Canadian Mayor: Israel Has No Right to Exist

An outspoken mayor of a small Quebec town is in hot water following a broadcast tirade in which he called for an end to the Jewish state.

"Products made in Israel on land stolen from the Palestinians that is walled in, in an apartheid regime where they are cut off, it’s very serious," said Stéphane Gendron, Mayor of Huntingdon and host of Face à Face, a daily talk show on Quebec’s V Television network.

"And a country like that does not deserve to exist."

Jewish groups, including the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, promptly ripped Gendron's comments while calling on the station to cancel his show.

"When someone who is a public figure is saying that Israel doesn’t deserve to exist, that statement is not made in a vacuum," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the center.

“It can’t go unchallenged considering you have in Quebec both Jews and Muslims and, especially in Montreal, people very committed to the state of Israel and also a number of groups that are quite vociferous and actively against Israel."

Gendron, who recently announced plans to build a mosque and halal slaughterhouse in hopes of luring French-speaking Muslims from North Africa to his 2600-person hamlet, remains unfazed by the controversy and vows to continue lambasting Israel at every turn.

"People try to portray myself as an antisemite. This is false and ridiculous," he maintains. "I have the right to express publicly my position."

Email to a friend, Share on Facebook, Share on Twitter, and more: