By BERNIE BELLAN As the war in Gaza drags on Jews are finding themselves coming under regular threats in a myriad of locations around the world.

Every day seems to bring a new report – either of pro-Palestinian protesters disrupting an event or of actual clashes between pro-Palestinians and pro-Israelis.

Just this past week we heard about pro-Palestinian protesters in Toronto forcing the cancellation of a dinner on March 2 at the Art Gallery of Ontario where Prime Minister Trudeau was supposed to have hosted an event for visiting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

According to the Globe & Mail, “The event was called off abruptly after several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the venue, blocking doorways and making it difficult for guests to enter.”

Then, on the evening of March 4 – this time in Montreal, pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the main entrance to the Jewish Federation building in that city – trapping employees inside, and forcing them to escape through a back entrance.

As a result of that event, according to an article written by Judy Maltz in Haaretz, “A number of key Jewish organizations and institutions in Montreal have obtained a court injunction that prevents anti-Israel groups from holding protests outside their premises.”

Those are just two of the most recent events that followed upon other similar events where pro-Palestinian protesters have engaged in threatening behaviour.

There has been a constant flow of reports of Jewish students being harassed, often physically threatened – both on university campuses and high schools throughout the world, even in younger grades, as early as Grade Two in some cases.

Although I have written previously that Winnipeg Jews shouldn’t think that the level of danger for Jews is as high in our own community as it certainly appears to be in cities such as Toronto or Montreal, anyone following reports of Jews being harassed – and occasionally physically attacked in cities around the world, can be forgiven for wondering about the possibility of that also occurring in Winnipeg.

It’s for that reason that I chose to focus an article on the event at the University of Manitoba on February 26 that led to the banning of a pro-Israel organization known as Students Supporting Israel.

Regardless what the guest speaker at that event may have had to say about Islam, the notion that the University of Manitoba Students Union was quick to suspend that Jewish organization says volumes about where we’re at these days in terms of Jews being put on the defensive.

In my article about the event and the subsequent suspension of Students Supporting Israel by UMSU I referred to something called a “trigger warning” – without going into any detail what a trigger warning actually is. Here’s how the Oxford Dictionary defines trigger warning: “A statement at the start of a piece of writing, video, etc., alerting the reader or viewer to the fact that it contains potentially distressing material (often used to introduce a description of such content).”

While it may be totally acceptable for a Muslim student to claim that they have been upset by something said at an event – such as the event held at the U of M, the corollary certainly doesn’t hold for Jewish students.

Thus, when a group of eight University of Winnipeg teachers held that notorious hatefest on Israeli “imperialism, colonialism, and genocide” on November 24, and many individuals – both from within and without the Jewish community here, complained that holding such an event would be extremely distressing for members of the Jewish community, especially students at the U of W, did anyone from the U of W administration take steps to have that event cancelled?

Of course not. When it comes to moving to protect the rights of university students to feel safe on campuses, it’s a one-way street: A Muslim student at the U of M complained that she felt unsafe as a result of comments made on February 26 by a speaker at the university who himself was a Muslim – and UMSU took immediate steps in reaction to that complaint in what I would hold, any reasonable person would argue was a totally unjustified overreaction.

As the CBC report of what happened notes, Bassim Eid, the speaker at the event, made some critical comments about Islam, including that “When it comes to ideology, the Muslims are blind,” and the ideology of Muslims is ‘a major problem,’ saying they aren’t ready for change.”

But, “Belkis Elmoudi, a Muslim student at the university who attended the event, says she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

” ‘I knew I had to get out of there, because I did not feel safe,’ she told CBC News on Thursday” (February 29).

” ‘I mean not only were those comments made, [but] no one stood up and said anything, so it just made me feel very isolated, alone and scared.’ “

Omigod – someone says something negative about Muslims at an event sponsored by a pro-Israel organization and, whether or not those comments were justifiable, the pro-Israel organization is suspended from being allowed to be active on campus.

We know that the pendulum has swung so far in one direction that anyone saying they were offended by a comment made by someone who was pro-Israeli can expect to have their complaint acted upon almost immediately.

Yet, I am not advocating that Jewish students should also be able to suppress in advance any comments that they would regard as threatening their safety. Tolerance of ideas that we may find uncomfortable has long been an intrinsic element of what those of us who consider ourselves liberal would defend.

But, as the atmosphere surrounding discussion of Israel’s war in Gaza has become poisonous for anyone wanting to defend Israel, intimidation tactics of the type used by Belkis Elmondi – along with the strong and immediate support she received from the president of UMSU, is only likely to be repeated any time that someone tries to mount a defence of Israel on a university campus anywhere there are Muslim students.

One of the great ironies of this entire conundrum is that a great many Jews in the diaspora are themselves deeply critical of Israeli government policies, including what’s happening in Gaza, but because of the virulence – often accompanied by threats of physical violence and actual acts of physical violence, we keep the level of criticism of Israel relatively muted.

Instead we talk among ourselves at how badly Israel is doing in the court of public opinion – and then react with dismay when anti-Israel demonstrators engage in the worst sort of intimidation tactics.

As diaspora Jews, we’re sort of shell shocked by what we’re seeing – and when one student’s complaint gets an entire organization suspended, we simply shake our heads and wonder what’s next when it comes to intimidating pro-Israel supporters?