Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Canadian minister denounces diversity consultant for antisemitic tweets

Laith Marouf, who has a history of antisemitic and xenophobic tweeting, was hired to consult on an anti-racism strategy for Canadian broadcasters

Canada’s diversity minister denounced antisemitic tweets from a senior consultant on Monday and withdrew a six-figure grant from a government-funded project on which the consultant had been working. 

Diversity Minister Ahmed Hussen accused the consultant, Beirut-based Laith Marouf, of “unacceptable behavior” and said the Community Media Advocacy Centre, where Marouf was helping to develop an anti-racism strategy for Canadian broadcasters, will forfeit about $103,000 (U.S).

One of Marouf’s tweets, posted to an account that is now private, read: “You know all those loud mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists; when we liberate Palestine and they have to go back to where they come from, they will return to being low voiced bitches of [their] Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters.”

Stephen Ellis, Marouf’s lawyer, told the CBC that his client’s tweet was about Jewish white supremacists as opposed to Jewish people in general.

In statement posted to Twitter about Marouf’s tweets, Hussen wrote that “antisemitism has no place in this county” and that he has asked CMAC how it came to hire Marouf for an anti-racism project, and “how they plan on rectifying the situation given his antisemitic and xenophobic comments.”

The president and CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said in a statement that the centre appreciated Hussen’s action against the group that hired Marouf.

According to Marouf’s website, he is a journalist who regularly appears on the broadcast news networks Radio Sputnik, Press TV, and Al Mayadeen.

He has a long history of antisemitic and xenophobic tweeting. Although his current Twitter account is now private, he previously had an account suspended for violating community guidelines, according to The Guardian, and once dubbed former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell “the Jamaican house-slave of the Empire” and celebrated his death from COVID-19.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version