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Toronto (November 18, 2024) – Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) is relieved by the cancellation, albeit overdue, of a vigil in Mississauga previously planned to honour former Hamas terror leader Yahya Sinwar.

In a statement released Saturday, the group behind the widely condemned event, which is led by a rabid anti-Israel extremist, said it’s cancelling the gathering that was slated for November 26 at the city’s Celebration Square for “several reasons.”

This comes after repeated calls, including from FSWC, for Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish to publicly condemn and cancel the planned event to honour a genocidal arch-terrorist, who headed an organization openly committed to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews.

Last week, in a phone conversation with Parrish, FSWC President and CEO Michael Levitt repeatedly urged her to speak out against the vigil, whose latest promotional material read, “Sinwar Is Our Mandela” – in response to which she categorically refused to take a position. In recent days, many people beyond the Jewish community, including other public officials and media commentators, sharply criticized her stance and lack of moral fortitude in failing to condemn this event.

“After a wave of justified outrage, the plug has thankfully been pulled on this odious vigil honouring mass murderer Yahya Sinwar,” said FSWC President and CEO Michael Levitt. “The sad reality is that it took mounting public indignation instead of leadership from the mayor for this gathering to be finally cancelled. The failure of leadership that allowed this fiasco to escalate in the first place, when the mayor’s condemnation from the start could have nipped it in the bud, is deeply disturbing. Far too often, our politicians are turning away, lacking the courage to confront the extremism and hate on full display on our city streets, a reality that’s a threat to all Canadians.”

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