The Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights released its long-awaited report on antisemitism entitled “Standing United Against antisemitism”. But it avoided addressing a key issue facing Canadians concerned about Israel’s policies of genocide, ethnic cleansing and aggression. Do Canadians have the right to criticize Israel? Or not?

Is it antisemitic to criticize Israel?

Astoundingly, after 16 months of study, a senate committee report on the issue of antisemitism in Canada was unable to answer clearly whether criticizing Israel is inherently antisemitic.The executive summary of the committee’s report can be found HERE. Unfortunately it isn’t very helpful.

At a time when 60% of Canadians feel that what Israel is doing in Gaza is “morally outrageous, and over 50% of Canadians feel Israel is committing genocide (Angus Reid 2025), the senate committee still left important questions hanging. For example:

• Is it antisemitic to refer to ICJ findings of plausible Israeli genocide?
• Is it antisemitic to express approval for the International Criminal Court indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?
• Is it antisemitic to refer to the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem which claims Israel runs a political system of “Jewish Supremacy” from the River to the Sea?
• Is it antisemitic to say, as President Jimmy Carter said, that Israel operates apartheid in the West Bank?
• Is it antisemitic to repeat claims that Israel operates torture against Palestinian prisoners as a state policy?

Senator Yuen-Pau Woo tried several times to get the Chair of the committee, Sen. Paulette Senior, to clarify what the committee thinks. Watch this short clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHXV6JAnXjM

Why the ambiguity?

Is this a defeat for the lobby, or a success?

The idea of a Senate committee study was promoted by Zionist organizations in Canada. They saw it as an important element in their campaign to protect Israel by raising the fear of an “antisemitism crisis”.

Committee hearings gave ample opportunity to Israel lobby organizations including the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC), B’nai Brith Canada and the Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism (ALCCA) to make their case that Canada is facing an “unprecedented” antisemitism crisis. (This despite recent polling data which shows that only 3% of Canadians have strong negative views about Jews, compared to 9% holding negative views about Muslims.)

But while the lobby put a brave face on the committee report, it seems the lobby was frustrated it that it couldn’t “close the deal’. It’s goal was to have the committee strongly endorse the IHRA definition of antisemitism, under which strong critiques of Israel as illustrated above would be considered antisemitic.

But the committee also heard from non-Zionist Jewish organizations, including IJV Canada, opposed to the IHRA definition. As the committee report put it: “witnesses’ views on the IHRA definition ranged from those who wished to see the government “disendorse” the definition to those who wanted to see the government “enforce” it.   The committee did neither, opting instead to simply note that Canada has already adopted the IHRA definition as part of its Anti-Racism Strategy.

It seems reasonable to assume that the committee was “hung” between those senators who would like to use any method possible to protect Israel, and those who felt that much of the criticism of Israel, particularly that which comes from legitimate and respected human rights organizations, is legitimate.

In short, while the Zionist lobby scored some points, it did not get the prize it was looking for.

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