Sarah Jama is the disgraced Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Hamilton Centre, having been thrown out of the Ontario NDP in October, 2023 after she posted a press launch on social media blaming Israel for Hamas’ genocidal massacres in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. She was subsequently censured within the Ontario Legislature.
Undeterred, her descent into anti-Israel extremism solely accelerated. She quickly signed an open letter denying Hamas’ rapes of Israeli victims, and, when visiting the unlawful occupation of McMaster College property by a mob of anti-Israel protesters (alongside federal NDP MP Matthew Inexperienced), she made a thinly-veiled name for violence in opposition to Jews when she bellowed “globalize the intifada,” a time period which inspires the general public to hold out acts of terrorism in opposition to Israelis and Jews.
Relatively than treating Jama as political kryptonite, unworthy of respect and solely deserving of condemnation, there are stories that the Ontario NDP is contemplating welcoming Jama and her model of extremism again into the fold. This information was welcomed and known as “the good news for the new year” by Hamilton self-described “communications consultant” Margaret Shkimba in her January 14 opinion column in The Ontario Chronicle, “New year, new chance for MPP Sarah Jama.”
Shkimba takes a revisionist method to retelling Jama’s exploits, describing her actions as having made feedback “in support of the Palestinian people,” and saying that she held a “pro-Palestinian, pro-peace position.”
By no commonplace can denying Hamas’ well-documented sexual crimes, blaming Israel for Hamas’ murderous violence, and calling for terrorism in opposition to Israelis be known as holding a “pro-peace position.” By this reasoning, would Shkimba additionally name defending a rapist’s proper to assault a girl a feminist place to carry?
Jama’s views and public statements weren’t merely abhorrent and morally outrageous. As an elected official in Ontario, paid for by the general public, Jama basically used tax {dollars} to unfold the demonization of Israelis, and by extension their supporters, not directly serving to gas a wave of anti-Jewish hate crimes.
However Shkimba makes no point out of this, creatively whitewashing Jama into one thing of a martyr for daring to talk her thoughts, relatively than a radical anti-Israel and arguably anti-Jewish extremist.
Not solely does Shkimba fully sanitize Jama’s hateful rhetoric, she frames her phrases for example of courageous free expression, writing that “Jama is only one of the millions of people in Canada and around the world, who agree with the accusations of genocide,” and as such, felt seemingly compelled to behave.
As soon as once more, Shkimba takes a selective view of actuality. Not solely is the non-existent “genocide” in Gaza no excuse to unfold hateful dog-whistles for terrorism, Jama’s extremism was current earlier than October 7, 2023. Earlier that yr, she made a fawning put up about former Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) convicted terrorist Khader Adnan.
In writing her column, Shkimba both has no concept the depth of anti-Israel animus that has been displayed by Ontario MPP Sarah Jama, or she merely doesn’t care, and selected to cover it from readers. Both method, her commentary gives no novel insights and no considerate issues; solely the full-throated defence of hateful extremist rhetoric from an elected official.
