Terry Newman: Pro-Palestine student group proves anti-Zionism is often antisemitism

A University of Glasgow pro-Palestinian student group has urged students to describe Zionism as racism and to exclude Jews who support Israel from student activities. Similar attempts to define Zionism as racism have spread through universities, public unions and streets in Canada. These exclusionary tactics and false narratives are precisely the kind of anti-Zionism that should be recognized as antisemitism by governments, courts and law enforcement agencies.

According to the Telegraph, Glasgow University’s Justice for Palestine Society “distributed flyers providing a template for how societies could deem Zionism a form of racism in their membership policies” to freshmen and urged campus groups to join “the campaign to create a Zionist-free campus.”

The template included the verbiage, “Racism, Zionism, sexism, homophobia, ableism and religious discrimination will not be tolerated and will be challenged,” and “Zionism is a racist ideology that won’t be tolerated on our campus.”

Raphi Leon, president of the Union of Jewish Students, immediately recognized this as “an antisemitic and discriminatory campaign,” and called on both the university and its student council to prevent the clause from being adopted by student groups. Leon pointed out the obvious: “Jewish and Israeli students must be protected and included in spaces on campus.”

The same disturbing tactics are happening on Canadian campuses, with anti-Zionist student groups that have set up encampments, pushed universities to divest from Israel and encouraged students to walk out of their classes. Violence has broken out at Concordia University in support of this cause, and last year, the university closed on Oct. 7, due to safety reasons.

There is also an anti-Zionist groups for faculty, and examples of professors who infuse Palestinian activism into their classrooms. A course syllabus at the University of Toronto advised students that its professor’s classroom was free of Zionism, and a York University faculty group recommended defining support for Israel as racism.

The federal government’s Campus Antisemitism and Student Experience report discovered shocking instances where Jewish-Canadian post-secondary students had experienced anti-Zionism, which was also clearly antisemitism. One student said that members of his campus residence spread rumours that the student was “a child killer, white supremacist, racist and Zionist.” Another said a “professor wrote that we should kill all Zionists, that she’s worked with them and sees how evil they are.”

If you think that sounds like a one-off, or far-fetched, consider that a Concordia professor took to social media with the following advice about how to deal with “hardcore Zionists” — “Kill them all.”

Anti-Zionism has also weaved its way into our public unions. The former Ontario president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees has called Zionism as a “racist supremacist ideology,” and a former Canadian Federation of Students–Ontario union chairperson stated at a rally that, “Zionism is rooted in white supremacy, it is rooted in racism, it is rooted in anti-blackness.”

Meanwhile, anti-Israel protesters in Montreal continue to chant: “All the Zionists are racists. All the Zionists are terrorists.”

We shouldn’t be surprised that it has gotten this bad. In Canada, as in the United Kingdom, most political parties have failed Jews.

Earlier this month, the U.K. Green party adopted an “anti-Zionist policy,” which suggests that Israel is racist and calls for a single Palestinian state. In other words, the elimination of the State of Israel. While British Prime Minister Andy Burnham condemned it as “wrong” and “antisemitic,” his Labour party also has skeletons in its closet.

Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader from 2015-2020, attempted to water down the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance‘s definition of antisemitism by adding a statement to its adoption that it should not be considered “antisemitic to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist.” It failed to gain enough support, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t do damage.

Keir Starmer followed Corbyn as leader and was a definite improvement, though still exhibited naiveté when it came to the goals of anti-Israel activists.

In 2025, like Prime Minister Mark Carney, Starmer recognized a Palestinian state without it having met the proper conditions, while, at the same time implying that Israel was blocking aid and starving Gazans. Independent reports have since confirmed that Hamas looted and diverted supplies. And, lo and behold, the Palestinian Authority, which ran a “pay-for-slay” program, has predictably postponed its elections.

The pattern is similar in Canada.

NDP Leader Avi Lewis identifies as an anti-Zionist and has co-authored a report accusing Israel of “anti-Palestinian racism.” On the same evening of Yom Kippur that the congregants of the Sons of Jacob synagogue in Belleville, Ont., were miraculously saved from a mass shooting attempt, Lewis took to X to suggest that Jews, collectively, had failed to do their part in stopping “genocide” committed in their name, which he later unconvincingly denied.

As our government recently acknowledged, albeit very late, like the U.K., antisemitism includes anti-Zionism. Now it’s time to do something about it.

National Post