There is no antisemitism crisis in Canada — or on the Left

(Ed. note: I originally wrote this for Substack, but I don’t like the way the links to it display on social media.)

Isn’t it wonderful? Israel is butchering Gaza, torching the West Bank, bombing Iran, and invading Lebanon, but the Zionists have got us running around like headless chickens, screaming about purging the “antisemites” within our movement. Well done.

A not-so-polite rejoinder to the Left Comrades loudly professing to be committed to rooting out “antisemitism” among Palestine supporters. You know who you are.

Jesus H Christ. Do you seriously think the Zionists police themselves this intensely? Do you think they’re above false-flagging threats and attacks? Support for genocide and racist dehumanization of Palestinians aren’t bugs or outliers on their side — they’re baked right in. I’m not going to clutch my pearls just because a few people on our side have gone farther than I would have.

When comrades on the left join the manufactured hysteria about “antisemitism,” they’re just playing into the Zionist strategy of conflating Jews with Israel. All that does is help criminalize support for Palestine, and place Jews at even greater risk, and enable the repressive measures they’re whining for.

Israel giggles hysterically as it bulldozes Gaza, lets rampaging settlers carry out murder, torture, theft, and arson in the West Bank, invades Lebanon (again), and rains fire on Iran — and it does all this while waving the Star of David and insisting over and over again that it’s acting on behalf of the Jewish People. I just can’t understand why people think it’s driving antisemitism.

Seriously. On one side we have hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered, with the enthusiastic and braying support of Zionists everywhere. On the other side we have a few broken synagogue windows. And we’re supposed to believe the Jewish community is at existential risk? Let them deal with one per cent of what Canadians of colour, or of First Nations ancestry, or Muslims, or LGBTQ have to endure and then I’ll sit down and cry with them.

What’s happening isn’t antisemitism. It’s Zionists being confronted with the consequences of what they support, and they don’t like it. Boo fucking hoo.