Today I ran into a colleague I hadn’t seen in at least a decade.  Turns out she lives around the corner from me.  Also turns out she won’t – can’t – watch the news; it’s too graphic; too frightening; too in-your-face – she tells me.  This is about Gaza.  She can read about it, but she can’t watch it. 

Originally from south Asia,  she says she is haunted by Israel’s genocide in Gaza.  

She knows I’m a Jew.  She never thought her comments today in support of Palestinians were antisemitic.  She said “of course” about the fact Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians. 

What has Israel’s (and establishment Canadian Jews’) claim that criticizing Israel is antisemitic got to do with the genocide?

Let’s think for a minute. 

What has Israel’s (and establishment Canadian Jews’) claim that criticizing Israel is antisemitic got to do with the genocide? The question is answered by a leap in logic that shocks.  

We are antisemitic if we criticize Israel. The pro-Israel lobby wants us to believe that Israel is the spiritual homeland for the Jews – though few from the Jewish diaspora  are willing to live there.  Indeed, only 96,000 have emigrated  to Israel over the last three years, while more than 268,000 have left Israel permanently for Canada, the US or western Europe.   

The right-wing insist that Israel is so important to the Jews, no one can say anything negative about it.  Wait – does that make sense?

You can denounce the US — but not Israel

I don’t think so.  Look at China, there’s been no end to trying to disparage that country – yet our Prime Minister has told us he respects China and the Chinese.  Russia or Ukraine, no one seriously insists we never discuss that war.  Sudan anyone – everyone agrees we need to support the good guys there.   Hell we’re able to condemn Trump, the US and their strangling us with tariffs.  Goodness, we refuse to distribute their liquor in 8 out of 10 provinces.  We’re even “boycotting” the US in terms of purchasing their booze, food and imports that steal jobs from Canadians.   Even our PM is “elbows up” against the Americans, and has even slagged off Trump. Yet virtually nobody says we’re anti-American for doing so.

No matter how much we disparage other countries’ actions– condemning one country alone, Israel, has nightmarish consequences including these noted below.  Criticizing or opposing Israel’s genocide today makes you liable to

• Be fired from your job
• Have your name ruined by associating with Palestinian supporters
• Be thrown out of university
• Lose your job as a paramedic
• Be forced out of a top job at the Art Gallery of Ontario
• Not be allowed to practice medicine in your chosen specialty
• Lose a job as a university professor
• Get tossed as CEO at the Canadian Human Rights Commission

Speaking ill of Israel, pissing off dedicated Zionists, and those who love every murderous thing Israel does (or at the very least defends every murderous thing)  can end your career, and your livelihood.

How can that be?

What is the power of the Israel narrative, and how can it be that establishment Jews in Canada can absolutely silence Canadians who condemn Israel? 

Item:

Jewish lawyers at the criminal bar —who, as a matter of principle, like all criminal defence lawyers, defend the most appalling criminals, fight against solitary confinement of their clients, fight for humane treatment of prisoners, and even call out police for practising discrimination against racialized Canadians. Yet, when it comes to the unspeakable acts committed by Israel, these lawyers say nothing.  They say nothing about the torture, the starvation, the severe beatings, the dog attacks, being forced into stress positions – – to name a handful- all illegally meted out to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.  

Item:

Jewish doctors, including the 550 Jewish doctors affiliated with Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, who typically stand up for patients’ rights, for palliative care, for patients’ quality of life, for the right to treatment and care no matter income or background are silent.  How can it be these doctors ignore the more than 1700 healthcare workers including medical doctors, paramedics, nurses and other hospital staff have been deliberately killed by Israeli bombs and missiles since Oct. ‘23.  How can virtually every practising Jewish doctor  – especially those who deal with children – pretend the state they love has nothing to do with creating thousands of child amputees, or indeed killing more than 20,000 children.   

Of course it’s not just Jewish professionals who support Israel.  Universities across the country have dismissed or suspended staff and faculty who have supported the Palestinian cause.  We only have to look here, here and here to find abundant proof. Journalists, especially at the CBC, complain they are not allowed to use words such as genocide, or other accurate descriptors (which even some Israeli organizations use, in stories on and off air.   

So there we have it.

We cannot easily criticize Israel. We can’t call out its supporters, its backers, its charitable flunkies that use Canadians’ tax money to fund war and arm the IDF.  Libraries support “freedom to read,” yet in Halifax and elsewhere they also have shut down discussions and events on Palestine, fearing backlash from the establishment Jews.

Photo at the top and below: A Palestinian woman reacts as she returns to her destroyed house, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, January 19, 2025. (credit: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas)