Part of the reason we are seeing division, hatred, and unrest in the streets of Montreal, Toronto, and other communities across Canada is due to the collective failure of Muslim leaders in Canada and around the world to condemn the despicable Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians.

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It was a horrific and cowardly attack by a terrorist group — not by all Palestinians, Arabs, or the wider Muslim community. It should have been condemned and contained immediately. Muslims who pride themselves as followers of a peaceful religion should have empathized and consoled the grieving Jews.

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There was a lot of time to do this. There was a lengthy delay between the attack and Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza. Instead of taking this time to condemn Hamas’s slaughter, Arab and Muslim politicians and government leaders promoted anti-Jewish hate to shore up their political support. This is nothing less than encouraging antisemitism.

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Muslim political and religious leaders, barring rare exceptions, chose to contextualize, equivocate, and, in most cases, justify Hamas’s barbarity. What we have, as a result, is widespread hate bordering on violence in Canada — a country where communities have historically lived side-by-side in peace.

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The situation got worse due to the statements made by community leaders like Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s special representative on combating Islamophobia, who did not hide her partisan and divisive outlook by clearly siding with the protesters on Canadian streets, characterizing them as “peaceful demonstrations,” even though we have seen people supporting Hamas, calling for genocide against Israeli Jews and harassing and intimidating Jewish-owned businesses.

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On Twitter, Elghawaby approvingly cited a quote from a Toronto Star column reading, “The stories I have heard are both fantastical and true. Muslims (and others who silently sympathize with the loss of Palestinians' lives) are being disciplined, maligned, isolated, and targeted at work.”

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Instead of reaching across the aisle and consoling the Jewish community, she has instead chosen to focus her public comments on rising Islamophobia.

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Seriously? Remember the Muslim family who were killed in a hate-related attack in London, Ont., a couple of years ago? All communities, including the Jewish community, across the political and religious spectrum unambiguously condemned that hate crime. And it brought a sense of relief and security to Muslims in Ontario.

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Remember how, after more than 50 people were gunned down while worshipping at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, political and religious leaders from all faiths stood behind Muslims and consoled them?

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Also, after the Quebec mosque attack, almost all communities in Canada chose to stand with Muslims. There were images of people in Alberta who formed a human chain to protect Muslims. Similar scenes were witnessed elsewhere in the country. Jewish community leaders spoke out, loud and clear, in support of Muslims and against hate and bigotry.

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But that is not what Elghawaby did. Instead, she makes it sounds as though it is Muslims who are the victims, while failing to mention the barbarity unleashed on Oct. 7. This is not leadership. This is not her mandate. Her job is to promote tolerance as enshrined in Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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Now imagine a scenario in which Muslims did what they ought to have done in the first place: condemned the Hamas attack, sided with the Jewish victims and dissociated themselves from terrorism. Their voices for the Palestinian cause would have carried much more weight.

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What we are seeing instead is a rising tide of anti-Jewish hate on our streets, promoted and peddled by Muslim leaders themselves, either by gaslighting the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, or wallpapering it with the political colours of the Palestinian cause.

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Let us all come together, not to let hate be poured onto the streets of Canada, but to stand united for a secure and prosperous country.