Public Safety Canada Update on Anti-Zionism

Canada has taken an important step towards stemming the rise of antisemitism. Public Safety Canada’s recently released National Commitments to Combat Antisemitism – Summer 2026 progress report, and the Canadian Handbook on the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, make clear that anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism.

The report affirms that “the right to self-determination is a core principle of international law” and explains that the “belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland is known as Zionism. It is antisemitic to selectively deny the right to self-determination to the Jewish people. It is also antisemitic to deny the indigeneity and continuous religious and historic ties of Jews to the land of Israel.”

The report goes on to state that qntisemitism, which includes anti-Zionism, is not always obvious. While some incidents involve explicit threats, violence, or hate speech, others may take the form of conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, coded language, stereotypes, or the collective blaming of Jewish people. Recognizing antisemitism consistently is an essential first step toward responding effectively.”

In modern history, antisemitism has taken on different forms but always with a common outcome, which is the casting of blame upon Jews for that which ails society at large. Under Nazism, Jews were cast as an inferior race. Soviet communism sought an end to religious observance but many Jews refused to disavow their faith so antisemitism was religious in its manifestation. Today, antisemitism in pluralistic western societies is not racial, because there are many races amongst us, nor religious, because so too are there many religions practiced. Today’s antisemitism is political, having taken the form of anti-Zionism.

According to the handbook, “approximately 91% of Canadian Jews believe Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state – the essence of Zionism.” A great many diaspora Jews love Israel, not for its politics, but because it is hard-coded in our consciousness. The Torah (Old Testament), which is the glue that has bound our nation together for three thousand years, is our story, and Israel stands at the gravitational centre of it.

The handbook references an example of the argument anti-Zionists commonly make, in this instance via an Instagram post from December 2023, which stated that “You can’t be antiracist and Zionist. Zionism is a racist and violent settler-colonial project to ethnically cleanse Palestine of Palestinians, including by Genocide!” Before the world convicts Israel of the crime of genocide, people should consider that no court has issued a ruling. Indeed, Joan Donoghue, the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) then-president, clarified in April 2024 that the ICJ had not decided whether the genocide claim itself was plausible. Yet anti-Zionists commonly refer to “the genocide” as if it were an uncontested fact. That mass destruction has followed the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks is not disputed. International courts may ultimately rule against Israel, but that is a matter for courts and experts.

Conspiratorially, some anti-Zionists will argue that it is undue Jewish influence that has resulted in the position Public Safety Canada has taken. Claims that it is an infringement on freedom of speech will be made. The balance between individual freedoms and community safety must be carefully struck if we are to keep the peace while maintaining civil liberties – it is a delicate balance. The handbook is explicit that the definition of antisemitism does not criminalize any expression. What it does is give police, educators, employers and social media platforms a clear standard for recognizing antisemitism.

My father told us stories about how, growing up in Toronto in the 1940s, he saw signs at Sunnyside Beach that read “No Jews or Dogs Allowed”. He enjoyed telling the part about becoming a lifeguard there a decade later. We learned about how he entered medical school on a quota that limited the number of Jews who could become doctors in Canada. He expressed his hope that Jews would continue to live free of antisemitism in Canada as he had for much of his life, and as my sister and I had for all of ours. He would be heartbroken were he to witness what we are experiencing today, but would take heart in the fact that Canada has in this report taken a meaningful step toward recognizing that we have a problem that can be solved. In order for us to maintain the social contract we have all benefited from, we must address the public safety crisis that anti-Zionism is feeling.