Israel-Palestine and Antisemitism in Canada

Oh, Canada!

Shootings, stabbings, arson and vandalism, harassment and intimidation, widespread, ugly institutional prejudice and discrimination, Left leadership, centrist complicity, Muslim mobilization - all in a country whose most precious image to the world (and to itself) not long ago was that of one of the most successful “multicultural” societies in the world. 

Today Canada is known as one of the most antisemitic countries in the West, and rightly so. Canadian society has undergone strange and dangerous changes to its democratic and pluralist norms as a tsunami of antizionist antisemitism that broke on October 7, 2023 has continued to gather momentum, launched and fuelled by a coalition of forces the like of which we have never seen in this country before.

One part of this coalition is secular and identifies as ‘progressive.’ It comprises key sectors of the political Left – especially appalling to me because of my life long political stance, and especially important in providing societal legitimacy and cover – and overlaps into key academic programs and student groups in the universities, the humanitarian NGO and cultural sectors, parts of the trade union movement, and significant numbers of educators in the public school system. 

The other part of this coalition comprises significant parts of especially the newly arrived (last 20 years) Muslim community. Of those Canadian Muslims willing to participate in opinion surveys, 52 percent identify as antisemitic and believe that the Jews are not entitled to a state, meaning they oppose Israel’s very existence and reject a two-state solution, insisting as their current chants and slogans make clear, ‘we don’t want your two states, we want it all’ and ‘we don’t want your two states, we want 1948.’

To get a sense of what forces are involved in both parts of this collation, a glance at the endorsement list for the organization BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) is very helpful. I take up this composition and related issues in a number of articles and essays posted here. Other groups include Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, Students for Justice in Palestine, Arab Canadian Lawyers Association (ACLA); Samidoun (designated a terrorist organization by Canadian government); United Network for Justice & Peace in Palestine & Israel, Independent Jewish Voices (representing under 5% of Jewish Canadians) and online Left platforms including  rabble.ca, The Breach, The Grind, Canadian Dimension and The Maple. 

As I and so many others here and in Israel-Palestine see it, the perspective of ending Israel – ‘anti-Zionism’ in a word - is both morally repugnant and a recipe for endless war. It unites the extremes of both nations in a policy of aspiration for mutual destruction. This is a non-future. The only real future is one of two nations in one land – as one of the most important Israeli-Palestinian groups, Standing Together, has written about in a book I urge on everyone: The Future is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land.  But I would add one further and critical elaboration: The Arab world has to finally renounce its rejection of Israel, and take responsibility for standing up a serious, pro-coexistence Palestinian government so that Israeli and Palestinians both feel secure. This is what Rahm Emmanuel, former US adviser to president Obama, mayor of Chicago and ambassador to Japan calls the 23-state solution – in which it is the effort of Israel and Palestine plus the regional actors not aligned with Iran and Qatar, that act to make peace a reality.

Nothing demonstrates the reactionary, annihilationist politics of the so-called ‘pro-Palestinian’ movement more drastically than the way it seeks to denounce and erase the existence of the mass, anti-occupation, pro-peace movement that includes Standing Together as one of hundreds of organizations, on the ground in Israel-Palestine with supporters in its diasporas so this coalition can claim that it alone represents the best interests of the Palestinians, as the ‘progressive’ force. In my view, this is the ultimate proof of the delusional deformation of the Left, signaling that it has turned into an enabler not only of antizionism and antisemitism, but of Islamist imperialism, led by Iran and Qatar with Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other militias in the ‘ring of fire’ creating a massive economic and political system in the Middle East that acts as huge obstacle to peace, democracy and effective sovereignty for many countries in the region and beyond. The absolute failure of the Left to acknowledge and deal with the Iranian axis also, tragically for Canada, disqualifies it at this time from providing leadership in foreign policy for this country.

To be clear, in Canada, Left and Muslim anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism. This variant is based on a set of false claims that together posit Israel’s unique ‘evil’ and the commensurate need to end it. These claims are first, that Jews are not indigenous to the Holy Land. Second, that, even if they were there among others long ago, they abandoned it for two thousand years so have no legitimate claim on it. Third, that when they started to immigrate to it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries they were a tiny minority who stole the land. Fourth, that they started a brutal war against poor, helpless Arab Muslim Palestinians in 1948, ethnically cleansed them in an attempted genocide, and turned them into refugees for five generations. Fifth, that the Israelis are responsible for every hardship that befell the Palestinians after 1948, that, in short and from start to finish, Israelis are demon usurper war criminals and Palestinians are beatified, helpless and passive victims.

These are all false – they are lies and calumnies – and they are at the heart of the information war, documented by Warren Kinsella in his book The Hidden Hand, that have spread and become gospel across huge swathes of society today. Their adoption by such large numbers of people is tragic proof that we are living in an age where history has almost died, thanks to a confluence of factors, not least its algorithmic murder on the internet. But since these Big Lies have become entrenched and so terribly consequential, there will be no turning back the tide of this new wave of antisemitism  without some effective replacement by a true account that can remake public discourse on the basis of the facts this ‘narrative’ denies.

A major obstacle to this today is that most people do not know the key pieces in the history of the Jews and modern Israel that answer and refute the constitutive lies of the antizionist narrative. This is why I have written the essay, ‘Indigenous, historical, modern, contemporary: What you need to know to refute the falsification of history in the Nakba exhibit and the "pro-Palestinian narrative," from 1200 BCE to the present.’  I have also, with thanks to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, included as a companion piece to that history, a timeline of the Jews in the Holy land over the same period.

Surveys in mid-2026 have found that nearly one third of all Canadians support what has come to be called ‘pro-Palestinian’ politics. It is not clear from these surveys how many of these people believe they are fighting for a better life for Palestinians in their own state alongside Israel, or for the elimination of Israel all together, i.e. anti-Zionism. 

The Jewish and non-Jewish Canadians who actively and publicly stand against these developments – the majority of Canadian Jews are opposed to the policies of Netanyahu in Israel-Palestine though this fact is suppressed by our media – are largely alone so far. This is because the majority of non-Jewish Canadians who are not yet part of the active antisemitic anti-two-state movement are very confused and passive in the face of developments they should be mobilizing against. Stunned and frightened by the sheer viciousness of US President Donald Trump’s war on the economy and sovereignty of this country, as well as struggling with all the ills of burning forests, rising floods, runaway prices, degraded social services and education, along with all the problems of deteriorating physical and mental health that accompany these, most want – arguably need - more than ever to believe that Canada is whole, healthy, non-American and united. 

Deeply disinformed by their media, mainstream and Left, legacy and digital, totally unfamiliar with the history of Jews and Palestinians in the Holy Land, and pathetically eager to be seen to be anything but “Islamophobic,” – the scariest label in the arsenal of politically incorrect epithets in this “we-are-the-inclusivist” country - they are like deer in the headlights. They hope if they just close their eyes, those headlights won’t hit them. So, they are pretending that the livid and systemic antisemitsm growing every day, and the vile actions and views of those who advance them aren’t real or important or matter to them, even though the safe, pluralist country they so strongly identify with has already long since disappeared and hate, discrimination and violence have taken up residence with impunity. 

These are the themes I take up in my new articles and essays. My hope is that with time and evidence, this tide will turn. I hope to provide the kind of knowledge and analysis that can help to stem the flow, and then reverse it.