Criticism Of Israel Treated as Hate Crime in Canada

by Dan Dicks: 

When Stephen Harper gave a prepared speech to the Israel parliament last year, he equated lack of support for Israel with anti-Semtism. He said: “[T]his is the face of the new anti-Semitism. It targets the Jewish people by targeting Israel and attempts to make the old bigotry acceptable for a new generation. Of course, criticism of Israeli government policy is not in and of itself necessarily anti-Semitic. But what else can we call criticism that selectively condemns only the Jewish state and effectively denies its right to defend itself, while systematically ignoring – or excusing – the violence and oppression all around it?”