Projet Montréal contends the city should cut ties with Israel over its violent repression of Palestinians just like former mayor Jean Doré did with South Africa when he joined the global movement pushing to end Apartheid.

After Nelson Mandela was released from a quarter century behind bars in 1990, the political prisoner who later became South Africa’s first Black President visited Montreal to express his gratitude. Doré welcomed him at City Hall and Mandela addressed 20,000 rapt Montrealers on Champ de Mars — a triumphant moment of international solidarity in the city’s history.

But opposing Apartheid in the 1980s didn’t polarize a divided population, poison a tense social climate, or potentially put the safety of some Montrealers at risk.

Rather than unifying people, Projet Montréal’s plan to bring a motion to council Monday to “recognize and denounce the apartheid regime in Palestine and the genocide being perpetrated there,” risks tearing at the fraying social fabric.

It’s a different time, a different context — and a different city than in Doré’s day.

Montreal is home to a large Jewish community. Some have been here more than a century, others settled in the city after the Second World War, including many Holocaust survivors. More recent waves of immigration have brought people from Middle Eastern countries.

That means many Montrealers are deeply affected by the wars raging around the world today.

But these faraway conflicts are also reverberating here at home. Protests have led to counterprotests and sometimes clashes in the streets or on campuses. In certain cases, police have had to........

© Montreal Gazette