Anti-semitism: a serious pathology?

In today’s Toronto Star, Heather Mallick tries to defend the page with the “Stop Harper!” sign. But she can’t. So instead, she tells an unrelated story about some pathetic old coot reeling off anti-Semitic remarks in a bank line-up — and then tries to argue that since standing up to this kind of anti-Semitism would be a good thing, it must also be a good thing for the page to stand up to Harper.

You think I’m exaggerating the dumbness of Mallick’s argument, but I’m not. Go look.

Amazingly, this is not the first time The Star has allowed Mallick to pull this lazy stunt. In this recent column, she justified “gender-free” parenting by stating casually that “I live in an all-white neighbourhood where people openly make anti-Semitic remarks” — a statement that no one who has lived in Toronto could actually believe.

Oh, and Mallick also believes that the New Brunswick government’s refusal to pay Henry Morgentaler to perform abortions should be compared to Morgentaler’s imprisonment at Auschwitz as part of the genocide of Europe’s Jews.

This nonsense is an insult to several groups:

1) To Jews, whose true historical suffering now is being used as a prop by a lazy columnist who can’t think up any actual cogent arguments.

2) To Torontonians and Canadians, whose society is depicted (falsely) as anti-Semitic in the service of this same laziness.

3) To Toronto Star readers. That newspaper has had some fantastic investigative scoops of late — particularly in regard to police actions at the G20 and dubious charities. All this legitimate journalism is degraded when the front-page is shared by someone who believes phantom Jew hatred can be trotted out as a shortcut to column-writing.

In the past, Mallick’s main preoccupation has been feminist self-pity. And she often would shower sympathy on herself by telling readers about all the anti-woman hate mail she got in her inbox. But I guess that wasn’t enough. Now she also has donned the vicarious martyrdom mantle of the world’s Jews.

It’s Godwin’s law, in other words, in columnist form.