WE’RE #1 — AT ANTISEMITISM

CANADIANS ARE SHOWING NATIONAL PRIDE LIKE NEVER BEFORE. HERE’S ONE CHAMPIONSHIP THAT SHOULD SHAME US.

Protest in Toronto of definitely-not-antisemitic activists. (Also: massive self-own. Check out the sign on the right.)

A just-released report by an Israeli government department calls Canada the “champion of antisemitism.”

Canadians are stereotypically a modest people, so excuse us if we do not crow about this accolade.

My country is experiencing an unprecedented bout of patriotism right now in response to the US president’s threats. We’re waving maple leaf flags and boycotting American products and excruciatingly resisting weekend trips to Trader Joe’s. (Now that’s commitment!) And we’ve got a lot to be proud of. As this report suggests, we also have plenty to be ashamed of.

Most Canadians probably didn’t notice that Israel launched a broadside against our country yesterday — just as most Israelis probably don’t notice or care when the Canadian government barfs out its occasional attacks on Israeli policies. But ordinary Canadians should take note of this latest development. (So should non-Canadians, for reasons I will explain.)

I’m not going to give too much credence to the report specifically — the methodology is probably more anecdotal and haphazard than academically rigorous. There is no universal standard to measure antisemitism and so much of it depends on self-reporting, as well as recording by either governments or NGOs or both, so comparing outcomes over time or across jurisdictions is not really apples to apples. But the broad strokes are certainly accurate.

The world has an antisemitism problem — if you doubt that, you’re part of the problem — and Canada is a prime example.

“From October 7 through the end of 2024, antisemitic incidents increased dramatically across the globe: by 200% in the United States, 670% in Canada, and approximately 320% in Australia compared to the same period in 2023,” states the report.

My caution about the methodologies is probably secondary to how some people will find fault with the report. On one page, a featured stat declares: “Between October 7, 2023 and October 7, 2024, 1,500 protests took place in Toronto.”

Those who don’t care much about antisemitism (or Jews) will take exception to the fact that the report subsumes “pro-Palestinian” protests as evidence of antisemitism. A lot of people will look at this pullquote and dismiss the entire enterprise.

But this raises an additional matter that we should address (I’ve been meaning to for a while, and this report gives the perfect segue). The assertion that “pro-Palestinian” demonstrations in Toronto (for example) are not de facto antisemitic is no more bogus than the assumption that they are de facto antisemitic.

Here’s what I mean: Even if these protests were not rampant with antisemitic imagery (they are), even if these protests did not negate the right of the Jewish people, along among the peoples of the world, to national self-determination (“From the river to the sea …”), their effect would still be substantively antisemitic.

The same graphic that tallied the rallies in Toronto declared: “90% of British Jews say they would avoid traveling to the city center during a major anti-Israel protest.”

In other words, you can argue that a “pro-Palestinian” demonstration is merely legitimate political expression. But when 90% of the members of an ethnocultural group don’t even feel safe walking by it, that should be all the evidence we need of a problem. Outcomes matter more than intent (even if we naively assume good intent in this case, which would truly require a virus-resistant dose of rose-tinted Canadian multicultural kumbaya).

As a society, we have allowed a band of racist radical extremists to convince us that their racist radical extremism is legitimate political discourse.

I’m verging on a free speech absolutist, so I’m not saying they shouldn’t be allowed to rally. But I am absolutely saying we should acknowledge what we’re dealing with here. These rallies are not family picnics or Terry Fox Runs. They are not even aimed at freeing Palestine (since the “pro-Palestinian” movement does not centre the freedom or human rights of Palestinian women, queers, minorities or, well, anyone). They are an anti-Israel hate movement with a cheap veneer of national liberation.

Meanwhile, we have let them get away with a fake firewall between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. We have accepted, and encouraged our society to accept, that antisemitism is bad (we’ve actually clearly failed on that front, which is the larger point here, but stick with me). And yet we have foolishly granted immunity to these protestors, swallowing the made-up dichotomy that anti-Zionism is fine as long as it doesn’t cross the line into antisemitism. It’s not, FFS.

If you scratch the surface of an anti-Zionist, you will find they do not even understand their own nomenclature. Some will claim they do not seek the destruction of Israel even as they self-define as “anti-Zionist” which, by very definition, opposes the existence of a Jewish state.

“Anti-Zionism” is not “criticism of Israel.” It is the ideology that Jews should be stateless. In theory, that means no Israel. In practise, that would mean the ethnic cleansing of half the world’s Jews.

And here (if we actually engage with these idiots) is where we get into the real cognitive compost of anti-Zionism.

Pressed, they will opt for one of several off-ramps. No, they might say, they don’t want Israel destroyed, they support a “right of return,” which would flood the Jewish demographic of the country, destroying it in everything but name. They use the pleasant term “binational state,” which might resonate especially fondly with Canadians, except that Quebecois do not cross the border into New Brunswick to behead babies or traverse the Ottawa River to immolate Ontario families alive. But I digress.

We let them get away with medieval antisemitic imagery (bloodthirst, babykilling, demonization) against Israel as long as they are careful to clarify it is “Israelis” they are calling blood-slurping demons, not “Jews.”

When activists declare “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” and we let them get away with it, we move the Overton window to allow them to get away with the antisemitic premise that Jews are the only people in the world not deserving of self-determination.

There are some very specific reasons why antisemitism is especially rampant in Canada — and this holds lessons for other countries. We have a bigger problem because we have a larger number of the sorts of people who are the problem.

We are an inherently liberal country. A lot of Canadians subscribe to a sort of innocent worldview, a kind of “Can’t we all just get along?” attitude — but in the process we misinterpret who is standing in the way of peace and coexistence.

Canadians also like to imagine ourselves committed to multilateralism, so when the UN passes hate resolutions, too many Canadians give legitimacy to the obsessive anti-Israel hatefest.

And then there is a range of individual and collective sociopsychological phenomena. Not least is a sort of quasi-religious substitutionary atonement by atheists, agnostics and liberal Christians who make up a large proportion of both Canada and the so-called “pro-Palestinian” movement worldwide. The things we feel guilt about as antiracist, correct-thinking Western progressives, like our own settler-colonialism, our society’s racism, economic inequality, and assorted injustices, we project onto Israel and seek its crucifixion (as I posted about on Easter). It is no coincidence that this is the Jewish state we are talking about. Because for 2000 years, our civilization has learned to project our guilt onto a Jewish vessel in order to expiate our sins. That’s what’s happening here.

Canada has lots of lessons for the world. Some good, some bad. “The world needs more Canada,” according to one conversely immodest (and therefore seemingly unCanadian) bumper sticker. But this aspect of Canada we do not need more of. If we can identify in the comparatively small ideological Petri dish of Canada what works and doesn’t work in the fight against antisemitism, though, we really will have lessons for the world.

More to come …

Canadian friends: If you feel like using this post to blah blah blah about how Mark Carney is an unrepentant antisemite and the Liberal party are fascist collaborators, please, save your energy. Extinguish your flaming toupee and funnel your rage into something constructive. Get involved in the political party that best reflects your values and try to get them to change (or strengthen, depending on their position) the policies that concern you. Sorry, but I’ve really lost my patience for folks who refuse to recognize that the Liberal Party of Canada is a big-tent party that includes people we agree with, others we disagree with and probably a majority who just wish the whole Israel-Palestine thing would disappear. If you want to entrench the (still) governing party in positions that hurt Israel and Jews, keep calling them Nazis.