In today’s Globe and Mail, Lysiane Gagnon — a political columnist with La Presse and a regular contributor to the Globe — explores the distinctions between criticism of Israel, anti-Zionsim and anti-Semitism:
"Of course, CUPE and the United Church’s anti-Israel activists will tell you that their positions are just about Israel’s policies and have nothing to do with Jews. But the line between anti-Semitism and obsessive anti-Zionism is thin and blurry. It certainly is perfectly acceptable to criticize the state of Israel, but the practice can become anti-Semitic when only the Jewish state is singled out as a rogue state, in a world that contains so many horrible regimes.
And I would argue that it’s anti-Semitic to call, as CUPE did, for an unconditional right of return of all Palestinian refugees, since such a massive demographic change would mean the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state."
Read it here.
