The complicit segment of Canada’s Jewish population deserves blame for what they do, not who they are.
In the 11 months since Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, elected officials and media outlets have declared that Jewish Canadians can’t be held responsible for Israel’s actions. These declarations have sometimes been framed as responding to an alleged rise in antisemitic incidents.
On April 18, for example, Parliament passed a motion from Green Party leader Elizabeth May with unanimous consent stating, “That the House unequivocally condemn antisemitism, and in particular reject the idea that Jewish Canadians are responsible for the actions of the State of Israel.” May told the Toronto Star, “If this makes a difference to even one Jewish child heading off to school, then it was worth it.”
There’s nothing wrong with the ostensible logic behind these statements. The idea that Jewish Canadians are responsible for Israeli government actions merely by virtue of being Jewish is wrong and dangerous, and some of the incidents that have comprised the alleged rise in antisemitism, such as a Jewish school in Toronto being shot at, are reprehensible regardless of who is behind them. But beyond these basic points that I’ve yet to see anyone contest, the statements and the ways they’ve been employed over the course of Israel’s genocide in Gaza are troubling.
These statements have sometimes asserted, with no evidence, that any particular act of alleged antisemitism was committed by supporters of Palestinian liberation. This unjustifiably defames a movement struggling to end an ongoing genocide.
In this article, however, I’ll focus on something else: how the idea that Jewish Canadians can’t be held responsible for Israel’s actions simply because they’re Jewish has been cynically stretched to mean that no Jewish Canadians or Jewish organizations are in any way complicit and obfuscate the alarming level of support for the genocide among people who identify as Jewish, according to polling data. (more...)
Are Canadian Jews Complicit In Israel’s Genocide In Gaza?
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