Marty York: Recognizing anti-Zionism as antisemitism is meaningless without action

So the federal government, through its Public Safety Canada department, emerged the other day with a report on what it described as a progress summary on its “commitments to combat antisemitism” in the country that it came up with over the summer.

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Frankly, it wasn’t much of a progress report, at least, not likely in the minds of many Canadians, Jewish and otherwise, who have heard Prime Minister Mark Carney and politicians at all levels of government repeatedly regurgitating rhetoric about the need to combat the rising scourge of Jew hatred. Let’s face it. Talk, as the old adage tells us, is cheap. Governments have taken very little concrete action against antisemitism, while Jews continued over the summer to be targeted at inconceivable rates by hate-motivated incidents, including Jewish-owned restaurants being targeted with gunfire as well as online and verbal harassment.

Canadian governments, the aforementioned report states, “are updating laws to better reflect how antisemitism and other forms of hate are expressed today.” Ideally, of course, this bit of information should be somewhat soothing and a welcome source of comfort.

Columnist Jesse Kline keeps you up to date with what’s happening in Israel and the effects of antisemitism on life here in Canada. Friday mornings.

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But, after all the time that has transpired, and after all the hideous and vile hate crimes aimed at Jews in Canada since the murderous, barbaric invasion of Israel on October 7, judgment must be reserved while we sit on “shpilkes,” a commonly used Yiddish word that can be defined somewhat loosely as pins and needles, or a state of restlessness and nervousness.

The fact is, many Jews I’ve spoken to in this country are perplexed, impatient and irate by what they perceive as not only a dearth of government and police action to commensurately punish the thugs and miscreants who organize and/or carry on these outrageous hate crimes against Jews, but they also believe that passive conduct by the governments and police generally has contributed to the normalization of antisemitism.

There was one item in the recent government report, however, that some Jews I have spoken with seem to be viewing as a step in the right direction. The document states outright that antisemitism includes “anti-Zionism.” This is recognized by many Jewish Canadians I have spoken with as a concession from Carney et al., since neither the PM nor other Canadian leaders included a reference to anti-Zionism in their past remarks and addresses about antisemitism.

I don’t want to go overboard on this, as the government has yet to report any punishment or penalties against those who use the term “Zionist” in hate rants, but I will suggest it is at least somewhat significant that a government report has finally noted that antisemitism includes anti-Zionism.

“Anti-Zionism is, in fact, the current iteration of antisemitism or Jew-hatred, and in and of itself, is a hate movement,” Haddasah Goldberg, co-chair of CLARITy Coalition’s Canadian Committee, told me. “It demonizes, delegitimizes and applies double standards to the one Jewish state and makes all Jews a target. This weapon is not directed only against Jews and Israel. It is a weapon that divides societies with an intent to destroy democracies.”

Sadly, the term “Zionist” appears to have ascended to trendy heights in the twisted world of antisemites, even the quietest ones. For the past few years, it appears that the Jew-haters have realized that using recognized antisemitic phrases is likely to be counterproductive for them, so they use the term “Zionist” instead.

Unfortunately, many Canadians likely have no idea what the term “Zionist” actually means and have used the word in their writings and speech without understanding that it is used in two ways. The first use is its proper definition — someone who supports the right of Jewish self-determination in Israel. The second connotation is an attack that implies that Zionists are immoral. In fact, some liken the word “Zionist” to “Nazi,” as absurd as that is.

Opponents of Zionism reject the foundational premise of a sovereign Jewish state, though their motivations, historical roots and political goals have varied over time. It’s possible that some anti-Zionists are simply unaware of the history behind what led to Israel becoming an independent country in 1948 in the aftermath of the Second World War, the horrors of the Holocaust and a partition vote by the United Nations (UN), but not all of them.

Irrefutably, the term Zionism is often misused, mismanaged and exploited.

If, heaven forbid, history repeats itself and Jews are expelled from antisemitic countries, or feel compelled to move to Israel because of their fear, loneliness and despair in, say, Canada, it sure seems to me as though Zionism is a perfectly sensible safeguard.

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