B'nai Brith Canada called for action to be taken against a university professor who repeatedly compared Zionism to the white supremacy movement in the United States.
The Canadian Jewish group wrote a letter the York University's president and Vice-Challancer where the associate professor Faisal Bhabha teaches Human Rights courses at the university's Osgoode Hall Law School. The letter petitions for Bhabha to be barred from teaching the subject.
“I’m equating white supremacy with Jewish supremacy," Bhabha reportedly said during an online debate event on June 10, according to B'nai Brith Canada. The statement was made in answer to a panelist who challenged him for a prior comment he made during the debate where he said that, "Zionism isn’t about self-determination, it’s about Jewish supremacy."
The letter also calls out Bhabha for his downplaying of the Holocaust.
"Accusing Israel of exaggerating the Holocaust could be, for some, a plausible argument," the letter states Bhaba said, adding that he gave no apparent evidence for the comment.
Several days prior to the antisemitic incident, the university's president and vice chancellor Lenton wrote an open letter regarding the university's antisemitism policy.
“York is not immune from antisemitism, nor are we unique in grappling with its manifestations within our community. The University has been clear: we condemn antisemitism in all its forms."
Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada wrote in a public statement published by the Canadian group that, “now is the time for York to show that its commitment to fighting antisemitism includes concrete actions, not just words.
“In our opinion, someone who believes that the vast majority of Canadian Jews subscribe to ‘Jewish supremacy’ and that the Jewish State might ‘plausibly’ have exaggerated the Holocaust is clearly unfit to teach anyone about human rights.”
This is not the first time that Zionism was compared to white supremacy in a university. In May, 2019 a guest speaker at the University of California Los Angeles made a similar comment.
The lecturer was Prof. Rabab Abdulhadi, an associate professor of Ethnic Studies and Race and Resistance Studies at San Francisco State University.
Two students during the lecture reported to the Jewish Journal that Abdulhadi made "a claim that those who support Israel want to ethnically cleanse the Middle East and those affiliated with Israel and pro-Israel organizations are white supremacists."