It argues that the ideology is inherently violent and colonial, and that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians—including Israel's actions in committing genocide in Gaza—is a direct expression of that ideology. In Canada, Mastracci says, Zionism is not fringe but fully mainstream, embedded in political culture, media institutions, and civil society.
He also focuses heavily on the Jewish Canadians, claiming that Zionism has eclipsed Judaism as a defining identity for many Jews. Citing polling and patterns of political mobilization, he argues that support for Israel among Jewish Canadians is unusually intense and unmatched by any other community’s alignment with a supremacist, extremist movement. Charitable funding, political organizing, and participation in Israel’s military by Canadian Jews are presented as evidence of deep ideological commitment.
Mastracci attempts to expose Zionism as a normalized form of hate and supremacy that enjoys protection from Canada’s political and media establishment. He warns that Zionism is “on the attack,” that criticism of it is often treated as bigotry, and that resisting it is a moral obligation. He tries to shift public understanding by reframing Zionism not as a Jewish national project but as a dangerous, state‑sanctioned ideology that demands scrutiny and opposition.
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June 30, 2026
www.readthemaple.com/zionism-is-canadas-most-successful-hate-movement/
From its inception, Zionism has been a violent, colonial ideology.
The State of Israel, founded through decades of Zionist migration and anti-Palestinian violence, is a perfect distillation of Zionism, not a departure from it. Zionism is Israel’s state ideology.
In the 78 years since Israel’s creation, which was finalized in an organized and systemic ethnic cleansing campaign, Israel has terrorized its neighbours, swallowed up Palestinian land and devoured its inhabitants, and is committing a genocide to destroy the lives of those who remain.
Israel is an explicitly Jewish supremacist state, and perhaps the only one left in the world where supremacy is openly, proudly, and formally enshrined in law, and expanding in its scope.
There’s a range of opinions within Israel’s political leadership, but all factions believe in supremacy enforced through some level of violence.
In short: Zionism is a hateful ideology guiding a state that has committed the worst crimes of the 21st century in its name.
That Zionism is a state ideology doesn’t make it less hateful than if it were relegated to the fringes. Instead, it just means it has succeeded to the fullest extent.
This is undoubtedly true in Israel. It’s also true in Canada in a different way: Zionism has achieved more explicit, mainstream support than any other openly supremacist movement at this point in time.
Zionism And Jewish Canadians
Zionism is so rampant in Canada’s Jewish community that it has effectively become more important than Judaism, though many, if not most, Jewish Canadians say the two are actually one.
Many anti-Zionists dispute this assertion in theological terms, but I don’t care about these debates, in the same way that theological schisms in Christianity are of no interest to me outside of the odd late-night Wikipedia search.
What I am interested in, however, is examining how much of the community falls on each side. By this measure, it’s evident that anti-Zionists are losing the battle.
Nearly three years of genocide, involving some of the most depraved acts of violence and cruelty witnessed this century, has reduced the support Israel receives globally, with a recent poll finding it to be the “world’s most disliked country.” Mass support for Israel among Jewish Canadians, however, has persisted.
An assortment of polling
of Jewish Canadians conducted between February 2024 and November 2025 has found:
· 94 per cent “support the existence of Israel as a
Jewish state”;
· 84 per cent are “emotionally attached to Israel,”
the highest level since the survey began in 2018;
· 71 per cent don’t believe Israel is committing genocide;
· 64 per cent believe it’s antisemitic to say Israel
is committing genocide;
· 61 per cent oppose an arms embargo on Israel;
· 55 per cent categorize Israel’s actions in Gaza as
either self-defence (34 per cent) or hostage return (21 per cent), compared to 24
per cent as either war crimes (10 per cent), ethnic cleansing (4 per cent), or genocide
(10 per cent);
· 53 per cent disagree with the claim that “Canada
should do more to protect civilians in Gaza”;
· 48 per cent (a plurality) believe Hamas is to blame
for starvation in Gaza, while just 17 per cent blame Israel — another 13 per cent
believe there was no famine or even widespread hunger;
· 1 per cent identify as anti-Zionists.
The survey that found 94 per cent effectively support Jewish supremacy in Israel also found that “only” 51 per cent explicitly identified as Zionists, which led some anti-Zionists to declare victory. They were wrong to do so. As I quipped in response to reporting on the survey: “‘Poll: Vast majority of Canadian whites say Canada has right to exist as a white state, but half don’t identify as racists.’”
In addition, the community:
· is represented by and made up of explicitly Zionist organizations, from synagogues,
to schools, to camps, to community groups;
· is the largest sender of charitable donations from Canada to Israel (at least $1.7 billion in donations were sent from
2018 to 2024, and an examination of contributors per
year reveals them to overwhelmingly be Jewish charities);
· supplies a stream of members as soldiers willing to die and kill for the Jewish supremacist State of Israel, a pipeline unlike any other that exists among Canada’s hundreds of demographic groups.
In May, nearly three years into the genocide, an estimated record-breaking 60,000 people marched in Toronto’s annual pro-Israel walk. I view this with the same sort of scorn as the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden organized by the German American Bund, which drew more than 20,000 people.
One difference does stick out, though: unlike any other genocide before it, including the Holocaust, the Gaza genocide has been live-streamed since day one and broadcast to all of us.
This hasn’t shattered Jewish Canadian support for Israel. In fact, it has strengthened the support and emotional attachment of many, as seen in the open radicalization of some prominent Jewish figures.
Zionism And The Broader Establishment
It’s clear Zionism has wide support among Jewish Canadians, to an extent unrivalled by other communities relative to whatever form of extremism and supremacy may exist among them. ISIS, for example, was broadly reviled by Muslims globally, and they fought, killed, and died to defeat it.
But this level of support for Zionism among Jewish Canadians isn’t enough to call it the most successful hate movement in Canada. That claim becomes justified upon examining how Zionism is treated by Canada’s elite in politics, media and civil society.
In June 2025, Prime Minister Mark Carney called for the establishment of a “Zionist, if you will, Palestinian state,” which is about the same as urging German Jews be ruled by a new Nazi government after the Holocaust.
In March 2025, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau said, “No one in Canada should ever be afraid to call themselves a Zionist. I am a Zionist.”
Pierre Poilievre, the leader of Canada’s opposition party, said in an October 2024 statement: “We won’t bow to the radical, woke, anti-Zionist Jew haters. [...] We unapologetically stand with Israel through fire and water.” The party’s deputy leader has explicitly identified as a Zionist.
The federal government, seven provinces and at least 20 towns and cities have adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which, according to a federal handbook, classifies opposition to Zionism as antisemitism.
A Senate study released in December 2024 included among its recommendations that “it is unacceptable in Canadian society to target Zionists or to deny them fair and equitable access to public spaces for the sole reason that they are Zionists,” effectively calling for the treatment of Zionism, a political ideology, as a protected category.
This framing has also been pushed in lawsuits launched by Jewish students against universities and backed by major Jewish community organizations.
The editor-in-chief of the National Post, the flagship publication of Canada’s largest newspaper chain, stated in a 2024 email to subscribers: “I feel privileged to be editor-in-chief of the National Post right now, leading a paper that has been Zionist in its commentary since it was founded 25 years ago.”
The Globe and Mail, Canada’s only other national newspaper, recently published an article from the editorial board arguing that Carney should have declared himself to be a Zionist in a speech he gave at a Toronto synagogue.
A co-founder and former head of an organization dedicated to combating hate groups has described themselves as a Zionist and written that Zionism is essential to Jewish identity.
So, to sum it up...
Zionism is not condemned by those in power; it’s openly supported.
Prominent Zionists feel no pressure to conceal their ideology in the way proponents of supremacy usually do; they are encouraged to share it, and applauded when they do so.
Zionists aren’t seen as proponents of hate; they’re treated as a victimized group to be protected by limiting the freedoms of others.
Jewish Canadians aren’t expected to condemn Zionism or Israel in the way Muslims were for extremist forms of Islam; non-Jewish Canadians are expected to support or at least not oppose Zionism because it’s positioned as an essential part of Jewish identity.
If another hate movement took over almost an entire community, it would be treated as a serious problem; Zionism is often defended precisely because it’s so widespread among Jewish Canadians.
The past three years have increasingly turned Canadians against Israel. This has resulted in those in power using increasingly heavy-handed attempts, many of them successful, to protect Zionism.
Zionism is on the attack, not retreat.
Zionists are coming for any and all of us willing to oppose their ideology.
The fight continues.
