Angry in the Great White North

A small excerpt from my 2005 post about Khaled Mouammar:

I suppose if we can have a Governor General who dines with separatists and assures everyone she is "committed" to Canada, we can have a Refugee Board member who is the politically partisan patriarch of a clan of radicalized Palestinians whose only purpose in life is to do what needs to be done to support the Palestinians, who think of the country of their birth as a "temporary settlement", and who are committed to disassembling Canada's borders and immigration system.

Makes sense, right?

Read the whole post to get a sense of how extreme Khaled Mouammar is.  About his praise for Syria's occupation of Lebanon.  About his support for Hezbollah.  About his radicalized children leading riots in Concordia in Montreal, or opposing Israel's security wall to keep out suicide bombers, or working to dismantle all of Canada's immigration policies.  Ask yourself whether there ought to have been some red flags raised about giving him the power to grant refugees refuge in this country.

Now, four years later, it looks like I was right to be concerned.  The National Post has done some first rate journalism investigating what happened every time a person from the Middle East (but not Israel) came in front of Khaled Mouammar, and Khaled Mouammar might have to answer some questions:

The government is being urged to re-examine all refugee cases heard by Khaled Mouammar, the current president of the Canadian Arab Federation, following the revelation that his acceptance rates were nearly twice the national average during a decade-long stint on the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Mr. Mouammar, an outspoken supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, recorded an acceptance rate of 100% when it came to refugees from North Africa and the Middle East during his time with the IRB between 1995 and 2005, according to statistics obtained by the National Post. Although cases from the Middle East represented only a tiny fraction of his overall caseload, the 68-year-old orthodox Christian, who was born in Palestine, also accepted each claim he heard against Israel during the period, while the rest of the IRB accepted just 10% of Israel claims.

"I would like to see some close scrutiny of who this fellow accepted because his numbers are off the radar screen, even in comparison

to the generally questionable record of the IRB. Obviously no one was monitoring his performance because he was there for 10 years," said Martin Collacott, a former diplomat who follows immigration and refugee issues for the Fraser Institute.

Something didn't look right about Khaled Mouammar four years ago. 

And Khaled Mouammar's behaviour today is even more disturbing.  Now the president of the Canadian Arab Federation, he is lashing out at the "well-planned Zionist campaign" aimed at him:

The Canadian Arab Federation says it is the victim of a "well-planned Zionist campaign" to intimidate and silence Arab Canadians, according to an e-mail obtained by the National Post.

The CAF has found itself embroiled in controversy recently over remarks made by its president, Khaled Mouammar. Mr. Mouammar, a defender of Hamas and Hezbollah, two groups on Canada's terrorist list, recently called Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, a "professional whore" over his support for Israel. Ottawa has threatened to cut the group's funding.

Mr. Mouammar sent the e-mail to about 20 Arab organizations across Canada at the end of last week, in a bid to marshal forces against the alleged campaign.

"The Zionist campaign is being waged by the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith supported by some politicians," his e-mail said, adding that the movement "was developed after the Lebanon war of July, 2006, to suppress all criticism of Israel and equate it with anti-Semitism."

When I wrote about my concerns in 2005, I can assure you no "Zionists" were pulling my strings.

Update: Leilah Mouammar is Khaled Mouammar's daughter, famous for her role in the 2002 Concordia riot.  From Leilah Mouammar's blog about what life was like in the home of Khaled Mouammar:

My parents were politically and socially active and family excursions included attending public demonstrations in Toronto calling for emancipation and equal rights for Palestinians. Our home was always full of people: family, friends, community figures, writers, artists and activists. And they were always having animated conversations on myriad subjects: from Arab/Islamic history, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the ideology of pan-Arabism[2], to the effects of American foreign policy or the writings of Che Guevara. Leftist figures and writings were popular at home, reflecting trends in Palestinian/Arab political thinking in the 1960s and 1970s, and the wider global arena...We were taught that human beings and their rights, irrespective of race, religion, or any other label or designation, were to be respected above all else. Justice and peace were introduced as symbiotic concepts, that if separated would falter, and both could be realized through committed activism. By the age of 10, I was hanging self-made banners on my bedroom wall with slogans like, "Reagan, Begin, you should know, we support the PLO," and later after the bombing of Libya in 1986, "Reagan, Thatcher, CIA, how many kids have you killed today?"

Having opinions is not a bad thing.  Acting on those opinions should be commended.  But at some point, the question has to be asked whether it is likely that this person can leave his opinions at home, or if his opinions are so fully integrated into his world view (that is, he can't identify where the facts stop and his opinions begin) that his opinions will drive his decision-making.  If so, do those opinions have implications in the way he does his job?  A fair question if you conclude that he will bring his opinions into the workplace.