Braid: Nenshi issues slavish apology for photo with Israeli ambassador

It’s part of a Canadian political leader’s job to meet senior foreign diplomats and hear their viewpoints

What is it with these

former Calgary mayors and the Jewish community? NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi now joins Jyoti Gondek as a serial offender. As mayor, Gondek refused to light the city hall Menorah candles in December 2023, on the weird pretext that the traditional Jewish ceremony was somehow a fundraiser for war.

That was two months after the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre. Calgary’s Jewish community was shocked and deeply hurt. Nenshi went much further Thursday.

Nenshi looks quite cheery in the photo. For him the trouble came after some people saw it and objected. Those would include the antisemitic cluster on the left of his party, the kind of people who cheered the murder, rape and torture of Jews that was committed by Hamas on and after Oct. 7, 2023.

Nenshi said in his statement: “I want to speak to you from the heart about a photo going around from last weekend. I’m so sorry for the harm it caused. “At one of many public events at Stampede, I was approached by the Israeli ambassador.

“We had a very brief and frank exchange during which a photo was taken. “After talking to many people in the community over the last couple of days, I better understand the immense hurt this has caused to a lot of folks.” Nenshi went on to mention famine, the deaths of children, other horrors of the ensuing wars, much of it true and tragic.

But he says nothing whatsoever about Hamas’ original sin or the continuing assaults on Israel. A great many Calgary Jews, I can assure you, are unhappy with the Netanyahu government. So are Jews in Israel.

But Nenshi, by insulting Israel’s representative, profoundly insults both the state of Israel and Jews everywhere. His rebuke could also endanger Canadian Jews. There’s the real problem with this childish gesture.

By casually insulting a top official, Nenshi gives comfort to the many antisemites who offend, slander and sometimes attack Canadian Jews who have nothing to do with Israel’s actions. Shots have been fired and synagogues defaced. Nenshi doesn’t criticize that in his cringeworthy statement.

Now he’s getting the second backlash. Senator Daryl Fridhandler, vice-chair of the Senate’s Canada-Israel Inter-parliamentary Group, sent him a note of rebuke. Nenshi says he only talked to the ambassador for about 30 seconds.

Questioned Thursday by a reporter, he said he couldn’t remember what he said. Horrors, it might have been something friendly. Nenshi now makes it sound like the ambassador was somehow trapping him into a photo.

If so, Moed also set up several others, including Premier Danielle Smith, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, and former federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair. They all had snaps taken with Moed and not one of them has apologized. It’s part of a Canadian political leader’s job to meet senior foreign diplomats and hear their viewpoints.

You don’t casually blow off another country because a few people are offended by a photo. “It always starts with anti-Israel talk and then grows into something far, far worse,” says Rob Anderson, Premier Smith’s chief of staff. “If you want to be premier, start acting like it.

“We meet with the ambassador of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The Aga Khan comes this year. You have to respect them and refrain at all costs from demonizing.”

Nenshi’s action “shows a real lack of maturity,” Anderson concludes. Nenshi has, or had, a reputation as a genuine friend of Calgary’s Jewish community. All that goes out the window when political support is at stake.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald