By declaring that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, Mark Carney is criminalizing those protesting the Gaza genocide

Canada’s criminalization of anti-Zionism is an act of political obedience to Israel — a nation with a decades-long history of violating international laws and the basic tenets of humanity.
 
By Fareed Khan
A version of this article is available on Substack.

Last week, Public Safety Canada quietly crossed a political and moral Rubicon. In its latest report on antisemitism, the federal government explicitly declared that anti‑Zionism is a form of antisemitism. With one sentence, the Mark Carney government told millions of Canadians — Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, Christians, human rights advocates, academics, and ordinary citizens — that their opposition to Israel’s three‑year‑long genocide in Gaza is not political speech, but criminalized hate.

This is not simply a dispute about the definition of a word or phrase. It is a state‑engineered distortion with profound consequences that will endanger people. By equating anti‑Zionism with antisemitism, the federal government is doing three things simultaneously:

• Criminalizing legitimate political criticism of a foreign state;
  
• Demonstrating ideological obedience to the Israeli government; and
  
• Making life more dangerous for Jews in Canada by erasing the distinction between a political ideology and Jewish identity.

This is not exaggeration. It is a sober assessment of what will happen as a government transforms legitimate political critique into racial hatred — and does so in the middle of an internationally documented genocide, which

Anti‑Zionism is not hatred of Jews

Zionism is a supreacist political ideology developed in the late 19th century — roughly 125 years old — advocating for the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine in order to create a Jewish state. Like any political ideology, it is subject to debate, criticism, and rejection. Anti‑Zionism is precisely that — opposition to a political ideology not hostility toward a people.

To oppose Zionism is no different than opposing communism, fascism, white supremacy, or any other ethno‑nationalist ideology. Political ideologies are not sacred, and they are not immune from critique.

Jewish scholars, rabbis, and activists have said this for decades. In the present day groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, Independent Jewish Voices Canada, and countless academics have repeatedly affirmed that anti‑Zionism is not antisemitism, and that conflating the two is both intellectually dishonest and politically dangerous. 

Historically, some of the most influential Jewish thinkers, writers, rabbis, Holocaust survivors, and resistance fighters have opposed Zionism. Their objections were not rooted in self‑hatred or denial of Jewish identity, but in a profound ethical conviction that nationalism built on exclusion, displacement, or religious exceptionalism would endanger both Jews and Palestinians. Sigmund Freud condemned the “baseless fanaticism” driving Zionist claims in Palestine; Albert Einstein rejected the very idea of a Jewish state; Erich Fromm argued that ancient territorial claims could never justify modern political sovereignty; Primo Levi warned that similar to Nazi attitudes towards Jews, Israel was creating its own oppressed class in Palestinians; Marek Edelman, hero of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, wrote directly to Palestinian resistance fighters in solidarity; and political philosopher Hannah Arendt cautioned that Zionism relied on antisemitism as its political engine. These were not marginal voices — they were among the most important Jewish intellectuals of the 20th  century, united in their belief that Zionism was a political ideology, not a religious destiny, and that its implementation would produce endless violence.

Their warnings continued into the modern era. I.F. Stone argued that Israel’s ethnonationalism created “moral schizophrenia” for Jews worldwide; Noam Chomsky described Israel’s occupation as worse than apartheid; Isaac Asimov rejected Zionism as a form of ethnic exceptionalism; and British actress Miriam Margolyes, Israeli activist Uri Avnery, American historian Gabriel Kolko, and Rabbi Michael Lerner all publicly denounced Zionism or Israel’s policies as morally indefensible. These figures demonstrated a simple truth: anti‑Zionism has always been outside of Judaism and was a danger to Jewish safety.

Even the Israeli government itself acknowledges that Zionism is a political ideology — not a religious identity — when it describes Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state” founded on Zionist principles. If Zionism is a political ideology, then opposing it is political speech. Full stop.

Canada is doing Israel’s bidding

One thing must be clearly understood. This redefinition did not emerge organically from Canadian civil society. It is the result of years of lobbying by agents of the Israeli government whose efforts have resulted in the Canadian government mirroring Israel’s long‑standing strategy of weaponizing accusations of antisemitism to silence criticism of its policies, especially its brutal decades-long oppression of Palestinians.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — aggressively promoted by Israel and its lobby organizations in the West — has been widely criticized by scholars, civil liberties groups, and even the definition’s own drafters for chilling free expression and conflating political critique with hate speech.

Public Safety Canada’s adoption of the most extreme interpretation of IHRA is not a neutral act. It is an act of political obedience to a foreign power that has a decades-long history of violating international laws and the basic tenets of humanity. It is the Canadian government aligning itself with the Israeli government’s propaganda framework at the precise moment Israel is committing mass atrocities documented by the United Nations, and confirmed by Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; Israeli human rights group B’Tselem; Physicians for Human Rights Israel; Doctors Without Borders; Oxfam; Save the Children; the International Federation of Human Rights; the International Association of Genocide Scholars; leading Israeli Holocaust scholars Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg, Daniel Blatman, Raz Segal, and Shmuel Lederman; as well as the 30 nations supporting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

When a government adopts the ideological framing of a foreign state and uses it to police domestic political dissent, it ceases to be an independent actor. It becomes a vassal — a subordinate power executing the political will of another nation.

That is what the Carney government has done.

Redefinition makes life more dangerous for Jews

Conflating anti‑Zionism with antisemitism does not protect Jewish Canadians. It endangers them.

Real antisemitism — the kind that fuels white supremacist violence, neo‑Nazi organizing, and far‑right extremism — is rising across North America. Jewish communities need clarity, precision, and vigilance to confront this threat. But when the government declares that opposing a political ideology is equivalent to hating Jews, it blurs the line between legitimate political critique and actual antisemitism. This confusion makes it harder to identify real threats, and reinforces the dangerous lie that all Jews are responsible for Israel’s actions — a core antisemitic trope.

Progressive Jewish organizations have warned repeatedly that weaponizing antisemitism for political ends increases hostility toward Jews by making them appear as agents of a foreign government. By adopting Israel’s preferred framing, the Canadian government has made Jewish Canadians less safe, not more.

Criminalizing anti‑Zionism criminalizes criticism of Israel

Israel is a state founded on Zionist ideology, something the it’s government has proclaimed for years. If anti‑Zionism is antisemitism, then criticizing Israel’s policies — its military actions, its occupation, its apartheid system, its brutality towards Palestinians — becomes suspect, and potentially criminal. This is not theoretical. Public Safety Canada’s report is intended to shape policing, surveillance, and security policy. It is a directive to law enforcement.

The Carney government’s approach to antisemitism means that:

• Protesting Israel’s genocide could be treated as hate speech;
• Calling for sanctions on Israel could be labeled antisemitic;
• Advocating for Palestinian human rights could be investigated as extremism;
• Jewish anti‑Zionists could be targeted as dangerous;
• Palestinian Canadians could be criminalized for expressing their own history.

This is the architecture of authoritarianism and fascism — redefine legitimate dissent as a crime, then police it, and prosecute those whose words and actions don’t align with political agendas.

Mark Carney is violating the Charter of Rights

Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of expression, conscience, assembly, and political belief. Equating anti‑Zionism — a political protest movement — with antisemitism violates all of these rights and shows how little Mark Carney’s government cares about defending human rights. Legal scholars have already warned that adopting IHRA’s conflation of anti‑Zionism with hate speech would breach Canadians’ Charter protections, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has called the definition “overbroad, vague, and open to abuse.”

By embracing the most extreme interpretation of IHRA, the Carney government is not merely chilling political speech — it is weaponizing state power to suppress it. The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly affirmed that political expression lies at the core of Charter protection, yet Ottawa is now treating dissent as extremism and criticism of a foreign government as hate. This is the kind of state behaviour seen in Russia or China, where governments collapse political disagreement into criminalized disloyalty. The fact that it is happening in Canada signals a dangerous authoritarian drift, one where constitutional rights become expendable whenever they inconvenience those in power. When a government knowingly violates constitutional rights, it is not making a policy error — it is committing an abuse of power.

Carney cares little about Canadians’ rights or Palestinian lives

Mark Carney’s government has demonstrated that it does not give a damn about the fundamental rights of millions of Canadians. It does not care about the Palestinians being slaughtered in Gaza. It does not care about the crimes against humanity being committed by Israel with Canadian complicity — through arms exports, diplomatic cover, and political obedience.

Instead, Canada has chosen to criminalize dissent at home, redefine antisemitism to serve a foreign government’s interests, and endanger both Palestinians and Jews in Canada. This is not leadership. It is capitulation to a foreign power. It is moral cowardice. It is complicity in genocide.

And Canadians must reject it — loudly, unapologetically, and relentlessly.

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