The city of Montreal is so broke that the mayor quipped recently that the “city’s credit card is maxxed out.”
Meanwhile, the crises are proliferating, from a rise in poverty, crime and homelessness to decaying infrastructure, a lack of affordable housing and interminable waits for medical care.
So, naturally, on Monday the city council will vote on a motion to cut ties with Israel.
That’s not a typo.
They will look at the city’s multiple crises and hope to punish…Israel.
Not Nigeria, Somalia or Sudan, where genocidal efforts have led to the massacre of hundreds of thousands.
Not Russia, the invaders of Ukraine responsible for the deaths of more than a million.
Not Jordan or Lebanon, where Palestinian refugees have been living for decades in silent misery.
Not China, a ruthless regime that has put a million Muslim Uyghurs in veritable concentration camps.
No, Montreal is going after one country– Israel.
There are lots of cities—from New York and Los Angeles to Paris and London– where Israel-hatred is blooming. But only Montreal wants to make it official.
This is Israel Derangement Syndrome par excellence.
This is not just about a city failing to defend its Jews; it’s about a city declaring open season on its Jews.
The council must know that in 2025, Jews were the targets of 70 per cent of all police-reported hate crimes in Canada.
Or that, as I read in a recent report, “Jewish schools in Montréal have been shot at, Jewish people have been assaulted, synagogues have been attacked, and antisemitism has entered academic and professional spaces through intimidation, threats, and exclusion.”
The council surely knows all this, and yet, it is charging full speed ahead against the world’s only Jewish state.
What a pathetic decline for a city I love.
When I came here this week to visit family, I had no idea I would encounter such madness. I grew up in Montreal. It’s a second home. For Montreal Jews, until recently loving Israel came safely and naturally.
Now, their own city council wants to throw Israel supporters under the bus. .
Monday’s motion, brought by an opposition group called Projet Montreal, asks the council to recognize and denounce an “apartheid regime” and declare that a “genocide” is being perpetrated, before imposing a concrete consequence: suspending ties with the Israeli government, “its institutions” and “its municipalities.”
Never mind that the “genocide” accusation is being exposed as the lie of the century; or the fact that Arabs have more rights in Israel than in any Arab country, making an “apartheid” claim absurd.
The community, as expected, is doing what it can to fight back.
Among the protests, an open letter from almost 50 Montreal lawyers questioned “whether the proposed measure falls within the powers conferred on the city by the provincial legislature, noting that city councils do not determine international law.” Of course they don’t. The council is there to fix potholes, not the world’s most intractable conflict.
But beyond the legalese, I’d love to see an open letter signed by 100,000 Montrealers telling the council that their pathological obsession with Israel is not just wrong, dangerous and discriminatory.
It’s creepy.
It’s deranged.
And however the vote goes on Monday, the council must know that it’s not just financially broke– it’s also morally bankrupt.
