rejected this hiring proposal. Dery noted 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.”

In scripted comments for a 2024 videoconference, Elghawaby, an Egyptian-born Muslim, also claimed:

“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.”

It is hard to call this “anti-Palestinian racism” when Jewish Israelis are the true indigenous people of the disputed territories between the Jordon River and the Mediterranean Sea. As for a sense of “collective identity” among undifferentiated Muslim Arabs who began calling themselves Palestinians, it was slowly born no earlier than the late 19th century in reaction to diasporic Jews returning to their aboriginal homeland.

More questionable still is her claim that the Muslim occupants of the thoroughly undemocratic 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.

The best immediate evidence of their preoccupation with violence since the signing of October 10 ceasefire has been the widespread slaughter by Hamas of Palestinians opposed to their rule.

In its correspondence, the Office of the Special Representative has repeatedly referred to the Hamas invasion of Israel. In an October 9, 2024 email, one year after the unprovoked genocidal attack against innocent Israelis and other nationalities, 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 anti-Israeli/Jewish counterparts.

Elghawaby was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on January 26, 2023 for a four-year term as Canada’s first special representative on combatting 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 Quebeckers 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.

Quebec Premier François Legault and higher education minister Pascale Dery were firmly opposed to these recommendations, 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 her down, only some of which are listed here, it is no wonder that calls for Elghawaby’s dismissal have never subsided.