Barbara Kay: Toronto-area man who threatened Jews acted detestably, but his sentence was just

National Post

2 days ago

Prefaced by the statement, 'Antisemitism has reached a point of no return,' popular Israeli commentator Hillel Fuld recently predicted that in less than a month, 'A very VERY large scale attack on Jews is about to happen.' Since Fuld also predicted — on Oct 5, 2023! — that, as he paraphrased it, 'something big was about to happen and Israel would be at the centre of it,' I take his intuition seriously.
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But I balk at his belief that to achieve what he envisages, 'all it takes is one' brainwashed antisemite. Large-scale intifadas take hundreds of enablers to organize, finance and execute. Still, many would-be lone-wolf terrorists wish they could perpetrate 'something big.' The brighter bulbs in this legion keep such wishes to themselves. The dimmer ones …well, read on.
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On March 4, 2024, Waisuddin Akbari, an antisemitic conspiracy theorist (he believed Israel was plotting to exterminate all non-Jews), confided to car salesman Cameron Ahmad, a fellow Muslim, that he had a plan 'to plant a bomb in every synagogue in Toronto and blow them up to kill as many Jews as possible.' He urged Ahmad to remember his face because 'the next time you see it, I'll be on the news.'
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Akbari did end up in the news, but only because Ahmad took his threat to the police. Akbari denied making his incriminating statements, which led to a trial in which he was found guilty both of uttering threats against Jews and threats to property. The Crown sought a four-to-six month jail sentence followed by three years probation.
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Instead, on July 28, Judge Edward Prutschi sentenced Akbari to a 60 days house arrest and a probationary term of three years, during which he must participate in antisemitism education, not be in possession of weapons or incendiary devices and stay 200 metres from any synagogue or other Jewish institution.
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The sentence was handed down despite community impact statements from representatives of several Jewish organizations.
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A spokesperson for B'nai Brith Canada said Akbari's threats were a 'shot through the metaphorical heart of the Jewish community.' A Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs rep noted that such threats 'may lead to real violence by normalizing hate speech.' And a person speaking on behalf of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation sombrely commented that, 'Canada is on a very dark trajectory that will not end well.'
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These statements resonated emotionally with me, and anyone who reads Prutschi's decision will find that they resonated with him, as well. The judge was exquisitely mindful of the 'profound and pervasive sense of fear and despair amongst Canadian Jewry, tragically but eloquently described in the five community impact statements filed in this case.' But they weren't legally relevant to this particular case.