"This statement shatters any pretense of journalistic neutrality. If the National Post is an openly Zionist newspaper, it should disclose this bias to readers instead of misleading them into believing they are receiving balanced journalism. Your editorial stance is not driven by journalistic integrity but by ideological loyalty to Israel."
March 3, 2025
To the Editors of the National Post,
Barbara Kay’s column, “Rise of the Antisemitic Psychologists,” is a blatant distortion of both antisemitism and professional ethics in mental health. Instead of engaging in a good-faith discussion on politics and free speech in therapy, Kay falsely equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, turning a political debate into an attack on Jewish identity itself.
Zionism is a political ideology.
It’s not a religion, not an ethnicity, and certainly not a universal Jewish position.
Yet Kay claims that mental health professionals who critique Zionism are part of an “antisemitic movement” that is supposedly “Sovietizing” therapy—whatever that means.
This is fearmongering designed to silence political dissent. It is also a textbook example of anti-Palestinian racism (APR) as defined by the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association. Labeling therapists as antisemitic simply for acknowledging Palestinian generational trauma under Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide is a clear attempt to delegitimize Palestinian experiences.
Her selective outrage is also telling as she decries therapists who challenge Zionism but ignores the well-documented discrimination faced by Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim professionals in Western institutions when they speak about Israel’s occupation. She demands that sexual violence organizations prioritize Israeli victims, while saying nothing about Palestinian women subjected to Israeli military violence.
This is not about ethics and everything about demanding special protections for Zionism while suppressing legitimate criticism.
The National Post claims to champion free speech, yet it erases anti-Zionist Jewish voices and insists that Zionism must be accepted in professional spaces. If free expression truly matters, why does this paper refuse to publish perspectives that challenge its pro-Israel narrative?
In September 2024, National Post Editor-in-Chief Rob Roberts received an award from the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, a pro-Israel institution, for the paper’s coverage of Israel. In his speech, Roberts openly admitted:
"Conrad Black founded the National Post as an explicitly Zionist newspaper, and it has always been that way in its commentary."
This statement shatters any pretense of journalistic neutrality. If the National Post is an openly Zionist newspaper, it should disclose this bias to readers instead of misleading them into believing they are receiving balanced journalism. Your editorial stance is not driven by journalistic integrity but by ideological loyalty to Israel.
Sincerely,
Anthony Issa
Media Analyst, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East