Regarding the Hamilton Centre NDP MPP

No one should be surprised at the revelation this week that once again Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama’s social media posting triggered charges of antisemitism. Jama had retweeted a post by American academic Noura Erakat concerning the death of Palestinian activist Khader Adnan who died after a lengthy hunger strike, calling Adnan a “martyr for freedom.” That prompted a response from B’nai Brith Canada who tweeted, “Khader Adnan was not a martyr for freedom. He was a convicted terrorist and member of PIJ: a listed entity in Canada. Endorsing such a narrative is an affront to his innocent victims and is unbecoming of an elected official.”

As she did prior to her election in March, when she scrubbed hundreds of posts from her social media, Jama pulled down the tweet. And also as was the case in March her party was slow to distance itself from Jama’s tweets. Jama can keep engaging in revisionism with her Twitter feed but nobody should think that means she has changed her mind about whose to blame in the Israel-Palestine conflict or any of her other strongly-held views. The paper trail shows that Israel is only one topic that has been an obsession with Jama.

Her copious postings also show that she is an equal-opportunity basher, posting tweets attacking cis-gender whites, and lazy white Communists who are all talk and no action. And, despite her party affiliation, she wasn’t crazy about the NDP months before seeking the nomination.

Either the Ontario NDP did not vet this candidate before the election, which is hard to believe, given she announced five months before the byelection; or worse, they knew and didn’t think it made any difference, which if true, shows the party that once liked to see itself as the “conscience” in Canadian politics has lost its way. The Ontario NDP has fallen a great distance from the time it attracted intellectual and statesmanlike leaders like Bob Rae and Stephen Lewis. Now it appears that the goal is a grubbing race to the finish line–to win at all costs, no matter which principles have to be sacrificed. It also doesn’t speak well to some of the prominent social justice active individuals in Hamilton who backed her despite the social media history.

Jama’s anger can be understood. Life has dealt her some difficult cards—a fact which needs to be taken into account. To her credit, despite her disability, she has managed to obtain a good education, and to achieve a degree of prominence in advocating for social justice. But too much of her social media messaging is reckless and hurtful and is likely a more accurate portrayal of her true attitudes than a hasty apology in the heat of a campaign and the removal of social media posts.

With her election, Jama moves from the ranks of the economically disadvantaged to the top ten percent of earners in Canada, hopefully that, and the experience of being part of a body that is steeped in tradition, and (sometimes, at least) decorum, will broaden her perspectives.