Some Palestinian and Muslim Canadians fearful 'simply for existing' as Israel-Hamas war continues
‘Why … do I have to prove my humanity and the humanity of my people?’: Dalia El Farra
As she worries about the security of her loved ones in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Canadian Dalia El Farra is also concerned about her safety here in Canada.
"I can't grieve in peace," she told The Current's Matt Galloway. "There's a constant feeling of being attacked and needing to defend myself … and just constantly trying to humanize myself and my people."
It has been a difficult several weeks for Canadians with connections to Gaza. According to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, at least 14,000 Gazans have been killed by Israeli bombardment since Oct. 7, including at least 5,500 children — figures deemed reliable by the United Nations.
Among some of Israel's targets in Gaza were refugee camps and ambulance convoys. More than 50 journalists, including 46 Palestinian journalists, have also been killed.
According to Israeli officials, 1,200 Israelis were killed in Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, with about 240 taken as hostages into Gaza.
Those tensions are spilling over into some of Canada's major cities. In Toronto, a man was arrested in connection with multiple hate-motivated assaults, including a Saturday morning attack on worshippers outside of a mosque.
Police Chief Myron Demkiw said on Thursday there have been 17 reports of anti-Muslim or anti-Palestinian hate crimes in Toronto from Oct. 7 to Nov. 20, a 1,600-per-cent year-over-year increase, alongside a rise in report of antisemitic hate crimes.
El Farra, whose work involves human rights and equity, diversity and inclusion, says she's afraid to speak up because she feels "very disenfranchised and very marginalized" in Canada.
"The narrative coming from our elected officials, from the media, from the systems that are supposed to support me and keep me safe, they're making me feel vulnerable," she said.
"When you have our premier of Ontario calling the pro-Palestinian rallies 'hate protests', that's not making me feel safe," she said. Ontario Premier Doug Ford described pro-Palestinian rallies as "hate rallies" in a social media post on Oct. 8.
Roots in Islamophobia
Earlier this month, a Senate report on Islamophobia found that many Muslims in Canada experience Islamophobia on a daily basis.
The report, the first of its kind in Canada, said the committee "was disturbed to hear that incidents of Islamophobia are a daily reality for many Muslims, that one in four Canadians do not trust Muslims and that Canada leads the G7 in terms of targeted killings of Muslims motivated by Islamophobia."
According to Jasmin Zine, a professor of sociology, religion and culture at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., Muslim Canadians are dealing with a great deal of anxiety and frustrations — especially in the wake of Israel's military incursion in Gaza.
"My children grew up going to rallies and demonstrations in support of Palestinian people their entire lives," she told Galloway.
"Therefore, they become quite politicized at a very young age and are aware of what's happening and the precarity of their own identities as Canadian Muslims."
Zine has looked at how that has brewed in the aftermath of events such as the Sept. 11 attacks. What she's seeing now is "a situation that is much worse than what we saw in the aftermath of 9/11," she said.
"Over the past two decades, Islamophobia has laid the groundwork that makes it easier to collectively label and punish Muslim populations," she said.
"We've seen the global war on terror that's been underpinned by racist ideologies, and that's cast nearly 2 billion people around the world as violent, fanatical terrorists."
According to Zine, this has paved the way for an "all-too-easy equation of Muslims as radicals, terrorists" in Gaza that has led to collective guilt and punishment.
It's really unsafe to be Palestinian right now.-Nadine Nasir, Palestinian-Canadian
On top of that, Zine says Israeli officials have used dehumanizing tropes, such as Defence Minister Yoav Gallant referring to Palestinians as "human animals" on Oct. 9. This language adds to the justification to enact wholesale violence on entire populations, says Zine.
Facing anti-Palestinian racism
But anti-Palestinian racism isn't just impacting Muslims — it's also impacting Christian Palestinians-Canadians, like Nadine Nasir.
Nasir says people have approached her and justified the killings of Palestinians like her — all because they saw her wearing a keffiyeh, a Palestinian cultural scarf.
"This is what I and other Palestinians have to experience every single day, simply for existing, simply for sharing our identity," she told The Current.
She said at its core, anti-Palestinian racism "aims to censor and erase Palestinians and their narratives" by reprimanding Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian human rights.
"We're constantly being disciplined, even for simply sharing our lived experiences by speaking out about things that have happened to us, to our families, by being critical of a government that suppresses us and our families," she said.
Nasir says she rarely feels like she can publicly identify as a Palestinians for fears over her safety.
"We've always been labelled as antisemitic simply for stating our history, for talking about our lives, for talking about why many of us came here as refugees," she said.
"It's really unsafe to be Palestinian right now."
Although Islamophobia is a real concern and affects many Palestinians, Nasir says every Palestinian — Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Athiest — feels anti-Palestinian racism.
So when language about anti-Palestinian racism is conflated with Islamophobia, it "mischaracterizes the roots of this conflict as a religious struggle instead of a struggle against settler colonialism," she said.
"The specific forms of racism that we are experiencing — we want to name it. This is anti-Palestinian racism, and we want a way to be able to report anti-Palestinian racism."
Proving their humanity
El Farra says she immigrated to Canada from the Middle East, to make sure her kids have roots "in a country that gave them dignity and respected human rights and freedoms, including freedom of expression."
But as she watches what she described as a genocide unfold in Gaza while fighting off accusations antisemitism or supporting terrorism, she doesn't think the support from her country is there.
"Why is it in this day and age, do I have to prove my humanity and the humanity of my people?"
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Produced by Joana Draghici and Ben Jamieson
