Lobby group pushes Canada to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism

Canada’s foremost pro-Israel lobbying organization used a major conference in Ottawa to push the government to “officially recognize” anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism and to continue supporting Israel’s one-sided war on Gaza, according to a delegate briefing slideshow seen by The Breach.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) hosted its “Antisemitism: Face It, Fight It” conference last week as Israeli bombs rained down on the impoverished and densely populated Gaza Strip.

The conference was attended by all major party leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. Presenters pushed racist stereotypes about Palestinians and denied realities that are accepted worldwide, such as that Israel’s control of the Gaza Strip and West Bank constitutes occupation.

“Canada has been very supportive [of Israel’s war] right off the bat,” Kate Dalgleish, CIJA’s director of public affairs told delegates in a pre-conference briefing obtained by The Breach. “But we know that as things go on, things are gonna get more difficult, things are going to get more complicated, things are going to get messy.”

Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), a progressive Canadian Jewish organization, protested outside. 

In an open letter, IJV suggested the conference’s “professed purpose” to combat antisemitism was contradicted by the lobbying goal of defending Israeli oppression of Palestinians. 

“Rather than responding to these concerns by changing its behaviour, Israel and its supporters have chosen to mount an international campaign to label its critics ‘antisemitic,’” IJV wrote. “There is every reason to be concerned about the rise of Jew hatred…but we cannot allow efforts to combat these social scourges to be hijacked by those whose purpose is to justify and defend the racist policies of the state of Israel.”

‘Big asks’ as part of lobbying blitz 

The Breach was not granted media access to the conference. Organizers said the conference was at capacity and that the deadline for accreditation has passed.

But The Breach obtained recordings of the summit as well as the pre-conference briefing for delegates.

In advance of an “advocacy day,” that conference organizers said would involve meetings with more than 90 parliamentarians, Dalgleish briefed delegates over Zoom.

She identified two “big asks” that “go hand-in-hand”—ensuring ongoing support for Israel’s war on Gaza and “for the Canadian government to continue to support the Jewish community and fight antisemitism.” 

On Tuesday, the Canadian government indicated that it would continue to support Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Trudeau declined to call for a ceasefire, despite calls to do so from activists and his own MPs, saying instead that he would support “pauses” to the war.

Dalgleish also outlined three “policy asks” which included official recognition that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

Dalgleish said that anti-Zionism, which she contrasted with “fair and open and totally fine criticism of Israel as a democracy and as a country,” leads directly to “antisemitic attacks on the Jewish community.” 

She did not cite any evidence, nor did she cite an example of what constitutes “fair and open and totally fine criticism” of Israel.

In its open letter, IJV stated that it is wrong to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

“It is essential to point out that Zionism is a political doctrine, calling for the creation and maintenance of a Jewish state, one which privileges the rights of Jews over non-Jews, in historic Palestine,” the group wrote. “An increasing number of Jews and others reject Zionism on ethical grounds. They cannot be dismissed as antisemites. Furthermore, Palestinians have every right to oppose Zionism because it provides the ideological basis for their oppression.”

A slide from Dalgleish’s briefing referred to a refrain heard frequently at pro-Palestine rallies—“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”—and suggested that it originated with Hamas, when in fact it originated with the secular nationalist Palestine Liberation Organization. 

This chant was repeatedly referenced throughout the conference as a threat to the State of Israel and, by proxy, to Jewish people globally—including by CIJA’s CEO Shimon Fogel. 

“I have heard lots of rationalizations for it—it rhymes, it’s just a slogan. It’s anything but,” Fogel said. “It’s the aspiration of those who want to eliminate the Jewish state and the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.” 

Blaming ‘wokeism’ for antisemitism

Echoing right-wing culture war talking points, Fogel said “wokeism” has “hijacked” movements for social justice, which are “inherent in the Jewish DNA.” 

“Woke culture is not a good thing,” he said, claiming that it creates a “dynamic that is binary in nature [and] is a zero-sum game.”

“Occupiers versus the occupied, victims versus the victimizers, and Jews seem to always be placed in the position, in fact, we are the poster child for the white criminal division that we are all supposed to push back against,” Fogel added.

Assuming that all Jews identify with the State of Israel, Fogel claimed that Jewish people are being excluded from social justice movements. 

“To participate in progressive spaces, Jews should not have to shed their connection to and identification with Israel. And that’s what they’re required to do. Failing that, they’re canceled, they’re dismissed, they’re excluded.” 

Fogel spent less than two minutes discussing “other manifestations of antisemitism,” namely those of the far right. 

On a similar note, Michael Fegelman, executive director of the pro-Israel media watchdog Honest Reporting Canada, claimed the “extreme left” is as responsible for “targeted harassment and violence” against Jewish people as the far right. He likened the nonviolent boycott, divestment and sanctions movement to QAnon and the alt-right. 

Fegelman also cast doubt on realities that are accepted as fact around the world and in Israel. 

He referred to the “alleged occupation” of Arab land, even though both the U.S. State Department and Global Affairs Canada recognize the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem as occupied. 

He also dismissed “claims that extremist Jewish settlers and rabbis espouse hatred and intolerance.” But in Israel, the role of extremist settler rabbis has come under scrutiny after Jewish extremists killed a Palestinian couple and their 18-month-old child in a firebombing in 2015.

Tilting the government’s position

In her briefing remarks, Dalgleish encouraged delegates to make sure to take photos with the politicians they lobby and share them on social media.

“It gets that buzz going about how active the Jewish community is in engaging with elected officials from all political parties, it’s showing engagement and it lets politicians demonstrate that they’re engaging with the Jewish community,” she said. 

Emile Scheffel, a former communications director for the B.C. Liberal government talked about the influence CIJA and other pro-Israel organizations, such as the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC), have on shaping political discussion about Israel and Palestine. 

During a panel discussion entitled “Turning Sideline Passion to Frontline Action,” he recalled that during “one of the last few flare ups” in Gaza and Israel, he wrote the first draft of B.C. Premier Christy Clark’s statement on the violence. 

“You can be sure that because of the involvement I’ve had in CJPAC and the mentorship I’ve had from CIJA and others, I had a level of knowledge about the conflict and confidence to make sure the Government of British Columbia was saying the right thing,” Scheffel said. 

Scheffel appeared to be referencing Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza, which killed 2,220 Palestinians and injured 11,000.

According to a July 2014 Globe and Mail report, which noted it was “rare” for a premier to comment on geopolitics, Clark’s statement stating that “Israel is an example not only to the region, but the world” was first released on CIJA’s website.

This is a featured speaker at @CIJAinfo's upcoming conference on antisemitism. Oof. pic.twitter.com/uDdJrdfqFp

— Michael Bueckert (@mbueckert) October 14, 2023

‘Dehumanizing rhetoric’ about Palestinians

At the conference, Fegelman, the executive director of Honest Reporting Canada, said that Palestinian children are “indoctrinated to hate, almost as if from their mother’s milk.” 

There were other presenters with a history of virulent anti-Palestinian racism identified by IJV in the weeks leading up to the conference, including Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the Israeli government-backed International Legal Forum, who appeared via video conference from Israel for a panel called “Harnessing Social Media for Good.”  

Ostrovsky shared a cartoon of a boot labeled “IDF” (Israeli Defence Forces) crushing a Palestinian cockroach in an Oct. 13 post on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

“There are not ‘people.’ This is Hamas- savages and barbarians. Exactly like vermin. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. If it offends your sensitivities, then don’t follow or look away,” he wrote in response to a comment which noted the image’s resemblance to Nazi propaganda. 

Corey Balsam of IJV said the group’s “earlier concerns about anti-Palestinian racism and fear-mongering at the conference” were borne out. 

“It is absolutely shameful that CIJA used this conference as an opportunity to bolster the type of dehumanizing rhetoric we’re hearing from Israeli officials as it carries out what may amount to a genocide in Gaza,” said Balsam.

Outside the Shaw Centre, IJV protested CIJA’s support of what Israeli genocide scholar Raz Segal called a “textbook case of genocide” in Gaza, which has been backed up by 800 other experts in international law, Holocaust studies, genocide studies and conflict studies.

Inside, former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, who made a rare public appearance since he resigned his seat in the Alberta legislature last year, called antisemitism the “most durable and pernicious hatred throughout history,” presenting antisemitism as metaphysical, existing outside of broader oppressive structures.

IJV’s Balsam told The Breach that this is the wrong approach to fighting antisemitism.

“Instead of a uniquely permanent hatred or virus, as CIJA and speakers at the conference would have us believe, antisemitism is one form of racism that must be fought alongside other forms of racism,” Balsam said. “Unlike CIJA, we approach antisemitism from a perspective of collective liberation and encourage others to join us on this path.”