"This conflation also erases the historical and political context that drives Palestinian protests, namely, Israel's ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories, its apartheid policies, and the catastrophic death toll of the war on Gaza, where over 50,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed."
May 5, 2025
Re: The Holocaust 80 years later — teaching its history
To the Editor,
Allan Levine’s recent column, “The Holocaust 80 Years Later — Teaching Its History,” rightly affirms the need to educate students about the Holocaust and antisemitism.
Antisemitism is real, and it is rising. According to Statistics Canada, hate crimes against Jewish people increased by 71 per cent between 2022 and 2023 for a total of 900 crimes reported to the police.
But so too are Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism, and more specifically, anti-Palestinian racism (APR), which the Government of Canada has formally acknowledged as a distinct form of discrimination in its 2024 guide on combating Islamophobia.
The guide defines APR as a form of discrimination that "extends beyond Palestinians, affecting Arab and Muslim communities as well. Public discourse often unfairly associates Palestinian and Muslim identities with terrorism, leading to harassment, hate crimes, and other negative consequences in schools, workplaces, and communities... Advocacy for Palestinian human rights is sometimes viewed through the lens of suspicion, hostility, and incompatibility with national values.”
Mr. Levine's suggestion that protests against Israel and Zionism “can often turn ugly and become nothing more than virulent antisemitism” casts doubt on the legitimacy of Palestinian advocacy by framing such protests as inherently hateful. He furthers this notion by generalizing all pro-Palestinian protests to acts like firebombings and antisemitic assaults, without providing direct evidence of connection.He also cites one protest sign and interprets it as a claim that “all Jews are fair targets,” to characterize a broad political movement.
This contributes to the harmful generalization that Palestinian advocacy poses a threat to public order or Jewish safety. It also conflates anti-Zionism, a political critique of a state ideology, with antisemitism, which targets Jews as a people. It also silences the growing number of progressive Jewish voices who are both firmly anti-racist and firmly pro-Palestinian rights such as Independant Jewish Voices.
This conflation also erases the historical and political context that drives Palestinian protests, namely, Israel's ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories, its apartheid policies, and the catastrophic death toll of the war on Gaza, where over 50,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed.
Yes, there are bad-faith actors in any movement. But to reduce a diverse struggle for justice to antisemitic hostility is itself a racist generalization. It undermines the credibility of real efforts to combat antisemitism and dismisses an entire community’s call for dignity and freedom.
If we are serious about opposing antisemitism, we must reject the false binary that forces us to choose between Jewish safety and Palestinian rights. These values are not mutually exclusive. Treating them as such only breeds more hate.
In solidarity,
Anthony Issa