Canadian Curse of Multiculturalism

Police Chief Warren Driechel Greg Southam/Postmedia

"[I see my recent trip to Israel] as valuable, among multiple learning experiences I will have in this role." 

"I remain focused on my longstanding and ongoing commitment to dialogue, learning and connection across communities and across boundaries."

"In mid-February, I joined police Chiefs from Canada and the United States, on a visit to Israel where we met police and community leaders in several cities. I spent time with police officers from Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Druze faiths representing a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. I also met with Muslim community leaders who shared openly about their concerns and their reasons for working with police."

"These officers and community leaders operate in an environment that demands extraordinary vigilance - managing crime, counter terrorism, supporting community and crisis response all amid extreme complexity. Police to police we were able to talk about the toll this work takes on the people who do it. We talked about building trust in communities where there is little trust. We were able to get a glimpse of the undertaking required to police in complex environments. "

"I am grateful for what I was able to learn and share with those we visited and among my North American peers. These missions offer a great deal of insight and valuable perspective. I am grateful for the continued leadership and support of the Edmonton Police Commission who have supported me in this."

Edmonton Police Service Chief Warren Driechel 

Sharif Hasan Abdulahi is accused of hitting Const. Mike Chernyk with a car and stabbing him multiple times before driving a U-Haul truck through downtown Edmonton and striking and injuring four people on Sept. 30, 2017. CTV News 

 

This professional development trip for the purpose of coming to grips with and intimately coming to an understanding of how the most terrorist-attack-prone nation in the world handles this reality of its existence is one that is conducted on an annual basis, when Chiefs of Police from around the world gather for an unusual type of conference, but one increasingly of concern globally as terror attacks have not abated but gathered steam. The professional organization for North American big-city police chiefs on this year's delegation paid for Chief Dreichel's seat on the tour, and it was approved by the Edmonton Police civilian oversight board. 

 

However, when news of the trip and Chief Dreichel's public comments on the value he took from his participation went public, Edmonton's Muslim community expressed its disapproval of this educational opportunity. No fewer than 26 Edmonton mosques and Muslim groups notified the police commission through a jointly-signed letter that they felt "profound disappointment and hurt".  Chief Dreichel's trip, they emphasized, was the cause of 'deep pain' for Edmonton's Muslim community, affected by the conflict in the Middle East.   

"My big takeaway was that what they're learning and what they're working on. How do they build that connection to all of their community, including the Muslim people that live within Israel."

"[Understanding the] historical, geopolitical context, and how that maybe shapes things that go on in our own community [was helpful]."

Chief Dreichel

 

"At a time when countless families in Edmonton are grieving the devastating violence unfolding in Gaza and the region more broadly, the decision by the chief of police to travel to Israel to meet with policing institutions demonstrates a serious failure of judgment toward the communities he is sworn to serve and protect."

"For many members of Edmonton's Muslim community, particularly those with family directly impacted by the ongoing genocide, this decision has caused great pain."

Edmonton Muslim community joint letter

 

"At a time of rising Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, antisemitism, and hate towards marginalized communities, the choice to make this trip is harmful and further alienates members of our community."

Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack  

Chief Dreichel made it clear that the delegation met no one from the Israeli government, its military or intelligence networks. This was purely and simply a police gathering to discuss how societies that face the spectre of terrorism can best use tried-and-true methods of intelligence, communication, cooperation and methods of collaboration with specific smaller communities within the larger one, to find common ground in the interests of security for all concerned.

 

In Canada, as in Israel itself, it is the Jewish community that has been under siege for the years following the Hamas-led terrorist attack that took place in southern Israel, on the border with Gaza, on October 7, 2023. It is also a known fact that Muslim youth groups in Canada on the very day of the atrocities and the day following and other days ad infinitum organized public rallies, marches and protests in support of Hamas, characterizing the mass brutality of murder, rape, torture and abduction of Israeli civilians as an understandable reaction to 'occupation'.

 

An 'occupation' that would never be necessary had Palestinian leaders over the years not incited their populations to hate, resent and resist the very presence of the State of Israel, claiming the very ancestral territory Israel sits on as the property of Arab Palestinians for their state. A state that could have been theirs in 1948, and every year after, had they recognized the legitimacy of Israel's existence, had they not aspired to destroy the Jewish State to claim the geography it sits upon for a Palestinian state, 'from the river to the sea'.

 

Islamophobia is a symbol of the victimhood that Palestinians clasp close to their bosoms, as a grievance against those who believe that Jews, like the Arabs that surround them, are entitled to their sliver of land; a tiny proportion of land apportioned by the United Nations, representing a minuscule part of Judean indigenous heritage, as opposed to the huge areas 'occupied' by the Arab nations that repeatedly went to war with the nascent Israel and failed with each endeavour to dislodge it. Muslims in Canada replay that 80-year-old scenario.

 

Edmonton itself has had experiences with Islamist terrorist attacks. And during the Islamic State reign of terror in Syria and Iraq, Islamist stalwarts from Edmonton went off to join them in their atrocity-laden Caliphate drive. 

 

Israel's response to the mass murder that took place on October 7, 2023, was to do what any other country in the world would do, in total accordance with international norms; enter the geography that had enacted the mass atrocity to hunt down and dispose of the terrorists, which in this case was the governing body of Gaza. It is a conflict of mass proportions, one that Hamas is comfortable with sacrificing its own population to achieve its purpose; destroying Israel. 

 

The charges of 'apartheid' and 'genocide', while playing well to the Muslim ummah abroad, are both hyperbolic terms of propaganda, since Israel's population is itself 20% Muslim, along with a wide array of other groups, from Christians, B'hai, Druze, Kurds and Circassians holding citizenship. As for 'genocide', under the 'occupation', the Palestinian population in both territories grew exponentially in size. It has been Hamas that has fuelled a war that has claimed victims among the population it hides behind. 

 

Yellow police tape outside Edmonton's city hall after the building was evacuated on Jan. 23. Bezhani Sarvar, 28, was arrested and is facing a number of terrorism-related charges. (Emily Fitzpatrick/CBC)