On October 7, 2023, life changed for Canadian Jews. Canadians of all faiths deplored Hamas’ unspeakable atrocities in slaughtering 1,200 men, women and children. Those murdered included a number of Canadians, such as Israeli-Canadian Vivian Silver, a peace activist and Founder of Women Wage Peace and The Arab-Jewish Centre for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation. She was involved, among other things, in ferrying children from Gaza to Israeli hospitals.
Not all Canadians deplored the barbarity displayed on October 7; a very loud minority celebrated it. What perversity of ideology, human behaviour, and appalling ignorance explains the glorification and martyrdom of those who torture, behead, and burn people alive? Or of those who brag about how many Jews they’ve slaughtered?
Not surprisingly, this glorification and martyrdom continues on the one-year anniversary of this day of infamy. While we mourn the tremendous loss of innocent life — and perhaps our own innocence — on October 7, we must now redouble our efforts to strike decisive blows against hate in Canada. So today is a renewed call for action.
Today, I will outline several of our important needs as a community. And as a country.
Law enforcement must enforce existing laws
Extremists largely operate with impunity in Canada. With foreign ideological and financial backing, they are responsible for much of the overt antisemitism on campuses and on our streets. When they break the law, they must be brought to justice, and in a timely way.
Bringing extremists to justice should involve both a national coordinated policing strategy, and provincial strategies to “get tough” on hate. At present, such coordinated strategies do not exist or are inadequate.
A provincial hate crime strategy should include the following components:
Hate crime units and their division coordinators and liaisons must receive adequate financial and human resources to perform their work.
These officers must be educated by experts on antisemitism and its modern manifestations. Officers must also be educated by legal experts on the full range of criminal law, and provincial and municipal bylaw measures available to them to combat hatred. That latter education must be coupled with “case scenario” training on how to apply what they have learned to concrete situations.
Dedicated prosecutors, similarly educated and trained, must be assigned to all alleged hate crimes cases so as to promote consistent and timely prosecutorial decisions and where required, the personal consent of the Attorney General.
Police service boards must create strong public order policies that explicitly set out the important factors that should inform the policing of protests, demonstrations and occupations. These policies must be premised on zero tolerance of hatred in all forms. Police must know that their oversight boards and governments support the robust use of law enforcement measures to combat hate.
Municipalities also have an important role to play. Freedom of assembly and expression can be fully respected while regulating how, when and where those freedoms are exercised. There is no entitlement to close down a city or major intersections, exclude access to public spaces by others, or significantly interfere with the lawful use and enjoyment of private and public property by others. It is time that municipalities use their permit and bylaw powers to ensure that the rights of all Canadians are respected. Both provincial and municipal governments are entitled to create “bubble legislation” that regulates the proximity of protests to vulnerable locations, such as Jewish senior citizens’ residences.
Governments at all levels and national security NGOs must give urgent priority to investigating, exposing and ending extremism financing and money laundering that likely rank Canada as one of the major havens for such extremist support in the Western world.
These imperatives must be accompanied by a correct understanding of the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, which is long overdue. We can no longer allow hatemongers to immunize themselves from accountability by simply substituting Zionist for Jew. We must stop allowing the radicalized or uninformed to treat virtually all speech as protected. Mere criticism of Israel, its policies, its government, its conduct of war, settler extremism does not amount to prohibited speech, even if one-sided, distorted, ill-informed, inflammatory, or offensive. Contrast this with these activities, all of which cross the line into criminality:
Calling for the death of all Zionists (especially when 91% of Canadian Jews are Zionists),
Labeling all Zionists without distinction as racist, genocidal and evil,
Chanting “from Water to Water, Palestine shall be Arab,”
Calling for the violent destruction of the State of Israel and its supporters,
Intimidating Canadian Jews through deliberate choices of protest venues in proximity to Jewish community centers, places of worship, businesses or neighborhoods,
Blocking roads, tunnels or bridges to compel others to change what they are entitled to do or not to,
Chanting support for designated terrorist organizations and their terrorist leaders,
Calling for global intifada through armed resistance or “by any means necessary” when the context makes it clear that the call is for the destruction of the entire State of Israel.
These activities do not amount to protected speech. They must be called out for what they are: Willful promotion of hatred, incitement to hatred, criminal intimidation, mischief, unlawful assembly, depending on the circumstances of each. It is time for all Canadians of good will to say it. It is time for governments to acknowledge it clearly and act upon it.
There is no reason why this seven-point provincial strategy cannot be adopted by every province in the country.
Education should take place in a safe environment, free from intimidation, indoctrination and demonization.
Law enforcement is certainly not the solution for much of what troubles us as a society. Much of the battle against antisemitism must take place on university and college campuses. Administrations must recognize their responsibility to enforce existing or amended codes of conduct that should be designed to create a safe environment for all students and faculty, regardless of their differing political views.
It is the obligation of such administrations not to create or allow, through inaction, a poisoned environment for their students, including Muslim, Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab. The fight against antisemitism recognizes, as it must, that hatred against Muslims because they are Muslim, against Arabs because they are Arabs, or Palestinians because they are Palestinian is equally odious. And that they should not be discriminated against because they express political views, as long as they do so in compliance with codes of conduct that promote freedom of expression, not hate, intimidation, harassment, and demonization of students and faculty with opposing perspectives.
Administrations cannot allow academic freedom, research integrity and institutional neutrality to be undermined through academic boycotts of Israeli universities, scholars, or researchers. Academics who support such boycotts should be ashamed of themselves, riding roughshod over principles essential to higher learning. They have allowed their political agenda to prevail over the freedoms they profess to support. Indeed, they frequently complain about the suppression of pro-Palestinian voices, while ensuring that pro-Israeli voices are unprotected, marginalized and demonized. The capitulation by the University of Windsor to the blackmail of occupiers and the students’ union represents perhaps the most disturbing abdication of a university’s responsibility.
Universities and colleges fail their students, staff, and faculty when they:
Permit “Zionists Off Campus” signs to be displayed at school,
Allow professors, without any accountability, to indoctrinate their students, rather than fairly expose those students to conflicting views and critical thinking on the Middle East,
Allow courses to be hijacked to politicize students on topics unrelated to those courses,
Accredit student hate groups and allow them to promulgate their messages of hate and intimidation unchecked,
Do not proactively address campus antisemitism through education and active support of respectful dialogue,
Do not exercise their rights as property owners in a timely way to prevent activities by non-students or students that significantly interfere with the rights of other students and faculty to a safe educational environment.
Provincial governments are not powerless to address these issues. For example, Ontario’s Bill 166 laudably requires universities and colleges to create anti-racist policies accompanied by the Minister’s power to issue directives. The Minister’s directives should reflect that:
Anti-racism policies must be compatible with academic freedom, defined so to exclude measures that prevent Canadian institutions, academics and researchers from collaborating with their Israeli counterparts,
Antisemitism must be defined, for the purposes of anti-racism and anti-harassment policies so as to acknowledge how modern antisemitism can be manifested through anti-Zionism. This is hardly a radical proposition. It is consistent with the definition of antisemitism adopted by Canada and Ontario (and 45 countries).
See for example, New York University’s newly revised Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment (NDAH) Policy and Procedures for Students:
Using code words, like “Zionist” does not eliminate the possibility that your speech violates the NDAH policy. For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity. Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists. For example, excluding Zionists from an open event, calling for the death of Zionists, applying a “no Zionist” litmus test for participation in any NYU activity, using or disseminating tropes, stereotypes, and conspiracies about Zionists (e.g. “Zionists control the media”), demanding a person who is or is perceived to be Jewish or Israeli to state a position on Israel or Zionism, minimizing or denying the Holocaust, or invoking Holocaust imagery or symbols to harass or discriminate.
Forms of racism and discrimination must not be defined in a way that perpetuates antisemitism, rather than combats it.
The last point requires elaboration. There is a pitched battle taking place in education at all levels and within government over the inclusion of anti-Palestinian racism (APR) in anti-racist policies or strategies. Of course, anti-Palestinian discrimination or hatred should never be condoned any more than other forms of discrimination should, whether based on national origin, ethnic origin, religion, or any factors enumerated in human rights codes.
To a great extent, anti-Palestinian hatred is addressed through anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism. It is therefore unclear that anti-Palestinian hatred is properly characterized as racism, any more than anti-Ukrainian or anti-Russian hatred is a species of racism (as opposed to discrimination). But leaving that aside, APR proponents define it in a way that labels all Zionists as racists. For example, anyone who does not accept the Palestinian narrative respecting the creation of the State of Israel is regarded as an anti-Palestinian racist.
Surely, anti-racism policies should not be spewing further hatred, rather than protecting the identities of every student and faculty member. Indeed, it is difficult to see why incorporating APR into anti-racism policies (leaving aside, for the moment, the obvious problems associated with that approach) should not be accompanied by incorporating anti-Israeli racism as well. (Of course, APR advocates reject any such suggestion, exposing their true motives.) In Ontario, this is easily rectified through a ministerial directive that addresses the point head-on, either through dealing with anti-Palestinian or anti-Israeli hatred through conventional human rights anti-discrimination legislation or defining these terms in a way that does not promote further hatred.
Make no mistake about it. The work to be done here is not confined to colleges and universities. Toxic environments for Jewish students and others at risk exist in our public and secondary schools. Unprecedented overt antisemitism is perpetrated by teachers, teachers unions, and in some instances, school board trustees.
Recent events at Toronto District School Board are illustrative, where students appear to have been conscripted, contrary to the terms of parental consent, to participate in an anti-Israel rally, sometimes dressed to represent colonizers. The Minister of Education appropriately ordered an external investigation, but there is much cause to believe that this event merely represents one of many incidents that undermine the safety and security and sense of belonging of Jewish students and faculty. Regardless of one’s views on diversity, equity and inclusion, a point of division in many circles, Jews cannot be excluded from policies designed to promote inclusion, particularly when they represent the community most victimized by hate crimes and other hate activities.
This coming year, we need to see greater legal and disciplinary accountability for antisemitism in our education system at all levels. And provincial governments who take steps, alongside allies within the school systems, to ensure that age inappropriate geopolitical discussions do not take place in classrooms, teachers follow an established curriculum, teachers and unions do not indoctrinate, and students are not conscripted to adopt views on controversial issues.
Respectful Dialogue Must Overcome Hate
Finally, I wish to address respectful dialogue, which represents an important initiative that we have been working on for almost a year.
I have often said that I will talk to anybody who does not seek to exterminate me, the state of Israel or its people. That would appear to represent a very low bar to dialogue. The Jewish community must recognize that the answer to overt antisemitism is not only an adversarial one. Many students are ill informed rather than malevolent. Many students who chant offensive slogans do not understand the origins of or meaning of those slogans, or their impact upon the Jewish community.
Hence the need for respectful dialogue both through educational conferences and through small working groups. Some of this work is already being done and you will learn more about it in subsequent articles and newsletters. It is challenging because the truly radicalized attempt to undermine respectful dialogue. They don’t want students talking with Zionists, no matter how progressive – dialoguing is regarded as traitorous and “normalizing” Zionism.
How tragic that we have to fight to have respectful dialogue. But we must fight. The future of our campuses requires that we make indoctrination, not Zionism, a dirty word. That we permit wide-ranging discussion about the issues in the Middle East among those who may disagree but respect the right to disagree without demonizing.
In Summary
I ask the Jewish community and our allies to take action. In subsequent newsletters, I will set out calls to action that everyone of good faith can be involved in. I look forward to your support and the support of other community organizations that are working collaboratively towards the same objectives.
In the meantime, we need your assistance in amplifying the Alliance’s voice. Please subscribe to our newsletter and email those you know to subscribe as well. Subscriptions are free. The content is original, the analysis is detailed, and the calls to action will be impactful.
May we all find strength in how our community and its allies respond collectively to the horrors of October 7 and its aftermath.
About the Author
Mark Sandler, LL.B., LL.D. (honoris causa), ALCCA’s Chair, is widely recognized as one of Canada’s leading criminal lawyers and pro bono advocates. He has been involved in combatting antisemitism for over 40 years. He has lectured extensively on legal remedies to combat hate and has promoted respectful Muslim-Jewish, Sikh-Jewish and Black-Jewish dialogues. He has appeared before Parliamentary committees and in the Supreme Court of Canada on multiple occasions on issues relating to antisemitism and hate activities. He is a former member of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, a three-time elected Bencher of the Law Society of Ontario, and recipient of the criminal profession’s highest honour, the G. Arthur Martin Medal, for his contributions to the administration of criminal justice.