Canada: Muslim chief human rights commissioner resigns over Israel comments

The concerns raised about Birju Mujahid Dattani include:

• In 2015, Dattani “spoke on a panel in the U.K. alongside a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic fundamentalist group that seeks to establish a new caliphate and opposes the existence of an Israeli state.” The member of Hizb ut-Tahrir was Adnan Khan, whose “writings were found amongst Osama Bin Laden’s papers by American special forces following their raid on his Pakistani compound in 2011.”
• “In 2014, Dattani spoke on a panel at a Turkish university with Osama Qashoo, a member of the Mavi Marmara flotilla who was arrested four years earlier for trying to breach Israel’s naval cordon of the Gaza Strip.”
• Dattani repeatedly lectured during “Israel Apartheid Week” at British universities about the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
• Dattani shared an article on Twitter entitled “Palestinians are Warsaw Ghetto Prisoners of Today.”
• And Dattani’s earlier activities are reportedly “difficult to trace because he went by his middle name, Mujahid, during his academic years.” Mujahid is an Arabic word which means a jihad warrior for Islam.

Because the international community has failed to hold Israel to account, people have turned to BDS. – Mujahid Dattani #IsraeliApartheidWeek

— LSESU PalSoc (@LSESU_PalSoc) February 27, 2015

When Dattani’s past was exposed, the Trudeau government decided to open an investigation of him. Now that Dattani’s resignation was accepted after an investigation that did not conclude to his benefit, the job is now open to a new chief commissioner. Given Dattani’s history, a simple Internet search would have gone a long way.

Another Liberal government embarrassment this year: its diversity hire, Laith Marouth, who called Jews “loud mouthed bags of feces,” launched the pro-Hamas Free Palestine TV.

A National Post article deals with bad hires by the Trudeau government, including Dattani, Marouf and Canada’s “Islamophobia” czar, Amira Elghawaby, and states:

There’s the not-implausible suspicion the prime minister and his cabinet see such appointments mainly as convenient means to attract support from targeted voting groups. How better to show you care about an ethnic, cultural or religious community than to hand some cash and a fancy title to one of its members?

Leftism and identity politics go hand in hand, and it has nothing to do with respect for “diversity,” or with real concerns about anti-racism. It’s about votes and appeasing the nosiest special interest groups.

Another substantial issue facing Canada’s Human Rights Commission is an international investigation of, oddly enough, racism. Canada’s human rights status is now “being examined by a United Nations oversight body” — a subcommittee of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions. Other countries that have been investigated include Russia, Iraq and Venezuela. The investigation stems from complaints that the Human Rights Commission was exhibiting “anti-Black racism, sexism and systemic discrimination.”

“Chief human rights commissioner resigns over Israel comments,” by Laura Osman, Canadian Press, August 12, 2024:

OTTAWA –  The recently appointed chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission agreed to resign Monday after an investigation into his past comments related to Israel.

The justice minister launched an external investigation after Canadian Jewish organizations raised concerns about Birju Dattani’s past activities, including allegations of anti-Israel comments.

The law firm that conducted the investigation did not find any indication that Dattani harboured or harbours antisemitic beliefs, or any evidence that he has unconscious or conscious biases toward Jews or Israelis.

“In reviewing Mr. Dattani’s scholarly work, he has criticized Israel and, in particular, its treatment of Palestinians,” the law firm concluded in its report, which was shared publicly Monday.

However, the investigation found he “deliberately de-emphasized” those criticisms when he was questioned about them.

“To be clear, it is our view that his involvement in advocacy and criticism does not necessarily result in the inference that Mr. Dattani could not perform the role of chief commissioner,” the report stated.

“However, Mr. Dattani’s efforts to downplay the critical nature of his work was concerning and, certainly, his failure to directly disclose this work….