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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Peter Hard truths. Great clarity on an unclear definition. Bravo for this powerful contribution. Rick
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Thanks, Peter. David
In my personal view, it is antisemitic not to criticize Israel. I recall years attending religious education in our synagogue after public school. Although I no longer attend synagogues (long irrelevant story), I still believe and strive to practice the principles that were taught there. Israel violates all of those principles every day and has always done so. That school was very pro judaism but my teachers always made it clear that it was possible to be a bad Jew, i.e,. a Jew who violated the principles of the Talmud and that it would be wrong not to oppose what they do.
Thank God for Senator Woo!! Alex
“Ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human.” Pope Leo XIV
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The Senate committee appears to be a patsy for Zionist organizations in Canada. Their report is titled “Standing United Against antisemitism”, so it is ludicrous for the chair say they had no working definition of anti-semitism, or refuse to address what that was.
We are often told to accept the IHRA definition of antisemitism
We should not discuss the IHRA definition without reading the text. It consists of a “definition” and a number of illustrations.
The definition is :
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
This “definition” is completely meaningless; “a certain perception of Jews” says nothing. The next two words, “which may”, mean that what follow is not required. Then we see that the antisemitism may be directed “toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals” – i.e. anyone. In other words, according to IHRA. speakers may brand any statement that they don’t like as antisemitic.
If there is any meaning in the document it is in the examples. Unfortunately, even the most precise examples, cannot define the meaning of a general term.
The part of the document most often cited by the IHRA defenders is “However, criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic“.
The problem with that condition is that no two countries are alike. I am critical of many countries (including Canada, Israel, the US, Germany, and others). My criticism of one country is not similar to my criticism of any other country because their “faults” are not similar. Israel is unique and criticisms of it are not likely to be similar to criticisms of any others. That means that the IHRA “definition” might be used to brand any comment about Israel that is not also true of other countries as antisemitic. In fact, praise of Israel might be regarded as antisemitic.
Peter what a disappointment about the senate. Why is it so difficult for them to see the genocide.
Email I sent to CBC and our politicians
CBC did you report on the the UN Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry which published its findings on the Israeli targeting of Palestinian children. The report is titled “The essence of childhood has been destroyed.”
The Commission found that between October 2023 and October 2025, at least 20,179 Palestinian children were killed and 44,143 injured in Gaza, and concluded on reasonable grounds that Israeli forces directly and intentionally targeted children. Among almost a 100 pages of documented crimes against humanity targeting children, the report found that medical practitioners reported children arriving with single gunshot wounds to the head and chest, often the only person hit while the adults around them were unharmed. The report also documents the killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab and the shelling of the ambulance sent to rescue her. It further documents a seventeen-year-old boy who died in an Israeli prison from starvation and untreated infections, and newborns left to decompose in a hospital neonatal unit after staff were forced to evacuate. Orphanages, health care, education facilities have been targeted by Israeli military resulting in a severe orphan crisis where 58,500 orphans have lost 1 or both parents. 97% of all the schools have been destroyed, 95% of the universities have been destroyed, 151 children died because of malnutrition , at least 1000 instances of children have undergone amputations of one or more limbs.
The Commission found that these acts amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of genocide. The Commission directed specific recommendations to Member States, and Canada is one of them.
In March 2024, the House of Commons voted to halt arms exports to Israel, yet reporting since then, drawing on the Library of Parliament’s own research, shows Canadian-made military components have continued to reach Israel, directly and through the United States.
Under the Arms Trade Treaty, Canada’s Export and Import Permits Act, and Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, Canada is required to prevent these transfers.
CBC Why don’t you report these findings by the United Nations. They deserve at least as much attention as the propaganda coming from Netanyahu and Trump.