With the greatest respect to Justin Trudeau, Liberal MP Iqra Khalid and the federal Liberal caucus, it’s none of your damn business whether I have a fear of Islam, which is what “Islamophobia” means.

As a Jew, my fear of Islam -- pertaining specifically to that malignant and widespread strain of it that hates Jews -- is completely rational.

But even if it was irrational, it is not the business of the government to tell me how I should FEEL about anything.

That’s what dictatorships (many of them Islamic, which have driven Jews out of their countries) do.

In a democracy, the proper role of government is to prevent me from ACTING in a bigoted manner towards Muslims because of my feelings, regardless of whether they are rational.

I am also capable of fearing that malignant and widespread strain of Islam that hates Jews, while being outraged by the massacre of innocent Muslims peacefully praying in a Quebec mosque.

I condemn that vile ACT, along with all ACTS of anti-Muslim bigotry, which have nothing to do with my rational fear of that malignant and widespread strain of Islam that hates Jews.

I also condemn the death threats my Sun colleague, Tarek Fatah, a Muslim, constantly faces from followers of Islam for his views critical of Islam as it is practised in large parts of the Islamic world, including by some Muslims in Canada.

My fear of that malignant and widespread strain of Islam that hates Jews is well-founded.

In the modern era alone, I can draw a line from the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, siding with Hitler and the Nazis in the Second World War, starting in November, 1941, to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling the Jewish state of Israel a “fake” nation and a “dirty chapter” of history on Tuesday.

I can quote from the 1988 Jew-hating charter of Hamas, the elected government in Gaza, which says: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it ...

“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious ... The (Islamic Resistance) Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realized.”

“Hamas has been looking forward to implementing Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: ‘O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him!’

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Israel is an Islamic Waqf, consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered; it or any part of it, should not be given up.”

“Initiatives and so-called peaceful resolutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement ...

“Leaving the circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason and cursed be he who does that ... ’’

Finally I can cite diatribes from imams in Canada who are frequently exposed calling for death to the Jews in their sermons and describing the Jewish people as “filth”.

So don’t tell me, Prime Minister, that I have no right to fear that malignant but widespread strain of Islam that hates Jews.