An overwhelming majority of Israelis do not support their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
They want the war in Gaza to end and the remaining Israeli hostages to be returned, even if that means not achieving total victory against Hamas. Many of them don’t like settlement expansion in the West Bank, either.
You might think, then, that if Canada’s prime minister criticized the Netanyahu government for continuing the war in Gaza or expanding the settlements, Canadian Jews would have little to say.
But you’d be very wrong.
When Prime Minister Mark Carney joined his French and British colleagues in a harsh condemnation of the Netanyahu government last week, what appears to me to be a significant majority of Jewish Canadians were at best uncomfortable, if not furious.
I can only speak for one Jewish Canadian, but here’s a personal perspective that I hope will make it easier for anyone baffled by the situation to understand.
As a Jew with a privileged but also relatively traditional upbringing in mid-town Toronto that included meetings at school with Holocaust survivors and a trip to the death camps in Poland, I came to believe at an early age that anti-Semitism was unlikely to ever go away.
We could diminish it, we could coat it in stigma and repress it to the margins of society, but after thousands of years it remained one of the most persistent and resilient forms of irrational hatred that society had ever experienced.
For diaspora Jews like me, Israel has always therefore been the ultimate Plan B – if anti-Semitism at home becomes too great to endure, there is always a place you can escape to.
If you see Israel as your Plan B, no matter how repulsive you might find the Netanyahu coalition’s approach to governance, you might still object to anyone who condemns the Israeli government too harshly.
Criticism risks empowering Israel’s enemies who have made it clear that they will not stop until there is no longer a Jewish state.
I sympathize with Jewish Canadians who have interpreted the Carney government’s position as a betrayal.
I also object to the unflinching support for the Israeli government that others provide no matter its behaviour.
The religious extremist members of the current Netanyahu coalition reject my marriage because it was not officiated by an Orthodox rabbi. They do not recognize some of my nephews and nieces as Jewish because their mother is from a different faith.
Failing to hold them to account increases their power and ultimately makes Israel less hospitable to Jewish families like mine.
As both a Canadian Jew and a long-time foreign policy analyst, I recognize the difficulties Ottawa faces in laying out a credible, sustainable Middle East policy.
I certainly have my own views, but it is easy to understand – professionally – how some might argue differently.
We all should be able to agree, however, that Canadian governments at every level must take anti-Semitism here at home more seriously.
That Canadian Jews make up less than 1% of our population while nearly 20% of all hate crimes committed in Canada are motivated by anti-Semitism is inexcusable.
The way that some governments insist on pairing the need to stand up against anti-Semitism with a commitment to combatting other social ills diminishes and minimizes the problem we face.
Partisan claims that only one political party truly supports efforts to combat anti-Semitism are equally unserious and offensive. (One has no business being proud of having failed to convince the rest of Canada that anti-Semitism is a blot on our social fabric.)
Cross-party, cross-jurisdictional cooperation must be the starting point for any serious, empathetic commitment to make Canada a safer place for its Jewish communities.
I’m still waiting for that to happen.
Until then, Prime Minister Carney should anticipate significant blowback whenever he comments on Middle Eastern affairs.
***
I continue to find the University of Ottawa's Thomas Juneau to be the go-to source on analysis of Canada and the Middle East.
***
To be notified of my next post, follow me on X (Twitter) @achapnick, on Bluesky @achapnick.bsky.social or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-chapnick/.
You can subscribe to my newsletter at https://buttondown.email/achapnick.
They want the war in Gaza to end and the remaining Israeli hostages to be returned, even if that means not achieving total victory against Hamas. Many of them don’t like settlement expansion in the West Bank, either.
You might think, then, that if Canada’s prime minister criticized the Netanyahu government for continuing the war in Gaza or expanding the settlements, Canadian Jews would have little to say.
But you’d be very wrong.
When Prime Minister Mark Carney joined his French and British colleagues in a harsh condemnation of the Netanyahu government last week, what appears to me to be a significant majority of Jewish Canadians were at best uncomfortable, if not furious.
I can only speak for one Jewish Canadian, but here’s a personal perspective that I hope will make it easier for anyone baffled by the situation to understand.
As a Jew with a privileged but also relatively traditional upbringing in mid-town Toronto that included meetings at school with Holocaust survivors and a trip to the death camps in Poland, I came to believe at an early age that anti-Semitism was unlikely to ever go away.
We could diminish it, we could coat it in stigma and repress it to the margins of society, but after thousands of years it remained one of the most persistent and resilient forms of irrational hatred that society had ever experienced.
For diaspora Jews like me, Israel has always therefore been the ultimate Plan B – if anti-Semitism at home becomes too great to endure, there is always a place you can escape to.
If you see Israel as your Plan B, no matter how repulsive you might find the Netanyahu coalition’s approach to governance, you might still object to anyone who condemns the Israeli government too harshly.
Criticism risks empowering Israel’s enemies who have made it clear that they will not stop until there is no longer a Jewish state.
I sympathize with Jewish Canadians who have interpreted the Carney government’s position as a betrayal.
I also object to the unflinching support for the Israeli government that others provide no matter its behaviour.
The religious extremist members of the current Netanyahu coalition reject my marriage because it was not officiated by an Orthodox rabbi. They do not recognize some of my nephews and nieces as Jewish because their mother is from a different faith.
Failing to hold them to account increases their power and ultimately makes Israel less hospitable to Jewish families like mine.
As both a Canadian Jew and a long-time foreign policy analyst, I recognize the difficulties Ottawa faces in laying out a credible, sustainable Middle East policy.
I certainly have my own views, but it is easy to understand – professionally – how some might argue differently.
We all should be able to agree, however, that Canadian governments at every level must take anti-Semitism here at home more seriously.
That Canadian Jews make up less than 1% of our population while nearly 20% of all hate crimes committed in Canada are motivated by anti-Semitism is inexcusable.
The way that some governments insist on pairing the need to stand up against anti-Semitism with a commitment to combatting other social ills diminishes and minimizes the problem we face.
Partisan claims that only one political party truly supports efforts to combat anti-Semitism are equally unserious and offensive. (One has no business being proud of having failed to convince the rest of Canada that anti-Semitism is a blot on our social fabric.)
Cross-party, cross-jurisdictional cooperation must be the starting point for any serious, empathetic commitment to make Canada a safer place for its Jewish communities.
I’m still waiting for that to happen.
Until then, Prime Minister Carney should anticipate significant blowback whenever he comments on Middle Eastern affairs.
***
I continue to find the University of Ottawa's Thomas Juneau to be the go-to source on analysis of Canada and the Middle East.
***
To be notified of my next post, follow me on X (Twitter) @achapnick, on Bluesky @achapnick.bsky.social or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-chapnick/.
You can subscribe to my newsletter at https://buttondown.email/achapnick.
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