Ottawa is shifting its stance on ‘anti-Zionism’ – and the reactions so far are mixed

OTTAWA — The federal government has identified “anti-Zionism” as a driver of anti-Jewish hate — a major policy shift that has prompted a range of reactions.

The change took place on Sept. 24 when Public Safety Canada published a progress report on federal efforts promised in January to combat antisemitism.

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The report said Ottawa sought to do a better job of recognizing and responding to “contemporary manifestations of antisemitism, including anti-Zionism.”

Here’s a closer look at the terminology, why it’s being used now and what it all means for free speech.

What is Zionism?

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines Zionism as “a movement originally for the re-establishment and now the development of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel.”

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, which identifies itself as a Zionist organization, says it means supporting the idea that “the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.”

Opponents of Zionism argue the term has come to embody a colonial mentality that allows the Israeli government to subjugate Palestinians and seek to expand its borders.

The State of Israel was declared founded in May 1948, after the end of British rule over Palestine.

The founding of the state saw Zionist paramilitaries violently disperse Palestinians who were living there, while Arab states around the region responded by deporting Jews to Israel.

Carleton University political scientist Mira Sucharov surveyed American Jews on their views of Zionism and anti-Zionism in 2022.

“Self-proclaimed Zionists (Jewish or otherwise) and anti-Zionists (Jewish or otherwise) are talking about completely different things,” she wrote in a commentary in Haaretz.

She concluded that Jews embrace Zionism when it’s defined as “a belief in a Jewish and democratic state” and reject the term when it’s defined as “the belief in privileging Jewish rights over non-Jewish rights in Israel.”

What is anti-Zionism?

For decades, Jews in Canada and around the world have debated how Israel should operate and whether it amounts to a colonial project.

Independent Jewish Voices identifies as an anti-Zionist organization. It defines anti-Zionism as “the rejection of Jewish settler-colonialism in Palestine and belief that Palestinians deserve dignity and safety like all other people.”

The Association for Canadian Studies offered its own definition, which has prompted criticism from left-leaning groups.

“Anti-Zionism refers to a movement that calls for the erasure of Israel and denies the Jewish people the right to self-determination in part of their ancestral homeland,” the association wrote in a report Ottawa commissioned.

The Network of Engaged Canadian Academics, a group of mostly Jewish academics, argues “the latest incarnation of Jew hatred is anti-Zionism (which) relies on libel and distortion to claim that the Jewish collective, Israel, rather than the individual Jew, is uniquely evil.”

That ideology, the group argues, claims Jews have fabricated a claim to their ancestral land.

“Anti-Zionists dismiss Jews as nefarious settlers who have usurped the rights of the true Indigenous people, Palestinians,” the group wrote in a brief to senators.

Since the Gaza war started in October 2023, many Canadian Jews have reported that words like “Zionist” have become pejorative terms. Some have reported Jewish people being branded with Zionism-linked slurs such as “a Zio.”

The war started with a brutal Hamas attack on Israel that killed roughly 1,200 people. That prompted Israel to launch an assault on Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and has led to repression in the occupied West Bank.

Israel also has expanded its military footprint in Lebanon and Israeli cabinet ministers have talked openly of ethnic cleansing or mass killings of civilians.

What has Ottawa said?

Last week’s federal progress report said anti-Zionism is a modern manifestation of antisemitism. It cited a 2024 government report, though that report did not mention anti-Zionism.

The report also took note of a Windsor man sentenced in April for public incitement of hatred after he used the term “Zionists” as a derogatory term for Jews.

“This is particularly important because Ontario is increasingly seeing the use of this term by protesters who try to shield otherwise hateful speech from criminal liability,” the federal report said.

The Senate human rights committee avoided weighing in on the terminology in its April study of antisemitism in Canada. Committee chair Sen. Paulette Senior said the focus of the study was on how to stop the hatred.

What do proponents say?

Groups that advocate for Israel such as CIJA have generally been supportive of the government’s shift, and have argued that Jewish Canadians are the ones to describe how they experience antisemitism.

“Anti-Zionism is driving violence against Canadians,” CIJA wrote in a tweet before the release of the federal report.

“The demonization of Israel offers a green light for extremists who target the Jewish community. This includes when governments single Israel out or hold it to a double standard.”

Liberal MP Anthony Housefather welcomed the federal shift. He said last week’s report is “an important document” that “makes clear the Canadian government recognizes that anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism.”

University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist was also supportive, writing that “Anti-Zionism is too often thinly veiled antisemitism, as if substituting the word Zionist for Jew renders the unacceptable acceptable.”

What do opponents say?

Independent Jewish Voices says Ottawa is embracing terminology that will suppress free speech.

“This definition isn’t only wrong, it’s dangerous,” the group wrote.

The group refers to Zionism as “a Jewish supremacist ideology” that is incompatible with Palestinian self-determination because it encourages occupation and suppression.

The Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council took a similar view of Ottawa’s change last week.

“Conflating opposition to Zionism with hatred or discrimination against Jewish people risks collapsing the important distinction between political expression and antisemitism,” the council wrote.

The council is one of several organizations which have rejected a definition of antisemitism adopted by the federal and provincial governments that was written by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

The IHRA definition says criticism of Israel can cross the line into antisemitism when it is persistent, when it compares Israeli policies to Nazi ones, and when it goes beyond criticism levelled at other countries.

The Ottawa Forum on Israel Palestine argued no one should conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Jewish hate.

“The Government of Canada should make it clear that supporting Zionism or opposing it are equally protected by free speech,” the group wrote in a brief to senators.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30, 2026.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press