Definitions
What is Antisemitism?
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
The IHRA definition has been adopted by many states and organizations, including Canada.
It explicitly recognizes that anti-Zionism (the delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish state) is a clear and unequivocal expression of antisemitism. The definition states clearly that Jew hatred includes applying antisemitic slurs to Israel, denying the Jewish people’s legitimate right to self-determination, accusing Jews of blood libels, and holding Israel to double standards.
Ontario.ca Announcement
Antisemitism in Context
Antisemitic incidences have risen in alarming rates between May and June 2021 in Canada, proving that there's a strong correlation between what's happening in Israel and its connection to Jews worldwide.
Although Jews remain less than 2% of the population in Canada, Toronto Police Hate Crimes Unit reports Jews to be the most targeted group for hate crimes, year after year.
Antisemitism History
"Hatred of Jews existed for millennia before the Holocaust and did not end with the murder of the six million. We must remember that the warning signs are typically far from immediate or obvious. It is our collective responsibility to recognize the patterns of hate-based prejudice and how it operates."
Learn more HERE.
Is criticism of Israel always antisemitic?
No. Anti-Israel activity crosses the line to antisemitism when:
All Jews are held responsible for the actions of Israel.
Israel is denied the right to exist as a Jewish state and as an equal member of the global community.
Traditional antisemitic symbols, images or theories are used.
Read more HERE.
The Mutation of Antisemitism
What is Zionism?
Zionism refers to the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel including the movement for the development of the State of Israel and the protection of the Jewish nation in Israel through support for the Israel Defense Forces.
Jewish Virtual Library
What is Anti-Zionism?
Anti-Zionism is a prejudice against the Jewish movement for self-determination and the right of the Jewish people to a homeland in the State of Israel. It may be motivated by or result in antisemitism, or it may create a climate in which antisemitism becomes more acceptable. Anti-Zionism can include threats to destroy the State of Israel (or otherwise eliminate its Jewish character), unfounded and inaccurate characterizations of Israel’s power in the world, and language or actions that hold Israel to a different standard than other countries.
Anti-Zionism is antisemitism.
The Connection Between Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, Judaism and Israel
What is BDS?
BDS is a Palestinian-led global movement campaign to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel. The purpose of BDS is not to protest Israeli policies, but to isolate and pressure Israel until it collapses as a Jewish and democratic state. BDS supporters seek to pressure Israel in three principal ways: boycotting Israeli goods, universities and cultural institutions; divesting from companies that provide vital equipment to the Israeli military; and urging countries to slap sanctions on Israel.
Is the BDS campaign against Israel Antisemitic?
The BDS movement and many of the strategies used by BDS campaigns are antisemitic. While there are people who support BDS but are not antisemitic, the campaign is founded on a rejection of Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state. It denies the Jewish people the right to self-determination – a right universally afforded to other groups. As such, BDS is a form of antisemitism.
BDS uses hateful propaganda to dehumanize Israelis and actively harms peace efforts by opposing Israeli-Palestinian cooperation.
Learn more HERE.
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign
Debunking the Lies
What is Apartheid?
Apartheid is an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another racial group.
“Apartheid" was the official South African policy (from 1948 to the early 1990s) that sought to maintain a complete political and social separation between South Africa’s whites and blacks. Apartheid, derived from Afrikaans and meaning "apartness," represents a policy of racial segregation.
To fit the definition of apartheid, five key aspects must be present:
1. Legal Framework: Legislation enforcing racial segregation.
2. Racial Classification: Dividing the population into different racial groups.
3. Inequality: Imposing restrictions and privileges based on race.
4. Control and Repression: Government enforcement through force.
5. Perpetuation of Racial Domination: Sustaining white minority rule.
Responsible usage of the term "apartheid" is crucial to preserve its historical significance. It should be used to describe only systems characterized by the five defining aspects above, avoiding overuse in contexts that may dilute its gravity. Applying it to current situations should be based on accurate parallels to avoid misrepresentation and minimize its misuse.
No such segregation exists in Israel. Israeli Arabs (who make up 21% of Israel's population) are an integral part of Israeli society. The word 'apartheid' has become common usage among terrorist supporters who falsely apply it to Israel. Spreading disinformation is part of the propaganda that aims to discredit and dehumanize Israel, and by proxy, Jews worldwide.
Anyone who has ever been to Israel knows the minute they get off the plane that no such segregation exists in Israel. Israel’s Arab citizens are full citizens. They attend of all Israel’s major universities. They are treated in all of Israel’s hospitals. They serve in government and the judiciary. They are welcome in all of Israel’s restaurants and cafés.
Because the claim that Israel is an apartheid country is so patently false, many BDSers are too embarrassed to say it. They argue instead that apartheid exists between Israel – where Jews and Arabs live as full equals – and the West Bank and Gaza, where the Palestinian residents are not Israeli citizens.
It’s true that West Bank and Gaza Palestinians are not citizens of Israel. But here is an important point to note – they don’t want to be Israeli citizens. Some Palestinians would like to destroy Israel. Others are prepared to live in a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But no serious Palestinian leader has ever asked that the West Bank or Gaza be annexed by Israel.
Thus the answer is not for Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza and extend Israeli citizenship to their residents. The entire Arab world would angrily reject this. The answer is for both sides to reach a peace deal. Israel has repeatedly offered to do exactly this. Unfortunately, the Palestinian leadership has repeatedly rejected these offers.
Clearly, Israel is not an apartheid state. This claim is an extension of a hateful propaganda. (reprinted with permission StandWithUs)
Is Israel an apartheid state?
In this episode of The Israeli-Palestinian Context we uncover how this misappropriated connection between apartheid and Israel came to be and find out the true history behind the Israeli government’s relationship with its one million Arab citizens.
Enduring understandings are available in the PDF version of the educational resources HERE.
Meet Yoseph Hadad
Yoseph Hadad is a Christian Arab Israeli. Native of Haifa, he served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Israeli Arabs are not required to serve, but Haddad volunteered at the age of 18. Yoseph is an Israeli-Arab activist and CEO of the organization Together Vouch for Each Other that works to connect the Arab sector to Israeli society.
Read his article HERE.
What is Colonialism?
Colonialism refers to the policy and practice of control by one power over another where the aim is to benefit from the colonized region's people and resources and establish economic dominance. In the process of colonization, colonizers may impose their religion, language and other cultural practices.
Is Israel a white settler colonial state?
No, and here's why. The Jewish people are indigenous to Israel/Judea, the birthplace of their identity and unique culture. They have maintained a documented presence in Israel for over 3,000 years.
Jews ended up in the diaspora as a result of two imperial nations: first, the Babylonians and second, the Roman Empire. Both groups exiled Jews from Israel/Judea to the middle East and Europe. Nonetheless, Jews had an unbroken link to Israel/Judea and always attempted to go back.
The families of most Israeli Jews lived across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia before they returned to their ancestral homeland in Israel. Jews who came from Europe and North American were not colonialists. They did not represent a foreign power and rejected any identification with European nations. They were idealists who sought to restore their unique heritage and fought for the same rights that are granted to all peoples: self-determination and independence in their ancestral home. Jews have never imposed their religion and culture on another group of people. In fact, they have mainly assimilated to other nations when exiled in the diaspora. Read more HERE.
Jews are ethnically diverse. There are black Jews from Ethiopia, brown Jews from many Sephardic countries, including Yemen, Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East, as well as white Jews from North America and Europe.
Despite being exiled by the various empires, Jews have always maintained a presence in the land of Israel/Judea. There was never a time in history when Jews did not live in the region. Jews are therefore not colonizing Israel/Judea - they are indigenously connected it.
Jewish history and its connection to Israel does not begin in 1948. Teachings that omit the Jewish people's longtime connection to the land are thereby attempting to erase history.
Jews are from Judah/Judea. Changing the region's name does not change the fact that it is still the Jewish peoples ancestral homeland.
What is Genocide?
Genocide is an internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
These acts fall into five categories:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
Israel has not engaged in any action with the intent to exterminate, in whole or in part, the Palestinian people. Using this falsehood incites hatred with misinformation and has the collateral effect diminishing real acts of genocide – such as those that occurred in the Holocaust, against Armenians, and in Rwanda.
The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.
The Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza has increased over time - clearly not a sign of genocide.
Hamas, however, has called for the genocide of Jews in its mandate and acted on it on October 7, 2023.
Learn more about Hamas' charter HERE.
Was There Ever a Country Called Palestine?
The word Palestine is a perversion of Philistine the name of an ancient people that lived in the Gaza area. The Philistines were an Aegean people that became extinct nearly 3,000 years ago. They didn’t refer to themselves as Philistines as this was the Jewish term for them. The Hebrew bible refers to them as “Palishtim” which means “invaders” (this was later translated into Latin as Philistinus). Ironically, in an attempt to claim they’re indigenous, the Palestinians named their national movement after a people that were not indigenous.
2,000 years ago the region was under Roman occupation and between the years 66 and 132 CE the Jews waged continuous rebellions against their oppressors, the Romans. Upon crushing the Jewish Revolt of 132 CE the Romans exiled the majority of the Jews and renamed Israel “Syria-Palestina” as a final humiliation. The idea was to erase the Jewish presence from Israel by exiling and renaming their homeland after their Biblical enemies, the Philistines.
Geographically Syria-Palestina stretched from Egypt to Turkey and from Israel to Jordan, it had a diverse demography but with most of the Jews exiled, the majority population was Phoenician, Greek and Roman, not Arab, like the Palestinians of today.
Various empires came and went in the Middle East, each of them swallowing up this tiny tract of land. Some of these empires preserved the Roman names of Syria and Palestina using them as provincial labels. By the 17th the name had almost dropped out of common parlance in the Muslim world (which favoured the names Syria and Southern Syria for that region). The name was largely kept alive by Europeans who continued the Roman tradition of calling the region Palestine. Read more HERE.
If you were living in the region of Israel/Palestine in the 1800s (up until 1948) you were therefore considered a Palestinian - Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. This must be distinguished from today’s people identifying as Palestinians.
Shrinking Palestine - Debunking the Lies
If you’ve spent some time reading about the Arab-Israeli conflict on the internet, you have most likely encountered a series of maps supposedly outlining how Palestinian land ownership has dramatically declined over the last century. They are also grossly misleading and poison the conversation about Israel.
When taken out of context, maps can easily be used to manipulate or deceive. While this deception is immediately apparent to those familiar with the particular region’s history, such maps can nevertheless successfully influence the perception of uninformed people. Whatever you do, don’t let the lie go unchallenged. Learn more HERE.
Knowledge is Power!
Canada has listed Hamas as a terrorist organization pursuant to the Canadian Criminal Code.
The Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the genocide of Jews worldwide.
See excerpt on the right.
Read it in its entirety HERE.
Excerpt from Hamas Charter:
'The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.' (Article 7)
Son of Hamas leader breaks silence: They must be stopped!
Supporting Hamas is not supporting Palestinians,
it's supporting terrorism.
Hamas in their own words
Open Outcry for Genocide by Hamas Supporters
Pro-Palestinian supporters calling for the destruction of Israel and murder of Jews.
"From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” has sadly become a common chant for pro-Palestinian activists. It calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, advocating to erase the State of Israel and its people off the map. This rallying cry (which originated by terrorist groups) is openly calling for the destruction of Israel - that's not just antisemitic, that's an open cry for genocide.
The Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea wrap Israel from East to West
The Free Palestine Movement is a Palestinian Syrian armed movement and community organization that is led by the businessman, Yasser Qashlaq. The organization opposes the existence of Israel. Yasser Qashlaq is known for his antisemitic views, having repeatedly called Jews "dregs of European garbage", a "gang of criminal murderers", and "human pieces of filth" that should be deported to Europe. He has also stated that there is "no reason for coexistence" between Israelis and Palestinians, as the latter would reclaim their lands and "hunt [the Israelis] down to the end of the world, and prosecute them for their massacres".
While it's not antisemitic to advocate for Palestinians to have their own state, which they have been offered on five separate occasions beginning in 1947, calling for the elimination of the Jewish state, or suggesting that the Jews alone do not have the right to self-determination, is antisemitic.
Gaza has been under Palestinian rule since 2005. Hamas has been the leader in the territory since 2006. See video for more info.
October 7, 2023: The Largest Massacre of Jews Post Holocaust
On October 7th, Hamas launched an unprovoked and vicious surprise attack on Israel. Using rockets, paragliders, boats, motorcycles and other vehicles, terrorists infiltrated Israel, murdering over 1,400 people (a number that will undoubtedly increase). Over 4,200 people have been critically wounded, and over 200 people have been taken hostage in Gaza.
In the wake of these unspeakable atrocities, Pro-Palestinian supporters celebrated and cheered the kidnapping, raping, and murdering of innocent Jews. This surge of antisemitism fanned by the flames of hate is indicative of a poisonous seed that has been left unchecked. When individuals align themselves with terroristic ideologies, while glorifying violence, chanting death to Jews, holding swastikas, they are sending a clear message about who they are. It is not Canadian. It is not democratic. It is not human.
An important message from Dr. Phil on Israel, Hamas, and our own moral compass.
Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a co-founder of Hamas, blasted the terror organization in a blistering half-hour speech at the United Nations (Nov. 2023). He defected from the terrorist group in the late '90s and secretly worked with Israel's security services to expose and prevent several Hamas terrorist attacks. He later gave his life to Christ and wrote a 2010 autobiography titled Son of Hamas. Yousef now endeavors to expose the true face of Hamas' genocidal death cult.
Educate Against Hate
Through a generous partnership with Evelyn and Dr. Shmuel Katz, StandWithUs has been able to produce cutting-edge print material for over a decade. Students, community members, and activists worldwide now have access to their renowned booklets and brochures to educate the public about Israel.
The Abraham Global Peace Initiative responds to myths about Israel.
Visit HERE to learn more.
ADL responds to common inaccuracies about Israel.
Visit HERE to learn more.
