By Howie Silbiger
The terror attack today at a synagogue in Michigan should make every normal human being shudder.
A man drove a truck straight into a synagogue. Not a government building. Not a military target. A synagogue. Inside that building were roughly 140 preschool children. After smashing the vehicle into the building, the attacker began shooting.
And the only reason this story is not ending with funerals is because someone at that synagogue was armed. Security confronted the attacker and stopped him before he could slaughter the people inside.
That is the entire story right there. Not complicated. Not theoretical. A man came to kill Jews and he was stopped because someone had the ability to stop him.
Now let’s talk about Canada.
Because if that exact same attack happened in Montreal tomorrow, there is a very real chance the outcome would be very different.
Most Jewish institutions here rely on security guards who are not armed. They can watch the door. They can check bags. They can call police. They can hit a panic button. But if someone drives a vehicle through the entrance of a synagogue or school and starts shooting, there is almost nothing they can do except stand there and hope the police arrive fast enough.
Hope…. That is apparently our national security strategy.
Synagogues in Toronto were shot at this week. Jewish schools in Montreal have been shot at, synagogues firebombed, businesses are being vandalized with swastikas. For numerous years we have watched mobs march through Canadian streets screaming for the destruction of Jews.
And yet somehow the idea that Jewish institutions should be able to defend themselves still makes politicians and bureaucrats uncomfortable.
They would rather talk about security grants and cameras and statements of concern.
Let me be blunt. Cameras don’t stop a man with a rifle and a press release or millions of dollars in grant money doesn’t stop a truck coming through the front doors of a synagogue.
In Michigan today, someone was there who could stop it.
That guard didn’t write a report. He didn’t call a committee meeting. He didn’t wait ten minutes for a patrol car to show up. He did what he was hired to do. He stopped the attacker.
This is the conversation Canada keeps avoiding. Our political culture hates the idea of armed security. It makes people nervous. It sounds aggressive. It doesn’t fit the polite Canadian image we like to project.
But reality doesn’t care about our national self image.
Reality is a man crashing a truck into a synagogue full of children.
Reality is what happened today in Michigan.
Jewish communities should be allowed to hire trained, licensed armed security or off duty police officers to protect their institutions. Not volunteers. Not amateurs. Professionals who are vetted, trained and capable of responding if the worst happens.
Remember, when seconds matter, police are minutes away. That line gets repeated all the time because it is true.
Michigan proved something today. The difference between a headline about an attack and a headline about a massacre can come down to whether someone on site has the ability to stop it.
Canadian politicians must recognize the reality and start working to protect the Jewish community. Enough with politeness, political correctness and the false equivalance between Jew hatred and Islamaophobia…Nobody is driving bomb filled trucks through the doors of a mosque. And let’s start calling and treating these attacks for what they are..terror attacks.
It’s time to allow Jews to protect themselves and their community, properly, before someone gets killed.
Howie Silbiger is the host of The Howie Silbiger Show on truetalkradio.com and Political Hitman on Israelnewstalkradio.com. He is the Editor in Chief of The Montreal Jewish News.
