Canada must confront anti-Zionism as the new face of Jew-hatred - opinion

And while the prime minister noted that “antisemitism has surged to levels not seen in the post-war period,” his speech was nevertheless met with disappointment on the part of many Canadians – Jews and non-Jews alike – both for what he failed to say and for what he offered up by way of government action in response to this “surge” in Jew-hatred.

Jews are being canceled at cultural events. Antisemitism on Canadian campuses has been found not to be “episodic or peripheral,” but “persistent and proliferating,” revealing “a university culture that actively and systematically tries to exclude and vilify them.”

One commissioned report found that the term “Zionist” is now operative as a pejorative substitute for “Jewish” and that antisemitism has increased as a by-product of the now common accusation that Zionism is effectively genocide and that anyone who fails to oppose Zionism is complicit in genocide.

And so, when the prime minister spoke in June, it was troubling that he did not utter the word “anti-Zionism” and failed altogether to refer to Israel. That glaring omission has now received qualified redress by mention in Public Safety Canada’s National Commitments to Combat Antisemitism – Summer 2026 Progress Report, which states that “Antisemitism, which includes anti-Zionism, is not always obvious.”

Canada has adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism, but notes that it is not legally binding and does not criminalize any expression or behavior. Nowhere else in Public Safety Canada’s statement do we find reference to anti-Zionism.

Alas, the document, indeed, Canada’s entire treatment of the subject, fails to explain what is meant by “anti-Zionism,” which is distinct from “antizionism” – which is actually a form of Jew-hatred that is entirely distinct from antisemitism. I think of antizionism as the virtuous hatred that undercuts liberal democratic civic culture.

And so Canada commits the double error of reducing “anti-Zionism” – a movement opposed to the continued existence of the State of Israel – to antisemitism, thereby blurring important distinctions between discrete but equally objectionable and toxic ideologies, and of failing to address Jew-hatred substantively in its contemporary antizionist transmutation.

This leaves Canadian Jews feeling largely misunderstood and, indeed, unprotected from the actual hate that is visited upon them daily, not only by the “peaceful protesters” who accuse Jews of complicity in genocide and of harboring an evil equivalent to that embodied by the Nazis, but also by scholars and much of the NGO sector who see Jewish disavowal of Israeli actions – if not of Israel itself – as the litmus test for the “good,” “moral,” “righteous,” and “authentic” Jew.

Israel vilification has become the currency and cornerstone of contemporary international human rights discourse, with Israel’s “pariah” status having been consecrated by scholars, by the International Court of Justice, and now, implicitly, even by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Canada has played its own influential part in reinforcing this depiction of Israel with its imposition of economic sanctions ostensibly on goods produced by settlers in the West Bank, and by publicly validating the ICC arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

This was no minor error of judgment given that the issuance of those warrants blatantly disregarded the ICC’s own principle of complementarity, which confines its jurisdiction to circumstances in which a state – which “has the first responsibility and responsibility to prosecute international crimes” – is unwilling and/or unable to investigate and prosecute.

It must be acknowledged that both Canada’s imposition of sanctions and recognition of the arrest warrants were undertaken in the name of compliance with and respect for the rule of law. But that is also what makes them rather cynical exercises.

None as cynical, however, as Canada’s formal recognition, in September 2025, of Palestinian statehood, which, while offered up as a measure aimed at keeping the prospect of a “two-state solution” on life support, was, in every practical sense, intended as a rebuke to and public humiliation of Israel in the face of calls for a ceasefire while Israeli hostages – dead and alive – were still languishing in the Gazan tunnels.

Cynical because, of course, the predicates on which Prime Minister Carney publicly based the recognition of “Palestine” – the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to governance reforms, demilitarization, and holding general elections in 2026 in which Hamas would not be allowed any part – were never actual preconditions for state recognition and, more to the point, were never expected to be honored in 2026 or any time soon!

All of this has made Jewish life in Canada more precarious, uncomfortable, and contingent. The dominant contemporary expression of Jew-hatred – antizionism – which is brazenly contemptuous of the core Jewish ideal of self-determination in an ancestral, indigenous, and biblically prophesied homeland must be given paramountcy in the hierarchy of evils targeted in Canada’s strategy to restore Canada’s civic compact with the Jewish people.