I move that the motion be amended by deleting the words “being carried out by the terrorist organization Hamas” and replacing them with “perpetrated by Hamas terrorists.”

Mr. Speaker, during this past week, many people have reached out to me. They’ve called, they’ve sent messages, and they’ve sent emails and asked me how I am doing. I said, like so many people in our Jewish community around the world and in Israel, we are really not okay. How can we be?

To be human is to be a storyteller. All the narratives we construct—the true ones, the untrue ones, and the ones we tell ourselves are true but are not—are acts of self-construction, prisms of understanding by which we build our own identity. We tell all sorts of tales to clean up our prickly pasts. We do it all the time, sometimes not even knowing it.

Today, I want to put a spotlight on a story that is absolutely true and that needs to be told now and in this place.

There are no words any human can say to describe the largest and most vicious attack on Jews since the Holocaust. There are no words. How could there be any other expression to describe the sadistic barbarism of the Hamas terrorists hunting down people, just because they were Jews, in their homes, at bus stops and at a music festival while at the same time, and in real time, happily broad-casting their rampage to exalted crowds in Gaza and around the world? What words could we come up with that convey the terror of Hamas throwing grenades into bomb shelters and burning people alive in front of their loved ones, slaughtering and dismembering parents before their children’s own eyes? Hamas terrorists rounded up Holocaust survivors. There is simply no depraved act that you could imagine that they did not do.

Isaac Herzog, president of the democratic State of Israel, told CNN and the world, if you can believe this, that Hamas terrorists who infiltrated Israel were carrying manuals with instructions on how to torture and kidnap those they found. The president noted that many of the hostages—over 200—are elderly or children. He said, “Who are these hostages? Babies, pregnant women, elderly people with dementia, even with caretakers, families, innocent civilians, from 36 nations—people were killed or abducted from 36 nations.”

During the onslaught on Israeli border communities, the terrorists killed over 1,300 people, most of them civilians, and, as I said, took almost 200 hostages.

There are simply no adequate words.

Mr. Speaker, we have legitimate agency and control over the decisions we make. We know, as civilized people, there is right and there is wrong—there is no world that Hamas’s deeds could find justification amongst civilized peoples. Our eyes are filled with tears, but in those tears, we have found moral clarity—moral clarity that Premier Ford spoke of with such emotion; I was standing right beside him, together with so many from our caucus, a week ago, when 15,000 grieving people attended at Mel Lastman Square, just a few days after the terrorist attack.

Thank you, Premier, for what you said that night and for your support of Israel.

We must see the group Hamas for who they really are. I’ll tell you who they are: unabashed, unapologetic, sick and megalomaniac terrorists.

We’re here in this chamber of democracy, and we must reject any moral equivalency. This is not a land dispute or competing aspirations for national sovereignty, a he-said-she-said dispute about conflicting dual narratives. This is a face of evil revealed, a violent ideology that would kill Jews for being Jews, that neither represents the Muslim faith or the national interest of the Palestinian people or any future of coexistence. Mr. Speaker, we have a big problem when we cannot call evil “evil”—of condemning targeted violence against innocents.

We also need to understand again that for Israel, when you are dealing with the devil, it is incredibly hard to act like an angel.

Of all the emotions I have experienced since the attack, the most surreal to me has always been shock, horror and anger, and sadness at the lives lost and of the injured.

My wife and I are proud parents of three accomplished children, and we, ourselves, have not found the words we need to comfort our own children for the acts that they have witnessed in their own generation.

We must never be afraid to teach our children the difference between right and wrong and to call out black and white when others just see shades of grey.

Mr. Speaker, the silence is deafening, and right now we cannot be silent. Israel and the Jews everywhere, especially in these days, understand the power of words. You see, words bolster nations, and they build bridges among communities we all call home. They encourage healing. Words matter because the truth matters. And yet, words can also be barriers and curses and weapons. We know that silence, the opposite of words, can be deafening and has the power to create uncertainty and chaos.

As I reflected this week in the aftermath of an unimaginable horror, I was shocked by the words I heard from people in our greater communities that, to me, made very little sense. They spoke of resistance and freedom fighters—words and phrases that sought to justify and approve the Hamas terrorism; unbelievable words that seemed to blame the democratic State of Israel for these horrific attacks; words that, for some, gave an excuse or an explanation to blame innocent children and babies, teenagers at a music festival, Holocaust survivors for their own murder, something that a rational person could never comprehend. There is no modern-day equivalent to any acts in our modern day that remotely comes close. And we waited, as the Jewish community waited, for those to stand up with us in solidarity, and to be honest, some did—our caucus did; our government did; and a few in this place also joined us—but not everyone did, and the silent absence of some left a void in our hearts. We witnessed hurtful statements from student federations on campuses, from unions who could not bring themselves to tell the truth—the truth that the terrorist acts had an intention to make Jews their victims.

Mr. Speaker, months ago and in the aftermath of the earthquake that ravaged Syria and Türkiye, Israel and the Jewish community stepped forward. I forged bonds personally—wonderful friendships that I consider a privilege—with our Turkish community.

There is, I believe, a common denominator, that we have to treat a person like we want to be treated ourselves.

Today, my words of truth might offend some, and yet at the same time, it’s important that we extend a hand of friendship, because it’s not too late. I remember the stories, not so many years ago, that many of you might remember, of the Jewish community standing in a circle after mosques in Ontario were threatened. The circle of unity and friendship reminded us what is truly important: the powers that bind one to another. It’s not too late.

Intergenerational trauma can never mask or justify the horrific torture and murder of civilians. What we have seen in our province recently is very disconcerting—slogans that we’ve seen on TV from blatant anti-Semites. “From the River to the Sea”—this means the destruction of Israel. This is completely unacceptable, and we will call them out. Again, they want to blame the Jewish community for no reason.

For anyone who is not sure—and I’ve said it in this place: Hate is toxic to our democracy.

We need to be clear on a few things. Do not equate Hamas with the Palestinian people. Unlike our enemies, who wish us ill, I am sad—our Jewish community is sad—when we see the loss of life in Gaza. The Palestinians themselves are held hostage by a terrorist regime, and the terrorist regime will not even let them leave. They’re standing at the Rafah border crossing in Egypt. They want to get out.

Many may not appreciate or know that thousands of Palestinians crossed into Israel, just before the conflict—daily. I’ve seen this for myself. If you travel to Eilat, Israel and you go to the Rabin border crossing, you’ll see hundreds and hundreds of Jordanians and Palestinians crossing in to work. They come in the morning, and they go home at night—and that was the same at the Gaza crossing, south of Sderot. How many knew that?

Tying these Hamas attacks with Palestinian resistance is an insult to the Palestinians who actually hate Hamas.

Israel is not, contrary to what people say, an apartheid state—this is the purposeful intention of Hamas, to tell you that, thinking that you will believe this. It’s not true. For Jews, sovereignty of the land of modern-day Israel goes back a millennium, and the Jews in Israel treasure their homeland.

But I want to tell you who else is in Israel. Our democratic State of Israel has over two million Israeli Arabs who call the land their home as well. They vote, own businesses, are free to be free, and are part of the miracle of Israel that belongs to them as well. For them, this is their country too.

Mr. Speaker, I’ll tell you about modern-day Israel. It’s a start-up nation. It’s incredible. For those who have been fortunate, like myself and many others in this House, to have travelled to Israel in recent years—it is actually unrecognizable from the minute you get off the plane. It’s a miracle. If you go to Jerusalem, you will see something absolutely amazing: the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the via dolorosa—side by side—and parishioners praying daily and peacefully.

In the wake of horrific darkness, we know there’s an opportunity to let the light in again.

I look at our Ontario. It’s special, and it’s unique. It’s a kaleidoscope, a collage of incredible and irreplaceable diversity, of secular and religious, of different faiths, of different creeds. The quilt of Ontario is ours. It is a microcosm of cultures living together. And there are inherent values we share in our Ontario—the values of our rights to live safely in our own homes and communities so we can take our kids to school and wake up our loved ones, we can go to work, we can shop, and we can pray. And we are grateful beyond measure for those who keep our communities safe each and every day.

What I have said and the Premier has said in this place—we will always have the backs of everyone who keeps Ontario safe.

I want to acknowledge the unbelievable support of our police and firefighters in the last few days. They have been so concerned for everyone’s welfare in Ontario—but specifically, the Jewish community.

Madame la Présidente, je voudrais remercier chaque personne et tous les premiers intervenants qui travaillent fort pour assurer la sécurité de notre province. Je prends mon rôle sérieusement. C’est un honneur d’assurer la sécurité de notre province.

Our quilt has bonds that have been tested before, and while those bonds—the fabric in the quilt—have been stretched, they never broke. Let’s remember that. As many of our clergy said this past Sabbath, we need to be able to get out of our comfort zone. When one hurts, we all hurt. When one needs help, everyone should run to help. What binds us is so much stronger than what separates us. We can never let anyone tear our quilt apart.

Madame la Présidente, la raison de leur service est pour faire une différence dans la vie des gens, lorsqu’ils ne s’y attendent pas, et parce que nous croyons en notre province et en notre avenir; because each of us has the power to make a difference in a person’s life every day, because we believe in our Ontario and in our future.

I will always be there for my Jewish community. I know who I am. I know how I stand and where I stand, and I am proud of this. But I’m also here for all of my Ontario. Every day, I will always try to do something for somebody in some group. My commitment to my province will never change. They will always be able to count on me, and I will tell you why: Every day, I try to learn something new. One day, we will all pass through the surly bonds of life and be part of the ages. The only thing we will leave behind is our accomplishments.

Each of us can walk down the street and bump into history. And sometimes we do not know when we will have a collision with history. Sometimes we are at a fork in our lives.

This moment, as we think about it, might not be our fate; this moment may be our destiny. May we find it together. Thank you, merci beaucoup, and meegwetch.