There is something happening in Jewish advocacy that we need to talk about. Every time there is a win, a decision, a cancellation, a statement, an arrest, a policy change, a politician finally saying the right thing, or even the smallest sign of progress, the race begins. Not the race to build on the victory. The race to Instagram.

The graphics go up. The logos get stamped on them. The congratulatory posts begin. Organizations tag themselves and each other. The captions are carefully written to make sure everyone understands who was in the room, who sent the letter, who made the phone call, who held the meeting and who applied the pressure. “Kol hakavod.” “Well done.” “Proud of our leadership.” “Another important victory.”

Enough.

This fight is not about the kol hakavods. It is not about who gets credit. It is not about whose logo gets attached to the victory. It is not about proving to donors that your organization was responsible. It is not about collecting screenshots for the next fundraising campaign. And it certainly is not about building personal brands while Jewish communities are trying to figure out how to live safely and confidently in their own country.

If you need recognition for fighting Jew hatred, sit down. If you need applause to keep going, stop. If your first instinct after something good happens is to figure out how to make sure everyone knows you helped make it happen, you may have forgotten why you entered this fight in the first place. Because this was never supposed to be about us.

There is a fundamental difference between communicating results and claiming ownership of them. Organizations absolutely should tell their communities what they are doing. Donors deserve accountability. Members deserve transparency. The public deserves to know which strategies are working. But that is very different from the obsessive need to plant a flag on every victory.

And increasingly, I see it from both legacy organizations and grassroots groups. Everyone wants to be the organization that “did it.” We got the meeting. We got the statement. We got the politician to respond. We got the event cancelled. We got the investigation. We got the policy changed. We got the apology.

Maybe you did. Maybe another organization did too. Maybe a community member sent an email you will never know about. Maybe someone called an elected official. Maybe a lawyer worked quietly behind the scenes. Maybe a journalist asked the right question. Maybe a donor applied pressure privately. Maybe a parent refused to back down. Maybe a student stood up in a classroom. Maybe ten organizations pushed from ten different directions until the pressure became impossible to ignore.

Most victories in advocacy do not belong to one person or one organization. They are cumulative. Pressure builds. People speak. Organizations lobby. Community members complain. Journalists investigate. Lawyers challenge. Politicians calculate. Institutions eventually move. Then somebody posts the graphic, and suddenly the story becomes, “Look what we accomplished.”

That culture is becoming toxic because it changes the incentive structure of advocacy. Once recognition becomes currency, cooperation becomes harder. Information becomes proprietary. Relationships become territory. People start worrying about who gets invited into the meeting rather than whether the meeting produces something meaningful. Organizations become reluctant to share intelligence because somebody else might act on it first. People begin protecting access instead of expanding influence. And the community loses.

The enemy does not care whose logo is on the press release. Jew hatred does not care who has the largest Instagram following. The people intimidating Jewish students do not stop because your organization received 4,000 likes. The people targeting Jewish businesses are not checking which advocacy organization got thanked by a politician. The ideological movements organizing against Israel and Zionism are not sitting around arguing over who deserves the kol hakavod. They are organizing.

And while they organize, we sometimes behave as though Jewish advocacy is an awards ceremony. It isn't. This is supposed to be service.

There are people doing extraordinary work right now whose names you will never know. They do not have communications departments. They do not issue press releases. They do not have photographers following them into meetings. They make calls, send information, connect people, spend hours researching, show up, push, take abuse and lose sleep. Then they wake up the next morning and do it again. No applause. No graphic. No kol hakavod. That is advocacy.

I have become far more interested in the work nobody sees than the work everybody announces, because the question should never be, “Who gets credit?” The question should be, “Did it work?” Did Jewish students become safer? Did the institution change its policy? Did the politician understand the issue? Did law enforcement respond differently? Did misinformation get corrected? Did somebody who was previously silent finally speak? Did we move the line?

And then comes the most important question: what do we do next?

There is something almost absurd about declaring victory while the larger battle continues around us. We are living through a period when Jews are confronting extraordinary hostility in public institutions, universities, schools, streets, workplaces and political spaces. Israel is routinely treated according to standards applied to virtually no other country. Zionism has been turned into a slur. Jewish institutions require levels of security that should be unimaginable in Canada. Jewish students are being asked to explain and defend their identities before they are accepted into certain spaces.

And we are handing out trophies to ourselves.

Enough.

A victory should create momentum, not a victory lap. When something works, share the strategy. When someone opens a door, hold it open for the next person. When you develop useful research, get it into the hands of people who can act on it. When another Jewish organization succeeds, resist the temptation to explain privately why you actually deserve some of the credit. Just be happy something moved.

And if someone else gets the credit for something you helped accomplish? Good. The result still happened. That should be enough.

Imagine how powerful Jewish advocacy could become if we stopped treating influence as a scarce resource. Imagine if legacy organizations stopped guarding access and grassroots organizations stopped competing for visibility. Imagine if donors rewarded outcomes rather than branding. Imagine if organizations were comfortable saying, “We were one of many groups working on this.” Imagine if someone could contribute quietly and genuinely not care whether anyone ever found out.

That is the culture we need.

There will always be a place for recognition. People deserve thanks. Volunteers deserve appreciation. Staff deserve acknowledgement. Courage should be celebrated. But recognition cannot become the reason we fight.

Because there is a very simple test. If nobody knew you did it, would you still do it? If there were no Instagram post, would you still make the call? If there were no donor email, would you still spend the night researching? If another organization received the credit, would you still be happy the outcome was achieved?

If the answer is no, then this fight may not be for you.

Jewish advocacy cannot become another industry where organizations build brands around a crisis they are supposed to be trying to end. We do not need more people fighting to stand at the front of the photograph. We need people willing to push from behind it. We need people who understand that sometimes the most important contribution you can make will never have your name attached to it. And we need organizations secure enough in their missions to understand that another Jewish organization's victory is not their loss.

There is more than enough work to do. So celebrate the wins. Thank the people who helped. Take a moment to appreciate that something moved in the right direction. Then get back to work.

History is not going to remember who posted the graphic first. It is going to remember whether we changed the trajectory.

Enough with the kol hakavods.

The work is the reward.

Support Unapologetically Jewish

We Have the Evidence. Now We Need Your Help.

For the past seven months, we have been researching.

Not scrolling social media. Not collecting screenshots for outrage. Researching.

In just seven months, we have invested more than 30,000 hours into following organizations, individuals, funding, government relationships, charitable structures, campaigns, public statements and the networks increasingly focused on Israel, Zionism and Jewish institutions in Canada.

We have been quietly putting together the research and evidence needed to go after the organizations that are going after our community.

And we are not doing this work in isolation.

We are working with two other governments, sharing research and evidence as part of this effort. Our investigation is now nearing completion, and we are preparing to file formal complaints against organizations identified through our research.

That matters because yesterday showed exactly what we are up against.

Just Peace Advocates is promoting a coordinated campaign encouraging Canadians to target organizations connected to Jewish communal life through complaints to the Canada Revenue Agency. Organizations are being identified, activists are being mobilized, and Canada’s regulatory system is being used as another arena in the campaign against institutions connected to Israel and the Jewish community.

They are organizing. So are we.

But there is an important difference.

We are building our case on evidence.

Canadians need to understand who is behind these campaigns, how the organizations are connected, where their funding comes from, what relationships exist between them, what they are telling government, and how their campaigns move from activism into institutions and public policy.

That requires evidence.

And evidence takes time and money.

It takes researchers. It takes access-to-information requests. It takes databases. It takes reviewing financial records, charitable filings, government documents, videos, speeches, organizational reports and thousands upon thousands of pages of material. It takes lawyers and experts to make sure that when we put our names behind something, we can stand behind every word.

More than 30,000 hours of research in seven months.

We are almost finished.

The evidence has been assembled. The relationships have been mapped. The documentation is being finalized. The next stage is taking that research and putting it in front of the institutions and authorities capable of acting on it.

And this is where we need YOUR help.

Help Us Fight

Unapologetically Jewish does not have the massive fundraising infrastructure of Canada’s legacy Jewish organizations. We are a registered Canadian nonprofit, not a charity, and we do not issue charitable tax receipts.

And we want to be clear about something: supporting UJ does not mean you have to stop supporting the charitable organizations you already care about.

Continue making your charitable donations. Continue receiving your tax receipts. Continue supporting the synagogues, schools, social-service agencies and Jewish organizations that matter to you.

And then help us do the work they are not doing.

Think of supporting UJ as something additional. We are asking our community to invest directly in research, investigation, advocacy and action while continuing to support the rest of Jewish communal life.

Because we are building something this community desperately needs: an independent research, advocacy and media organization willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads and confront organizations targeting Jewish life in Canada.

This work costs money.

Every contribution gives us more capacity to investigate, document, expose, file, educate and act.

Give $18. Give $180. Give $1,800. Become a monthly supporter. If you have the capacity to make a significant contribution, speak with us about becoming a UJ sponsor and receiving a sponsorship receipt where applicable.

If you have read our investigations and thought, “Why isn’t anyone else talking about this?”

If you have watched what is happening to Jewish institutions across this country and wondered, “Who is actually connecting the dots?”

We are.

We have put in the hours.

We have built the research.

We have assembled the evidence.

We are working with governments.

And we are preparing to file.

But research of this magnitude cannot be sustained on determination alone.

We need YOUR help.

This isn’t about funding another Jewish organization.

It’s about giving us the resources to fight back against the organizations coming after our community.

Support Unapologetically Jewish today.

Support Unapologetically Jewish Today

There comes a point when Jewish leadership has to be judged not by the meetings it gets, the politicians who return its calls, or the relationships it maintains, but by whether any of that actually makes Canadian Jews safer, stronger and better represented.

By that standard, I believe CIJA is failing the Jewish community.

Its response to the Muslim Association of Canada controversy demonstrates why.

CIJA wrote: “Three months after the Muslim Association of Canada amplified calls for a ‘Jew Free’ world, it’s important that the organization committed to not do this again.”

Think about what that sentence says. A “Jew Free” world was amplified, and three months later we are supposed to consider it progress that MAC has committed not to do it again.

That isn't accountability. Accountability begins by determining how it happened in the first place.

And there is one critical fact missing from CIJA's framing: MAC didn't expose what happened. Journalists did.

Reporting from inside MAC's 2026 convention documented the words “Jew free” appearing on a live word cloud during the “Visionaries of the Ummah: Youth Activism Lab,” where young participants were asked to describe the type of community they wanted to build.

That changes the conversation completely.

I am less interested in what MAC promises after being exposed than I am in what was happening before Canadians knew about it. Who designed the programming? Who selected and vetted the speakers? What were young people being taught? Who supervised it? What investigation followed? And what would we know today if journalists hadn't been there?

Those are the questions I expect Canada's leading Jewish advocacy organization to pursue.

Instead, CIJA itself says MAC must address “youth radicalization” and the drivers of hatred, including what CSIS calls “religiously motivated violent extremism.”

Those aren't casual words.

Once you introduce radicalization and violent extremism into the conversation, you have an obligation to follow the evidence. You cannot warn Canadian Jews about youth radicalization while simultaneously treating a promise from the organization that hosted the conference as meaningful resolution.

And there is plenty here worth examining.

One of the people documented speaking to young attendees at the 2026 MAC convention was Khaled Al-Qazzaz. Reporting from inside the event described Al-Qazzaz discussing Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna and his model of Islamic revival, including a progression from strengthening the individual to the family, community and ultimately the Ummah. These remarks preceded the youth activism workshop where the “Jew Free” message appeared.

Al-Qazzaz's history is publicly documented. His own biography says he served as Secretary to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi for Foreign Relations. Morsi came to power through the Freedom and Justice Party, the political party established by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

Al-Qazzaz later became deeply involved with MAC in Canada. A University of Toronto profile identified him as MAC's Director of Education and Communications. He is now Executive Director of the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council, CMPAC.

That educational role matters when CIJA itself is warning about youth radicalization. What curriculum was developed? What ideological frameworks informed it? Who reviewed it? What ideas were presented to students about Canada, Jews, Israel, political activism, Islamic revival and the Muslim Brotherhood?

These aren't allegations of criminality. They are basic due-diligence questions.

Al-Qazzaz is also not the only person connected to Morsi's government who appears in this Canadian institutional ecosystem. Hussein Elkazzaz was an official speaker at MAC's 2026 convention, and MAC's biography says he served as an adviser to President Morsi on integrated national development. Wael Haddara, a former president of MAC, later became a senior adviser to Morsi and has subsequently participated in CMPAC programming.

None of those associations prove wrongdoing. But they establish an institutional history that deserves scrutiny when the subject is political influence, education and youth programming.

Then there is MAC's history with the Canada Revenue Agency.

The CRA began auditing MAC in 2015. According to the Ontario Court of Appeal, the audit involved approximately one million financial transactions, more than 415,000 emails and more than 63,000 other files. In 2021, the CRA issued preliminary findings alleging numerous areas of non-compliance and recommending revocation of MAC's charitable registration.

Those findings were preliminary. MAC strongly disputed them and challenged the process, alleging discrimination and Islamophobia. Subsequent analysis commissioned by MAC has also criticized aspects of the CRA's terrorism-financing analysis.

That distinction matters. I am not interested in presenting disputed allegations as established facts.

But neither should that controversy prevent scrutiny of something entirely separate that happened years later. The “Jew Free” incident was documented independently by journalists in 2026. Against MAC's history of extraordinary regulatory scrutiny, a new controversy involving youth programming should result in greater demands for transparency, not a victory lap over a promise.

There is another dimension CIJA should understand because these organizations aren't operating only inside community spaces. They are seeking significant influence over Canadian public policy.

On June 4, 2026, CMPAC released its “Combatting Islamophobia” policy handbook. It calls for a dedicated Islamophobia funding stream within Canada's Anti-Racism Strategy and Action Plan on Combatting Hate. Based on the funding pools identified in CMPAC's own document, its proposed 10 to 15 percent allocation represents roughly $38 million to $58 million for initiatives including public awareness, research, education, youth engagement, digital literacy and capacity-building for Muslim-led organizations. CMPAC separately calls for at least $40 million for security infrastructure and protective measures for Muslim institutions.

Muslims deserve protection from hate. Mosques deserve security. But organizations seeking tens of millions of dollars in public funding to conduct education, youth engagement and public-awareness programming should expect serious scrutiny. That's democracy.

CMPAC also advocates reforms affecting regulatory oversight of Muslim charities and criticizes aspects of Canada's national-security, financial and charitable-compliance systems. It would be inaccurate to say CMPAC explicitly demands the abolition of counterterrorism protections. But Canadians have every right to examine what changes are being proposed, who is proposing them and what those changes could mean in practice.

We already know why charitable oversight and terrorist-financing safeguards matter. IRFAN-Canada was listed as a terrorist entity by the Government of Canada in 2014 after the government said it transferred approximately $14.6 million in resources to organizations associated with Hamas. IRFAN remains a listed terrorist entity.

That does not justify presuming other Muslim organizations guilty. It demonstrates why rigorous safeguards exist and why proposals affecting them deserve scrutiny regardless of who proposes them.

This is the work I expect Jewish advocacy organizations to be doing: understanding the organizations, ideological influences, educational structures and policy proposals that could affect the community they represent.

Instead, CIJA tells us Nazi ideology is “dangerously seeping” into Canadian society.

Seeping?

Jewish schools have been shot at. Synagogues have been attacked and vandalized. Jewish businesses have been targeted. Jews have been intimidated in their own neighbourhoods. Terrorist organizations have been glorified and eliminationist rhetoric against Israel has become routine.

Canadian Jews don't need their leadership to tell them something is beginning to seep into society. They have been living with it.

And this exposes the larger failure.

CIJA has increasingly confused access with achievement.

There is nothing wrong with access. CIJA should have relationships with governments, Muslim organizations, law enforcement, universities and civil society. But the purpose of those relationships is to produce results for Canadian Jews.

A meeting isn't an outcome. A statement isn't a consequence. A promise made after exposure isn't proof that the underlying problem has been solved.

If maintaining access makes a Jewish organization reluctant to publicly challenge the people sitting across the table, then the relationship has stopped serving the Jewish community.

The community is the client. Not the relationship.

The Jewish community measures success differently. Are our institutions safer? Is antisemitism decreasing? Are organizations promoting hatred facing consequences? Are governments changing failed policies? Are Jewish Canadians more confident that someone powerful is actually fighting for them?

Those are the metrics that matter.

And if the answer is repeatedly no, Jewish leadership cannot continue pointing to access as evidence of success.

Some will say that criticizing CIJA publicly divides the Jewish community. I reject that completely. Unity cannot mean immunity from criticism. Institutions claiming to represent us should face greater scrutiny precisely because their work matters.

Others will say I should raise these concerns privately.

I have tried. Multiple times. Others have attempted to facilitate conversations. They won't talk to me.

So don't tell me criticism belongs behind closed doors when the door remains closed.

Our community has confused institutional loyalty with Jewish unity for too long.

They are not the same thing.

Institutions exist to serve Jews. Jews do not exist to protect institutions.

Canadian Jews need leadership willing to investigate before congratulating, challenge rather than simply engage, risk access when access stops producing results, and say publicly when something is not good enough.

Because this is what CIJA's own statement leaves us with: a “Jew Free” message appeared during a youth workshop at the convention of a major Canadian organization. Journalists exposed it. CIJA itself raised concerns about youth radicalization and religiously motivated violent extremism.

Three months later, the takeaway is that MAC has committed not to do it again.

No.

The central question isn't what MAC promises to do tomorrow.

It is what was happening yesterday.

And that is why I believe CIJA is failing.

It increasingly appears satisfied with access when Canadian Jews need outcomes, statements when we need consequences, dialogue when we need accountability, and promises when we need answers.

Jewish advocacy should not measure success by whether the people across the table remain comfortable.

It should measure success by whether the Jews being represented are safer.

When someone gets caught, the story doesn't end with the promise they make afterward.

The story begins with what they were doing before they knew anyone was watching.

CIJA should be leading the effort to find those answers.

Instead, it is celebrating the promise.

That isn't merely a missed opportunity. It is a failure of Jewish leadership.

And if CIJA isn't prepared to ask the questions our community deserves answered, Unapologetically Jewish is.

There is a story beneath the latest headline about Muslim charities, banking restrictions and Canada's anti-terrorism financing laws, and it is far more consequential than a dispute over charitable regulation. It is a story about how liberal democracies defend themselves, how advocacy becomes policy, and what happens when the very protections created to defend minorities from discrimination are invoked to make legitimate scrutiny increasingly difficult.

That distinction matters because there is a serious issue at the centre of this debate. Muslim charities should not be investigated because they are Muslim. They should not lose banking services because of their religion. They should not be presumed guilty because they operate in Muslim-majority countries. If the Canada Revenue Agency, a bank or any government institution discriminates against an organization because of the identity of the people running it, Canadians should demand accountability. That is not merely a concession to this discussion. It is one of the principles upon which a liberal democracy depends.

But another principle matters just as much. Membership in a minority community cannot provide immunity from legitimate scrutiny. An organization does not become less accountable to Canadian law because investigating it may provoke accusations of prejudice. A bank does not cease having obligations to identify suspicious financial activity because the client involved is Muslim. The CRA does not cease having an obligation to investigate legitimate concerns because the charity involved serves a minority community. And Canada does not cease having an obligation to prevent terrorist financing because doing so has become politically uncomfortable.

That is the real issue raised by the latest study authored by University of Toronto professor Anver Emon. The report, Humanitarianism and the Exclusion of Muslim Charities from the Financial Sector, argues that Canada's anti-money-laundering, anti-terrorist-financing and sanctions architecture has created serious obstacles for Muslim humanitarian charities. The argument deserves to be examined. Banks can overreact to risk. Governments can design rules with unintended consequences. Legitimate humanitarian organizations can find themselves trapped between the requirements of Canadian regulators and the realities of operating in some of the most dangerous places on Earth.

But the report did not materialize in an intellectual vacuum. That is where the story becomes more interesting, and where much of the media coverage becomes inadequate.

Emon has been engaged in this policy debate for years. In 2021, he co-authored Under Layered Suspicion: A Review of CRA Audits of Muslim-led Charities with Nadia Hasan, then a senior figure with the National Council of Canadian Muslims. That report argued that Canada's post-9/11 national-security architecture created structural vulnerabilities to bias in the treatment of Muslim charities. Emon subsequently provided expert evidence for the Muslim Association of Canada in its legal battle against the Canada Revenue Agency. He later testified before Parliament about systemic Islamophobia and discussed Canada's counter-terrorism architecture, including the terrorist-entities list, in the context of what he described as the post-9/11 "moral panic."

Then the argument moved closer to government.

Emon served on the federal government's Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector from 2022 to 2024. According to the government's own records, he led work examining Canada's National Inherent Risk Assessment and its implications for charities. His academic research was no longer simply commenting on government policy from outside the building. The ideas he had been developing were now part of the environment in which government policy itself was being examined.

And now comes another study arguing that Canada's anti-money-laundering, anti-terrorist-financing and sanctions regime is harming Muslim humanitarian organizations.

None of this proves that Emon's research is wrong. It would be intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise. An academic can hold strong views and still produce good research. An expert can provide evidence in litigation and still make legitimate arguments. An advocacy organization can identify genuine injustice. The point is not guilt by association. The point is intellectual transparency.

Canadians should understand how an idea travels.

It can begin as an argument within an advocacy community. Research gives the argument academic authority. Advocacy organizations amplify the research. Litigation places pressure on government institutions. Media coverage gives the argument public legitimacy. Parliamentary testimony moves it into the political bloodstream. Government advisory bodies translate ideas into recommendations. Eventually, what began as an argument about the system can become part of the process by which the system is redesigned.

There is nothing inherently improper about that. It is, in many ways, democracy functioning exactly as designed. Environmentalists do it. Corporations do it. Labour organizations do it. Jewish organizations do it. Civil-liberties organizations do it. Industries spend enormous amounts of money attempting to do it.

The danger comes when the ecosystem disappears from view and each stage is presented as independent validation of the last. Advocacy becomes research. Research becomes evidence. Evidence becomes media consensus. Consensus becomes policy. The public sees five different institutions apparently arriving at the same conclusion without necessarily being shown the intellectual and organizational connections between them.

That is why the background matters.

It also raises a more uncomfortable question about the West itself.

Liberal democracy possesses an unusual characteristic: it institutionalizes suspicion of its own power. We allow citizens to sue the government. We protect dissenters. We protect religious minorities. We permit academics to attack state policy. We empower journalists to investigate intelligence agencies. We create human-rights commissions and courts specifically capable of telling governments that they have crossed a line. We deliberately make state power difficult to exercise because history has taught us what happens when governments become too powerful and minorities too vulnerable.

These are not weaknesses. They are among the West's greatest achievements.

But every strength creates a vulnerability when people learn how the system works.

The language of human rights carries enormous moral authority in Western societies. So do accusations of racism, discrimination and Islamophobia. Often that language is necessary because the underlying discrimination is real. But moral language can also have a secondary effect: it can move the burden of scrutiny from the organization being examined to the institution doing the examining.

A regulator investigates an organization and suddenly the regulator is defending itself against allegations of systemic discrimination. A bank identifies a risk and the discussion shifts from the transaction to whether the bank is engaging in discriminatory "de-risking." A government examines extremist financing and the question becomes whether its national-security architecture is Islamophobic. A journalist investigates an organization and finds herself answering accusations that the investigation itself stigmatizes Muslims.

Notice what can disappear in that transformation.

The evidence.

That is the vulnerability we should be discussing. The most sophisticated way to weaken a liberal institution is not necessarily to confront it directly. Sometimes it is to force the institution to doubt the legitimacy of exercising its own authority.

This does not require a grand conspiracy. In fact, thinking about it as a conspiracy misses the more important point. Institutions respond to incentives. Politicians fear controversy. Corporations fear reputational damage. Universities fear accusations of discrimination. Government departments fear litigation. Journalists fear being accused of prejudice. Over time, those incentives can produce institutional hesitation without anyone issuing an instruction or coordinating a campaign.

And hesitation can become policy.

There is a phrase for the chilling effect experienced by communities that believe they are being unfairly scrutinized. We should take that chilling effect seriously. But there is another chilling effect we rarely discuss: what happens when the people responsible for scrutinizing legitimate threats become afraid to do their jobs.

What happens when a CRA investigator asks not only, "Does the evidence justify further examination?" but also, "What will happen to me if this becomes an Islamophobia controversy?" What happens when a bank's compliance department must calculate reputational risk alongside terrorist-financing risk? What happens when politicians become so terrified of conflating Islamism with Islam that they eventually become reluctant to discuss Islamism at all?

That is not tolerance. It is institutional paralysis.

And it is precisely why language matters.

Muslims are people. Islam is a religion. Islamism is a political project. Terrorist organizations are organizations. Financial networks are financial networks. These categories overlap in some circumstances and have absolutely nothing to do with one another in others. A functioning democracy must be capable of distinguishing between them.

Protecting Muslims from hatred does not require protecting Islamism from criticism. Protecting religious freedom does not require protecting political organizations from investigation. Fighting anti-Muslim discrimination does not require abandoning terrorist-financing safeguards. And scrutinizing the conduct of a Muslim organization is not the same thing as scrutinizing Muslims.

We understand this instinctively in other contexts. If the CRA investigated a Jewish charity based solely on the fact that it was Jewish, I would be among the first people demanding answers. But if evidence emerged suggesting that a Jewish organization had violated Canadian law, I would never argue that investigating it was inherently antisemitic. Antisemitism is real. It is not an immunity card.

The standard has to be universal.

Investigate conduct, not identity. Follow evidence, not ethnicity. Protect civil rights without creating civil immunity.

This becomes particularly important in terrorist financing because the underlying problem is genuinely difficult. Terrorist organizations do not finance themselves through bank accounts conveniently labelled "terrorism." Money moves through businesses, individuals, informal financial systems, front organizations and, in some cases internationally, charitable or humanitarian structures. Legitimate humanitarian organizations can also operate in territories where designated terrorist organizations exercise political, military or economic control. The same environment can therefore contain desperate civilians, legitimate aid workers and genuine security risks.

That complexity is exactly why enhanced scrutiny exists.

The question should never be whether Muslim charities deserve suspicion. They do not. The question should be how Canada allows legitimate humanitarian organizations to operate while ensuring that Canadian money, resources and infrastructure do not benefit terrorist organizations.

That is a difficult question. Difficult questions require better safeguards, better intelligence, better regulation and better oversight. They do not require pretending the risk disappears because discussing it is uncomfortable.

And this is where the current debate has consequences far beyond one professor or one study.

If Canada's national-security architecture is discriminatory, fix it. If CRA officials relied on flawed evidence, expose it. If banks are closing accounts without adequate justification, force them to explain themselves. If innocent organizations are being punished because they are Muslim, defend them.

But the burden of proof must work both ways.

The word "Islamophobia" cannot become a password that shuts down inquiry. "Systemic discrimination" cannot be an answer to evidence that has not yet been examined. Human rights cannot become a rhetorical force field around organizations whose conduct raises legitimate questions.

Otherwise we create a dangerous asymmetry: the state must endlessly prove the purity of its motives while the substance of what it was investigating becomes secondary.

That is not accountability.

It is inversion.

This is also why journalism matters so much. When a newspaper reports on research advocating changes to Canada's national-security architecture, readers deserve more than the study's conclusions and a quotation from its author. They deserve context. What has the researcher previously argued? Which organizations has the researcher worked with? Has the researcher provided expert evidence in litigation involving the institutions now being criticized? Has the researcher advised government on the policies being challenged? Are the recommendations new, or are they another stage in a longer campaign for institutional change?

Those questions do not discredit research.

They are how serious people evaluate it.

The same scrutiny should apply to research I agree with. If a study defending Israel were funded by a pro-Israel organization, tell me. If an expert criticizing antisemitism were simultaneously advising a Jewish advocacy organization, disclose it. The answer to selective transparency is not less transparency. It is more of it.

And that brings us to the larger lesson.

The West's openness is powerful precisely because it allows its institutions to be challenged. But openness without confidence can become vulnerability. A society that no longer distinguishes between prejudice and scrutiny will eventually become frightened of scrutinizing anything involving a minority community. A government that treats every accusation against its institutions as proof of institutional guilt will gradually surrender its ability to govern. A national-security apparatus that becomes more concerned with appearing virtuous than discovering what is true will eventually fail at both.

We do not protect liberal democracy by abandoning liberalism. Nor do we protect it by becoming intolerant.

We protect it by refusing false choices.

Canada can protect Muslim Canadians from hatred and investigate Islamist extremism. Canada can defend religious freedom and investigate terrorist financing. Canada can reform discriminatory practices and preserve effective national-security safeguards. Canada can listen to advocacy organizations without handing them a veto over the institutions they are seeking to change.

The principle is almost embarrassingly simple: no one should be investigated because of who they are, and no one should escape investigation because of who they are.

That should be the outcome of this debate.

And that is my call to action.

Read Emon's study. Don't burn it. Don't ban it. Don't dismiss it because you dislike its conclusions. Read it critically. Then read what came before it. Read Under Layered Suspicion. Read his parliamentary testimony. Read the federal advisory committee reports. Examine his expert evidence in the MAC litigation. Examine the government's response. Examine the arguments on the other side.

Then start asking our journalists and politicians a question they should be answering every time research is used to justify public-policy change:

Who is trying to change the system, what exactly do they want changed, and what happens if they succeed?

Because liberal democracy contains a paradox we should never forget.

Its enemies do not always need to destroy its institutions. They can benefit when institutions lose confidence in their own legitimate functions. They can benefit when scrutiny is confused with prejudice, when enforcement is confused with persecution, and when fear of appearing intolerant becomes stronger than the willingness to investigate uncomfortable facts.

The answer is not suspicion of Muslims. It is vigilance about institutions, ideologies, organizations and evidence, regardless of the identities involved.

We built a society in which minorities could challenge power because that is what free societies do.

We should be proud of that.

But we should also be wise enough to understand that every system of protection can be exploited, every moral language can be manipulated, and every institution can be pressured into forgetting why it exists.

The test of a liberal democracy is not simply whether it protects people from the power of the state. It is whether it can do so without becoming afraid to protect itself.

There is something about Zohran Mamdani’s repeated promise to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he came to New York City that I don’t think we have examined deeply enough. Most of the conversation has focused on whether he could actually do it. Could a mayor order the arrest of the Israeli prime minister based on an International Criminal Court warrant? What authority would New York City have? What about federal law, immunity and the fact that the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute? Those are legitimate legal questions. But I think concentrating exclusively on them misses the much more important question.

What if the point was never actually to arrest Netanyahu? What if the arrest was simply the vehicle for something else? Mamdani knew, or certainly should have known, that the mayor of New York does not independently control American foreign policy or possess some magical authority to enforce an ICC warrant against a visiting foreign leader. Yet he repeatedly made the promise anyway. It generated headlines. It generated applause. It became part of his political identity. If the objective was actually putting Netanyahu in handcuffs, the promise was questionable from the beginning. But if the objective was publicly humiliating Netanyahu, it worked perfectly.

Because humiliation does not require actual power. It requires an audience.

Think about the image created by the statement itself. Netanyahu arrives in New York. Police are waiting. He is stopped. He is arrested. Perhaps he is placed in handcuffs. The prime minister of the world’s only Jewish state is reduced from head of government to prisoner. Whether that scene could actually happen almost becomes secondary because the image has already been created. It has travelled through social media, demonstrations, headlines and political rallies. Netanyahu has been symbolically arrested even if nobody ever touches him. The threat itself accomplished something. The leader of Israel was symbolically placed beneath the authority of a politician who could not actually do what he was promising to do.

That isn’t power. It is theatre. And the currency of that theatre is humiliation.

I have been thinking about humiliation a lot because I have experienced a much smaller and obviously far less consequential version of the same psychological tactic myself. When I encounter Jew haters who masquerade as anti-Zionists, Palestine activists or simply anti-Israel activists, something interesting often happens when they don’t like what I am saying. They stop talking about what I am saying and start talking about me. They insult my weight. They mock how I look. They make comments about my appearance. They laugh at me. And perhaps most revealingly, I have been told that I am “not a real Jew.”

For a long time, I treated those things as childish insults from people who had run out of arguments. But I have come to believe something deeper is happening. My weight has absolutely nothing to do with Zionism. My appearance has nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My body has nothing to do with October 7, Hamas, Gaza, settlements, Jewish history or Jewish self-determination. So why go there? Because at that moment, defeating my argument is no longer the objective. Demeaning the Jew making the argument is.

Humiliation is about status. It says: I don’t merely disagree with you. I am above you. I am entitled to ridicule you. I am entitled to make you uncomfortable in your own skin. I am entitled to determine your worth. And public humiliation has two audiences. To the person being attacked, the message is: know your place. To everyone watching, the message is: look what we are allowed to do to him.

That matters when we talk about antisemitism because humiliation has never been incidental to the persecution of Jews. It has repeatedly been one of its tools. Jews throughout history were not simply excluded, restricted and attacked. They were degraded. Jewish physical features were caricatured. Jewish religious practices were mocked. Jewish men were portrayed as weak, grotesque or cowardly. Jews were accused of being dirty, dishonest, disloyal and parasitic. In different places and different periods, Jews were forced to identify themselves visually, restricted from professions, pushed into particular areas and subjected to rules that did more than control Jewish life. They communicated Jewish status.

Know your place.

That is why one of the most profound transformations in modern Jewish history was psychological as much as political. Zionism said that the Jew did not have to accept permanent powerlessness as the natural condition of Jewish existence. Jews would no longer spend eternity hoping that whichever king, government, church, ruler or political movement controlled their fate would remain benevolent. Jews could exercise self-determination. Jews could build institutions. Jews could defend themselves. Jews could determine their own future.

The Jew could stand upright.

Whatever political disagreements people have about Israel, that transformation cannot be separated from what Israel represents in Jewish history. For the first time in nearly two thousand years, Jews possess sovereignty in their ancestral homeland and the ability to defend that sovereignty themselves. The Jewish relationship with power fundamentally changed. The Jew was no longer entirely dependent on someone else’s willingness to tolerate him.

I sometimes wonder whether that is precisely what enrages certain people so deeply. Israel represents a Jew who cannot simply be ordered back into his historical position. Israel can be criticized. It can be pressured. Its government can be opposed. Its policies can be challenged, including by Israelis themselves. But Israel does not require permission from its critics to exist.

And so much of what we now see directed toward Israel goes beyond disagreement with policy. Israel must be declared illegitimate. Its representatives must be shouted down. Its institutions must be boycotted. Its supporters must be made unwelcome. Its legitimacy must constantly be placed on trial. And the leader of Israel? Put him in handcuffs.

This isn’t limited to Mamdani, and it isn’t limited to the United States.

I saw something that struck me in a similar way here in Canada. When Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Canada’s intention to recognize a Palestinian state, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand rose in an enthusiastic show of approval. I watched that moment and saw more than a disagreement with Israeli government policy. To me, it communicated something much bigger. Canada was not quietly adjusting a diplomatic position. Our foreign minister was visibly celebrating a decision that Israel had strongly opposed.

Governments make foreign-policy decisions all the time that anger their allies. Canada is entitled to formulate its own foreign policy, and Anand might describe her reaction very differently. She might say she was applauding Palestinian self-determination, Canada’s commitment to a two-state solution or what she believed was a step toward peace. But political gestures do not belong exclusively to the intentions of the people making them. They also carry messages to the people watching.

And symbolism matters enormously in diplomacy.

This was after October 7. Israeli hostages were still being held. Hamas had not disappeared. The Palestinian political system had not undergone the democratic transformation Canadians had been promised. The demilitarization of a future Palestinian state had not occurred. Carney himself had attached conditions and expectations to Canada’s recognition policy. Yet here was Canada’s foreign minister visibly applauding the announcement.

Imagine how that looked from the Jewish side. Imagine being an Israeli watching an allied foreign minister celebrate. Imagine being the family of a hostage. Imagine being a Canadian Jew who had spent the period since October 7 watching demonstrations outside Jewish institutions, Jews being harassed on campuses and Israel increasingly portrayed not merely as a country whose government could be criticized, but as a country whose legitimacy itself was becoming conditional. Then watch your foreign minister rise and applaud.

I saw humiliation.

I cannot look inside Anita Anand’s mind and tell you why she stood. I am talking about what the gesture communicated to me. Israel had objected to recognition. Canada knew Israel had objected. Canada understood the sensitivity of recognizing Palestinian statehood in the aftermath of October 7. Yet the announcement was not merely delivered as a sober diplomatic decision. It became a moment worthy of visible celebration.

That is what connects the Anand moment, for me, to Mamdani’s threat to arrest Netanyahu. The circumstances are different. The actions are different. The politicians are different. But the common thread I see is the spectacle. Mamdani did not need Netanyahu actually placed in handcuffs for the image of Netanyahu in handcuffs to have political value. Anand did not need to say she wanted to humiliate Israel for her public reaction to communicate something powerful to Jews watching it. In both moments, I saw the symbolic lowering of Israel become part of the political performance.

That is the larger phenomenon I think we need to start discussing. Increasingly, Israel cannot simply be disagreed with. It must be seen losing. It must be isolated, embarrassed and placed on the defensive. Its supporters must explain themselves. Its Jewish supporters must prove that their attachment to Israel does not make them morally suspect.

Once you understand humiliation as part of this political culture, things that appear disconnected begin to look connected. A Jewish student is screamed at because she supports Israel. A synagogue becomes a protest site because somebody has determined that it is sufficiently connected to Zionism. A Jewish business becomes a target because its owner supports Israel. A Jew is told he isn’t a “real Jew” because his politics fail somebody else’s ideological purity test. Netanyahu is threatened with arrest. Israel suffers a diplomatic setback and people celebrate.

Every incident comes with an explanation. This one is supposedly about Gaza. That one is about settlements. Another is about international law. Another is supposedly about Zionism rather than Judaism. We are repeatedly instructed to examine every incident in complete isolation.

At some point, you have to stop examining every tree and look at the forest.

What I see is an increasingly normalized demand that Jews be placed on the defensive. Explain yourself. Explain Israel. Explain Zionism. Condemn Netanyahu. Condemn the Israeli government. Tell us what you think about Gaza. Tell us what you think about settlements. Tell us whether you support a Palestinian state. Tell us whether you are one of the acceptable Jews.

And if you answer incorrectly, someone who may know almost nothing about Jewish history, Jewish life or Judaism itself may decide that you aren’t a “real Jew.”

Think about the arrogance of that statement. Someone hostile to Israel believes that my refusal to accept his political worldview gives him authority over my Jewish identity. Apparently, some stranger screaming at me at a protest gets to decide whether I qualify.

Why use that insult? Because it is intended to wound. You claim to be Jewish? Fine. Then we will determine whether you are the correct kind of Jew. We will decide which Jewish beliefs are acceptable. We will decide what relationship Jews are permitted to have with Israel. We will decide whether Zionism disqualifies you from certain spaces. We will decide which Jews deserve respect.

That isn’t equality. It is a hierarchy.

This is also why the word “Zionist” has become such a useful escape hatch. Call someone a Jew while attacking him and people might recognize antisemitism. Call him a Zionist first and suddenly the boundaries move. The person wasn’t harassed because he was Jewish. He was a Zionist. The synagogue wasn’t targeted because it was Jewish. It was Zionist. The student wasn’t excluded because she was Jewish. She supported Zionism.

The Jew on the receiving end is expected to pretend not to notice the pattern.

I notice it.

The danger for Jews is that one of the easiest responses to humiliation is trying to prove that we don’t deserve it. We start explaining. We start qualifying. We start distancing ourselves. “I’m Jewish, but...” “I’m a Zionist, but...” “I support Israel, but...” “I don’t like Netanyahu...” “I condemn the government...”

There is nothing wrong with Jews disagreeing with Netanyahu or criticizing an Israeli government. Jewish political disagreement is hardly new. The danger begins when the disclaimer becomes the price of admission. When a Jew feels that before he can talk about antisemitism, he must first establish that he has the correct opinion about Netanyahu. When a Jewish student believes she must condemn Israel before people will listen to her concerns about harassment. When a synagogue is expected to prove its political moderation before people will condemn its targeting. When Jews begin separating themselves into good Jews and bad Jews according to standards created by people hostile to Jewish self-determination.

Jews have been offered versions of that bargain before. Separate yourself from those Jews. Prove you are different. Prove you are loyal. Become less visible. Become less threatening. And perhaps we will accept you.

The language changes. The psychological mechanism survives.

That is why Jewish dignity needs to become one of the central conversations of this moment. Dignity does not mean believing Jews are superior to anyone else. It means refusing to believe Jews are inferior to anyone else. It means I do not need somebody else’s permission to be Jewish. I do not need somebody else’s permission to believe in Jewish self-determination. I do not need somebody else’s permission to have a relationship with Israel. And I certainly don’t need someone who despises Zionism telling me whether I qualify as a real Jew.

That is what being unapologetically Jewish means to me. It does not mean being incapable of self-criticism. It does not mean blindly supporting an Israeli government. It does not mean Netanyahu is above criticism. It means Jewish dignity is not conditional.

You do not earn the right to humiliate me because you disagree with Israel. You do not earn the right to degrade a Jewish student because she is a Zionist. You do not earn the right to define someone’s Jewish identity because he refuses to adopt your politics.

And politicians should not escape scrutiny when they participate in a culture of humiliation simply because their target is Israel or Benjamin Netanyahu.

That is why I keep coming back to Mamdani’s promise. If you genuinely believe someone should be arrested, law matters. Authority matters. Jurisdiction matters. The ability to execute the arrest matters. Otherwise, what exactly are you announcing?

An image.

A spectacle.

The prime minister of the Jewish state in handcuffs.

The image itself had political value. That is what bothers me. Why did people cheer? Why was the threat itself satisfying? Why was symbolically placing the Israeli prime minister in handcuffs something worth campaigning on? Why does the public degradation of Israel produce such enthusiasm in certain political spaces? Why did I feel something similar watching Canada’s foreign minister applaud a decision Israel regarded as profoundly damaging?

Those are uncomfortable questions. Jews should start asking them.

Because humiliation isn’t primarily about changing someone’s mind. It is about establishing status. It says that we have the power to define you, isolate you, embarrass you and make an example of you. Your dignity exists at our discretion.

That is why the insults directed at me matter beyond whether they hurt my feelings. When someone attacks my weight while supposedly debating Zionism, he isn’t trying to persuade me. When someone mocks my appearance, she isn’t offering a competing interpretation of Middle Eastern history. When someone tells me I am not a real Jew, he isn’t discussing Israeli policy.

He is trying to lower me.

I understand that now. And I refuse.

For too much of Jewish history, other people decided our status. Modern Jewish history changed that equation. Jewish sovereignty changed it. Jewish self-determination changed it. The Jew no longer needs to ask permission to stand upright.

Perhaps that is the deepest connection between the individual Jew being mocked and the Jewish state being subjected to rituals of degradation. Both ultimately raise the same question: will the Jew accept somebody else’s definition of his worth?

My answer is no.

If you cannot make the Jew powerless, perhaps you can make him ashamed of having power. If you cannot eliminate Jewish sovereignty, perhaps you can convince Jews that sovereignty itself is shameful. If you cannot force Jews back into weakness, perhaps you can make them apologize endlessly for refusing to be weak. And if you cannot actually put the Israeli prime minister in handcuffs, you can still create the image.

The humiliation does not require handcuffs.

It only requires an audience.

The Jewish response cannot be more Jewish embarrassment. It cannot be another disclaimer or another attempt to prove that we are the acceptable Jews. The answer has to be dignity. Jewish dignity. Jewish confidence. Jewish self-respect.

Call me fat. Mock how I look. Tell me I’m not a real Jew. Tell me my Zionism makes me unacceptable. Tell the prime minister of Israel he isn’t welcome. Stand and applaud while Israel is diplomatically isolated.

I know what the game is now.

You are not making me smaller. You are reminding me why I refuse to be.

For generations, Jews were taught that survival sometimes required lowering our heads. We are living in a moment when people are once again trying to teach Jews that lesson.

I have no intention of learning it.

My head stays up.

That is what it means to be unapologetically Jewish.

We keep saying we are fighting antisemitism, but most of the time we are fighting what happens after antisemitism has already taken hold. We respond to the vandalized synagogue, the threatened Jewish institution, the intimidated Jewish student, the targeted Jewish business and the hatred shouted openly in our streets. We add security. We call police. We hold press conferences. Politicians tell us that antisemitism has no place in Canada. Then everyone waits for the next incident.

That is not defeating Jew hate. That is managing its consequences. If we actually want to understand why Jew hate has become so normalized, so public and so aggressive, then we have to stop looking only at individual incidents and start examining the ideologies producing the narratives, language and permission structures behind them. One of those ideologies is Islamism, and we need to stop being afraid to say it.

Islamism is not Islam. Muslims are not Islamists by definition. Islam is a religion followed by almost two billion different human beings. Islamism is a political ideology that, in its various forms, seeks to give a particular interpretation of Islam a governing role in politics, law or society. Those are different things, and pretending they are interchangeable actually does a disservice to the countless Muslims who reject Islamist politics themselves.

I am anti-Islamist, and I do not apologize for it. I am anti-Islamist for the same reason I can be anti-communist, anti-fascist, against Christian nationalism or opposed to any other political ideology I believe threatens the principles of liberal democracy. Political ideologies do not have human rights. People do. Muslims deserve protection from hatred and discrimination. Islamism deserves no protection from scrutiny.

I can oppose Islamism because I believe democratic law must remain supreme over religious political authority. I can oppose Islamism because I believe women must possess equal civil and political rights. I can oppose Islamism because religious minorities must live as equal citizens rather than merely tolerated minorities. I can oppose Islamism because people must have the freedom to practise a religion, change religions, leave religion entirely or criticize religion without political coercion. I can oppose Islamism because freedom of expression must include the freedom to challenge religious ideas. And as a Jew, I can oppose Islamism because Islamist antisemitism is real.

That last point should not be controversial. The European Union’s own strategy for combating antisemitism has explicitly recognized that contemporary antisemitism can appear in right-wing, left-wing and Islamist extremism. Yet somehow Jews are expected to whisper the third category while shouting the first two.

Why? We know exactly how to deal with a neo-Nazi. Nobody tells the Jewish community that identifying far-right antisemitism is bigotry against white people. Nobody suggests we should avoid discussing white nationalism because most white people are not white nationalists. We understand instinctively that an ideology and an ethnicity are different things. Yet apply precisely the same reasoning to Islamism and suddenly everyone becomes nervous.

That double standard has consequences. Look at Hamas. Hamas did not emerge from an ideological vacuum. It emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood tradition and combined Palestinian nationalism with an Islamist worldview. Its original 1988 charter contained grotesque antisemitic conspiracy theories and religious language concerning Jews. Hamas issued a new political document in 2017 that attempted to distinguish its struggle against Zionism from a struggle against Jews as Jews, but its ideological history does not simply disappear because Western audiences find discussing it uncomfortable.

Then came October 7. The largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust should have triggered an enormous examination of the ideology of the perpetrators. Instead, within days, much of the Western conversation turned toward Zionism. Israel was placed on trial. Zionism was placed on trial. Jewish national identity was placed on trial. Jews thousands of kilometres away were expected to explain themselves.

And something else happened. The word “Zionist” became an extraordinarily convenient way to express hostility toward enormous numbers of Jews while maintaining plausible deniability. Say “I hate Jews” and everyone understands the problem. Say “I hate Zionists” and suddenly it is political discourse. Say “Jews are not welcome here” and it is obviously discrimination. Say “Zionists are not welcome here” and someone starts explaining why context matters. Target a Jewish business and people recognize antisemitism. Label it a “Zionist business” first and someone will try to rebrand the targeting as political activism.

That linguistic transformation matters. The overwhelming majority of Jews have some relationship with Israel, whether religious, familial, historical, cultural or political. Jewish connection to the Land of Israel predates the modern State of Israel by thousands of years. When society creates a category called “Zionists” that people can openly despise, exclude and intimidate, huge numbers of Jews inevitably end up inside that category.

Islamism is not solely responsible for this. Far-left revolutionary politics has played an enormous role. So have older forms of antisemitism and conspiracy culture. But Islamist movements and antisemitic narratives have contributed to the ideological environment surrounding Israel and Jews, and refusing to examine that contribution because we are afraid of being called Islamophobic is cowardice.

There is another uncomfortable question we need to ask: why are we expected to accept anti-Zionism as legitimate political thought while anti-Islamism is treated as suspicious? If someone can say, “I am anti-Zionist, but I do not hate Jews,” then I can say, “I am anti-Islamist, but I do not hate Muslims.” Actually, the second distinction should be even easier to understand.

You can be a deeply religious Muslim and reject Islamism. You can believe completely in Islam and support secular liberal democracy. Muslims have fought Islamist movements, fled Islamist governments, resisted religious authoritarianism and risked their lives opposing Islamist extremism. Those Muslims deserve allies. Treating Islamism as synonymous with Islam erases them.

It also gives Islamists an extraordinary political shield because every criticism of their political project can be reframed as an attack on an entire religious population. We need to stop allowing that.

And that brings me to what I think Jews and other Canadians actually need to start doing. We need to push back openly when we encounter Islamist propaganda. When someone glorifies Hamas, challenge it. When someone romanticizes October 7 as “resistance,” challenge it. When antisemitic conspiracy theories are repackaged as anti-Zionism, challenge them. When Jews are collectively blamed for Israel, challenge it. When a Jewish business is labelled “Zionist” as justification for targeting it, challenge it. When someone pretends Islamist extremism has nothing whatsoever to do with ideology, challenge that too.

Do not scream at Muslims. Do not blame Muslims collectively. Do not vandalize mosques. Do not respond to hatred with hatred. Do something much more threatening to extremists: challenge their ideas. Ask for evidence. Expose historical lies. Identify propaganda. Name the ideology. Expose contradictions. Refuse to allow terrorism to be romanticized. Refuse to allow antisemitism to become acceptable simply because someone substituted the word “Zionist” for “Jew.”

And when someone responds with the inevitable accusation, “You are an Islamophobe,” stop panicking and answer them. Say that you oppose Islamism, not Muslims. Say that Muslims are people and deserve the same dignity, safety and religious freedom as everyone else. Say that Islamism is a political ideology and political ideologies are open to criticism. Then ask the obvious question: if criticizing Islamism is automatically an attack on Muslims, are they suggesting that all Muslims are Islamists? I do not believe that, and neither should they.

Then continue the conversation. Do not allow the accusation to change the subject. Ask what specifically you said that constitutes hatred of Muslims. If they can identify actual anti-Muslim hatred, reject it. But if their only argument is that criticism of Islamism itself is Islamophobic, refuse the premise.

That distinction is everything. We should be uncompromising against anti-Muslim hatred and equally uncompromising against attempts to use accusations of anti-Muslim hatred to immunize a political ideology from criticism.

Canada needs both principles. Protect Muslims and challenge Islamism. Fight anti-Muslim hatred and fight Islamist antisemitism. Defend mosques from people who would attack Muslims and defend synagogues from people who would attack Jews. There is absolutely no contradiction.

What we cannot continue doing is telling Jews to fight antisemitism while giving them a list of ideological sources they are not supposed to mention. Enough. The next stage of fighting Jew hate cannot simply be more guards, more fences, more statements and more politicians telling us how heartbroken they are.

We have to go upstream. Follow the propaganda. Follow the rhetoric. Follow the organizations. Follow the ideological alliances. Follow the funding. Follow the people legitimizing extremist narratives. Follow the language that transforms terrorists into resistance fighters and Jews into “Zionists” who supposedly deserve whatever happens to them.

And when Islamist ideology is part of that chain, say so. Not quietly. Not apologetically. Not after three paragraphs assuring everyone that you are a good person. Say it because a democracy that becomes afraid to scrutinize political ideology has already surrendered something important.

This is the call to action. Stop allowing the accusation of Islamophobia to end the conversation. Push back on Islamist propaganda whenever you encounter it. Learn the difference between Islam and Islamism so that you can articulate it. Know the history. Challenge the propaganda with facts. Defend Muslims from hatred while simultaneously defending our society from political extremism.

And when somebody asks how you can possibly call yourself anti-Islamist, ask them whether you can oppose communism without hating Chinese people, oppose Christian nationalism without hating Christians or oppose white nationalism without hating white people. If the answer is yes, then you can oppose Islamism without hating Muslims.

And if they proudly call themselves anti-Zionist, the answer becomes even simpler. They have spent years demanding that Jews accept the distinction between Jews and Zionism. They can live by their own standard. Muslims are people. Islamism is a political ideology. I respect the former. I will openly oppose the latter.

We are fighting the symptoms of Jew hate. It is time to start confronting the ideologies helping feed it. Islamism is not the only one, but fear of being called an Islamophobe can no longer be an acceptable excuse for refusing to name it.

There is a deeply seductive idea that has followed Jews through generations: if we can just fit in enough, perhaps they will finally accept us. If we speak like everyone else, adopt the values and expectations of the surrounding culture, and soften the parts of Judaism that make other people uncomfortable, perhaps we will finally be treated like everyone else. Perhaps if we stop being so visibly, stubbornly and unapologetically Jewish, the world will respect us more.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe warned against precisely this instinct. In a 1985 address, the Rebbe spoke about Jews who might mistakenly believe that the way to earn the respect and admiration of non-Jewish nations was to imitate their behaviour. His message was the opposite: when Jews proudly maintain their Jewish traditions and remain unwavering in their faith in G-D, they earn genuine respect rather than having to beg for acceptance.

More than forty years later, that message feels remarkably contemporary, because somewhere along the way parts of the Jewish world began confusing acceptance with safety. We became extraordinarily good at fitting in. We learned how to translate Judaism into whatever language the surrounding culture was speaking. We learned how to make our Judaism more palatable, less demanding and less distinctive. We learned how to reassure everyone around us that we were not too Jewish.

When Jewish particularism became uncomfortable, some Jews began apologizing for it. When Jewish tradition conflicted with fashionable ideas, tradition was sometimes the thing expected to move. When Jewish history became inconvenient, it was softened. When Jewish connection to Israel became controversial, it was qualified. When Zionism became a dirty word in certain spaces, some Jews rushed to explain that they were not that kind of Jew.

Then antisemitism exploded, and we rediscovered something Jews have learned repeatedly throughout history: none of it bought us immunity. You cannot assimilate your way out of Jew hate. You cannot politically align your way out of Jew hate. LiYou cannot denounce enough Israelis, criticize enough Israeli governments, distance yourself far enough from Zionism or redesign Judaism sufficiently to guarantee that the antisemite will finally look at you and decide that you are one of the acceptable Jews.

That is the lesson we desperately need to understand. The antisemite has never allowed Jews to determine the terms of our acceptance. There is always another condition, another loyalty test, another demand that we prove ourselves. History should have taught us by now that surrendering pieces of ourselves in the hope of satisfying those demands does not end the demands. It simply teaches people that Jewish identity is negotiable.

That is why the Rebbe’s message matters so much. He was not telling Jews to hate the outside world or to isolate ourselves from our neighbours. Jewish history is filled with engagement, commerce, scholarship, citizenship and contribution to the societies in which Jews have lived. The point is not that Jews should withdraw from the world. The point is that we should enter the world as Jews.

There is an enormous difference between participating confidently in the wider society and disappearing into it. A confident Jew can be Canadian without making Judaism subordinate to Canadian culture. A confident Jew can work alongside Christians, Muslims, Hindus, atheists and everyone else without surrendering what makes a Jew a Jew. A confident Jew does not need somebody else’s approval before putting on a kippah, wearing a Magen David, keeping Shabbat, wrapping tefillin, celebrating Israel or saying openly that the Jewish people have an ancestral homeland.

That confidence is not arrogance. It is identity, and identity matters because it changes the way we enter the world. When we know who we are, we stop asking everyone else for permission to be ourselves.

Think about the strange position Jews increasingly find ourselves in. We are constantly being asked to explain why Israel should exist, why Jews need a Jewish state, why Hebrew belongs in the land where Jews have spoken it for millennia, why Jews pray toward Jerusalem, why archaeological evidence of Jewish civilization throughout the land matters, and why we object when our history is rewritten. We are even expected to explain why calls for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state might be threatening to Jews.

We have become so accustomed to defending the legitimacy of Jewish existence that sometimes we forget how absurd the exercise has become. Our existence is not a debate proposition. Our history does not require permission. Our traditions do not require modernization by people who do not understand them. Our connection to Israel does not require approval from people whose knowledge of Jewish history began with an infographic. Judaism certainly does not need to be reconstructed every time Western political fashion changes.

This is where the Rebbe’s teaching becomes bigger than religious observance alone. It becomes a lesson about Jewish self-respect. A Jew who knows who he or she is enters the world differently. There is no embarrassment in saying, “This is what Jews believe.” There is no nervous qualification before saying, “This is our history.” There is no apology before saying, “This is our homeland.” There is no desperate need to prove that we are sufficiently acceptable to whichever political tribe currently controls the room.

That does not mean Jews must agree with one another. Of course we will disagree. Jews have turned disagreement into something approaching an Olympic sport. We can be secular or observant, left, right or politically homeless. We can argue about Israeli governments, synagogue politics, theology, religious practice and probably whether the kiddush committee ordered enough food or even if the shul kiddush club should be allowed. But underneath all of those arguments there has to remain something solid: we are Jews, we come from somewhere, we inherited something, and we have an obligation to pass it forward.

The answer to a world becoming increasingly comfortable with Jew hate cannot be becoming increasingly uncomfortable with being Jewish. It has to be the opposite. We need more Jewish education, more Jewish literacy, more understanding of our history, more connection to our traditions, more Hebrew, more Shabbat tables, more mezuzot and more Jewish children understanding why Jerusalem appears throughout our prayers long before somebody on social media decided Jewish connection to Jerusalem was a political talking point.

We need Jews who know enough about Judaism that nobody else can explain their own identity to them. We need Jewish pride that is deeper than slogans or symbols. Not performative pride and not the kind that exists only when Judaism conveniently aligns with everything we already believe, but the difficult kind of Jewish pride—the kind that says, “I am Jewish even when being Jewish costs me social approval.”

That is the real test. It is easy to wear a Magen David when everyone around you celebrates it. It means something different when you wonder whether you should tuck it beneath your shirt. It is easy to speak proudly about Israel when doing so earns applause. It means something different when saying “I am a Zionist” might cost you friends. It is easy to celebrate Judaism when Judaism is reduced to food, music and holidays. It requires something more when Jewish beliefs collide with the prevailing culture.

That is when we discover whether Jewish pride is merely aesthetic or whether it actually means something.

The Rebbe understood something fundamental about human nature: people who abandon themselves in pursuit of acceptance rarely receive the respect they were seeking. There will always be people who dislike Jews. There will always be people who demand that Jews become something else before they will tolerate us. There will always be another condition placed upon Jewish acceptance. Our job is not to satisfy every condition. Our job is to remain Jews.

We should be good neighbours, good citizens and contributors to our countries and communities. We should build friendships across religions and cultures. We should defend the rights and dignity of others and expect them to defend ours. But we should do all of that standing firmly in our own identity, not hiding it, diluting it or apologizing for it.

The tragedy would not simply be that the world once again turned against Jews. The greater tragedy would be if, in trying desperately to convince the world to accept us, we forgot what we were asking it to accept.

The Rebbe gave us the answer more than forty years ago. The world does not need Jews who are better at pretending not to be Jewish. It needs Jews who know who they are.

They will not respect us more for being less Jewish.

So stop trying to become less. Become more

.

There is something strange about having to explain Zionism to Jews. Yet I think we increasingly need to, because the word has become so politically loaded that many Jews have never actually stopped to ask what it means. For some, Zionism means the Israeli government. For others, it means Benjamin Netanyahu, settlements, the West Bank, Gaza or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In activist language, it is increasingly described as colonialism, nationalism, racism or even Jewish supremacy. Because those definitions are repeated so often, some Jews have begun their understanding of Zionism with what other people say about it rather than with Jewish history itself.

So let's start at the beginning. At its core, Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel. There are three parts of that sentence that matter: the Jewish people, Jewish self-determination and the Jewish ancestral homeland. Understanding those three things makes Zionism much easier to understand.

First, Jews are not simply adherents of a religion. Judaism is a religion, but Jews are also a people. That distinction is fundamental. Jewish identity includes shared history, ancestry, language, culture, traditions, collective memory and a civilization stretching back thousands of years. This is why a Jew who stops believing in G-D doesn't suddenly stop being Jewish. A secular Israeli is still Jewish. A Jew who never enters a synagogue is still Jewish. Jewish identity isn't determined solely by a statement of faith. Judaism is something we practise, but Jewishness is also something we belong to.

And the Jewish people did not emerge everywhere. We emerged somewhere. That somewhere is the Land of Israel.

Long before the creation of the modern State of Israel in 1948, long before Theodore Herzl was born, and long before anyone used the modern word “Zionism,” Jews understood ourselves as a people connected to that land. This isn't simply a religious claim. It is history. Ancient Jewish kingdoms existed there. Jerusalem became the political and spiritual centre of Jewish civilization. Hebrew was the language of the Jewish people. Jewish religious, cultural and national life developed around the land, and Jewish communities maintained a presence there across the centuries even as much of the Jewish population became dispersed throughout the world.

That is where the word Zion becomes so important. Zion originally referred to a location in Jerusalem and over time became a name associated with Jerusalem and, more broadly, the Land of Israel. Zion appears throughout Jewish scripture and liturgy. For Jews living thousands of kilometres away, Zion remained both a real place and a symbol of home. The modern word “Zionism” came much later. Zion did not.

This helps explain something that can otherwise seem unusual to people who understand Judaism only as a religion. Jerusalem appears constantly in Jewish life. Traditional Jewish prayer is directed toward Jerusalem. Jerusalem is remembered during Jewish weddings. Jews mourn the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temples on Tisha B'Av. At the Passover Seder, Jews traditionally say, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Yom Kippur traditionally concludes with the same hope. These customs did not emerge with Theodore Herzl in the nineteenth century. They existed because the connection to the Land of Israel and the hope of return had been preserved within Jewish civilization for generations.

That doesn't mean every Jew throughout history spent every day planning to move to Jerusalem. Jewish communities established deep roots throughout the world. Jews built extraordinary civilizations in Babylon, Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, Europe and eventually North America. We became Iraqi Jews, Moroccan Jews, Polish Jews, Russian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Canadian Jews and American Jews. Those places became our homes, sometimes for hundreds or even thousands of years.

But there is a reason we use the word Diaspora. A diaspora is the dispersion of a people from an ancestral homeland while that people maintains a collective identity. Jews could build homes throughout the world while still remembering where Jewish civilization began. Those two realities are not contradictory. For Jews, the ancestral homeland remained the Land of Israel.

This is also why Theodore Herzl needs to be understood properly. Herzl is often called the father of modern Zionism, and he was enormously important. But that description can accidentally create the impression that Herzl invented the idea that Jews belonged in Israel. He didn't. He didn't invent Zion. He didn't invent Jerusalem's place in Judaism. He didn't create the Jewish people, and he certainly didn't create thousands of years of Jewish memory.

What Herzl and other modern Zionist thinkers did was confront a practical problem. Jews were a people with an ancestral homeland, but most Jews were living as minorities under other peoples' governments. Even after Jews received greater legal equality in parts of Europe, antisemitism persisted. The question became how Jewish self-determination could be restored in practice. Herzl helped organize a modern movement around that objective. The First Zionist Congress met in Basel in 1897 and helped build institutions dedicated to establishing a secure national home for the Jewish people in their historic homeland.

That is an important distinction. The modern Zionist movement organized the effort to restore Jewish sovereignty. It did not invent the Jewish connection that made the effort meaningful. If Zionism is taught only as something created by European Jews in the late nineteenth century, thousands of years of Jewish history disappear from the conversation. Once that history disappears, it becomes much easier to portray Jews as Europeans who simply decided one day to acquire territory in the Middle East.

But Jews did not choose Israel randomly. The reason the movement was called Zionism was because Zion already meant something. The destination was embedded in the name.

This is also why the words ancestral homeland matter. Calling Israel the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people doesn't mean Jews were the only people who ever lived there. Obviously they weren't. It doesn't mean Palestinians have no history, identity or connection to the land. They do. Two peoples can have histories connected to the same place. Recognizing one does not require erasing the other.

The historical question of Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is also different from the political question of how Israelis and Palestinians should resolve their conflict today. Those questions are constantly collapsed into one another, and much of the confusion surrounding Zionism begins there. You can recognize Palestinian identity and still recognize Jewish history. You can support Palestinian rights while believing in Jewish self-determination. You can criticize Israeli policies while believing Israel has the right to exist. None of those positions is inherently contradictory.

The next concept Jews need to understand is self-determination. Self-determination means that a people has the ability to participate in determining its own collective and political future rather than permanently having that future determined by somebody else. For Jews, that idea carries enormous historical weight.

For much of the Diaspora, Jews lived as minorities under governments controlled by others. Our experiences varied enormously depending on the place and the century. There were periods of tremendous Jewish flourishing and periods of extraordinary persecution. Jews could be welcomed by one ruler and expelled by another. We could receive rights from one government and have those rights removed by the next. There were expulsions, forced conversions, pogroms and massacres, alongside periods in which Jews lived successfully and peacefully with their neighbours.

The recurring reality was that Jewish security ultimately depended on somebody else's willingness and ability to provide it. Jewish sovereignty fundamentally changed that relationship. It meant that Jews could once again participate in determining our collective future in the place where Jewish civilization began. It meant that Jewish security would no longer depend entirely upon another king, government or society deciding whether Jews could remain.

That is why Zionism should not be confused with Jewish supremacy. Zionism doesn't require believing Jews are superior to Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Christians or anyone else. It means believing Jews are entitled to self-determination too. That word — too — matters. Jewish self-determination is not an argument that Jews deserve rights other people do not. It is an argument that Jews should not be denied a right because we are Jews.

Once that is understood, it becomes easier to see why Zionism cannot be reduced to the policies of an Israeli government. Benjamin Netanyahu is not Zionism. Likud is not Zionism. The Israeli military is not Zionism. Settlements are not Zionism. Gaza is not Zionism. These are politicians, institutions, places, policies and conflicts involving the State of Israel. Jews can argue fiercely about all of them while agreeing that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination.

Governments are temporary. Peoples are not. A Canadian can oppose a Canadian prime minister without believing Canada should cease to exist. An American can despise an American president without believing Americans should lose their country. Israelis can oppose an Israeli government without rejecting Israel itself. In fact, Israelis do it every day.

Criticizing Israel therefore isn't inherently anti-Zionist. Zionists criticize Israel. Israelis criticize Israel. Jews can protest an Israeli government, oppose a particular military decision or demand a different policy without rejecting Jewish self-determination. The dividing question is much more fundamental: Do the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland?

If the answer is yes, there is still an enormous amount left to debate. What should Israel's borders be? What should its relationship with Palestinians look like? Should there be a Palestinian state? What should happen with settlements? What role should religion play in Israeli public life? How should Israel balance security and individual rights? Jews disagree about all of these questions.

That isn't a failure of Zionism. It is what happens when a people actually possesses sovereignty. Sovereignty means making decisions, living with their consequences and arguing about what those decisions should be. And we're Jews. Arguing about things isn't exactly new territory.

One of the biggest mistakes Jews have made, however, is allowing people who oppose Zionism to define Zionism for us. If someone tells you Zionism means supporting Netanyahu, ask why. If someone tells you Zionism means settlements, ask why. If someone tells you Zionism means Jewish supremacy, ask how Jewish self-determination inherently requires Jewish superiority. If someone tells you Zionism began when Europeans decided to colonize Palestine, ask where Zion is, why Jerusalem appears throughout Jewish prayer, why generations of Jews said “Next year in Jerusalem,” and why the movement was called Zionism in the first place.

These aren't rhetorical tricks. They are historical questions, and Jews should know the answers.

If I were teaching a young Jew what Zionism means, I wouldn't begin with Netanyahu. I wouldn't begin with Gaza. I wouldn't even begin with 1948. I would begin much earlier. I would begin with the Jewish people. I would explain that we are an ancient people whose civilization emerged in the Land of Israel. I would explain Jerusalem and Zion. I would explain exile and diaspora. I would explain why Israel remained present in Jewish prayer and ritual across centuries of dispersion. I would explain the repeated Jewish longing for return. Then I would explain how, in the modern era, Jews organized to turn that ancient connection into restored self-determination.

Only then would I get to 1948.

Because without everything that came before it, 1948 doesn't make sense.

Perhaps that is part of why so many Jews struggle to explain Zionism today. We have been trying to explain the final chapters without teaching the beginning of the book.

Zionism isn't the belief that an Israeli government is always right. It isn't an obligation to support a particular prime minister. It isn't a demand that Palestinians disappear, and it isn't a declaration that Jews are superior to anyone.

Zionism is the affirmation that the Jewish people belong to the Land of Israel and have the right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland.

The terminology of modern Zionism may be relatively recent. Zion isn't. Jerusalem isn't. The Jewish people aren't. Our connection to the Land of Israel isn't. And our longing for return certainly isn't.

So perhaps the best way to explain Zionism to Jews isn't to begin by defending Zionism at all. Begin by teaching Jewish history.

Once you understand the people, the land, the exile, the memory and the return, Zionism becomes much easier to understand. It is, in many ways, the Jewish people saying something remarkably simple:

We came from somewhere. We never forgot where. And we have the right to determine our future there.

Global Affairs Canada was asked to identify the conditions governing one of Canada’s most consequential foreign-policy decisions in decades. Did Ottawa establish benchmarks before recognizing Palestine? Which had been met? Was there a monitoring process, and what consequences would follow if the remaining commitments failed?

It could not name one, I know because I emailed them to ask.

Instead, the department exposed a contradiction between what Prime Minister Mark Carney told Canadians one year ago and how his government now explains its decision. On July 30, 2025, Carney said recognition was “predicated” on commitments from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to fundamentally reform Palestinian governance, hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas could play no part and demilitarize the Palestinian state.

This week, Global Affairs used different language in its response: “Canada’s recognition decision was based on the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to reforms.” This distinction matters.

What Global Affairs now appears to be suggesting is that recognition was not based on completed reforms, elections, Hamas’s exclusion or demilitarization. It was based on a commitment to pursue them.

That is the difference between a condition and a promise.

Global Affairs also said the possibility of achieving two states through negotiation had been “gravely eroded” by Hamas terrorism culminating in the Oct. 7 massacre, Israeli settlement construction, settler violence, proposed annexation measures and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“It is in this context that Canada recognized the State of Palestine,” the department said.

That explanation raises an unavoidable question: did Canada, in effect, reward the strategy Hamas began on October 7?

Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 people, took hundreds hostage and triggered a devastating war. That war further transformed the diplomatic landscape, and Canada then concluded that recognition was necessary to preserve Palestinian statehood.

When Canada formally recognized Palestine on Sept. 21, 2025, Carney insisted it was “in no way” a reward for terrorism. But intentions do not erase incentives.

According to Global Affairs’ own explanation, Hamas’s terrorism helped destroy the previous diplomatic approach. That destruction created urgency, and Canada responded by granting recognition before Hamas disarmed and before the Palestinian leadership completed its promised reforms.

Hamas does not need to govern a future state to claim its violence produced a result. It needs only to point to the sequence: diplomatic stalemate, October 7, war, international pressure and recognition.

Canada waited just 53 days between announcing its intention and formally recognizing Palestine. Carney said “progress has already been made,” but did not identify that progress or the threshold it satisfied. Global Affairs has now declined to confirm whether benchmarks, assessments, timelines, monitoring or consequences ever existed.

Instead, it listed “steps” toward a social-welfare system, the “development” of educational materials, the “drafting” of an interim constitution, local elections and an “intent” to hold further elections. Every description refers to something minimal, unfinished, local or still in the future. Developing educational materials says nothing about their content. A constitution still being drafted is not constitutional reform. An intention to hold an election is not an election.

The April 25 vote was not the general election Carney promised. It selected municipal and village councils responsible for local services, not a president, national legislature or government.

It was also geographically limited. Elections throughout Gaza were postponed except in Deir al-Balah, where turnout was approximately 23 per cent, and the West Bank where it was 56 per cent. The Associated Press described the vote in Deir al-Balah as a largely symbolic “pilot” election.

Across the West Bank and Deir al-Balah, contested polling occurred in 183 of 420 local authorities. Another 197 councils were decided by acclamation, while 40 lacked enough candidates and were to have members appointed.

These elections did not renew Abbas’s mandate, elect a national government or test whether Hamas would be excluded from national political power. They cannot substitute for the general elections Carney described.

Global Affairs also cited an intention to hold Palestinian National Council elections on November 1, 2026. Separately, Palestinian Legislative Council elections are scheduled for November 28, 2026. Neither has happened, and Global Affairs did not explain whether one or both would satisfy Carney’s promise of “general elections in 2026.”

Scheduled elections are especially unconvincing under a leadership with a history of cancelling them. Abbas scheduled parliamentary and presidential votes in 2021 before postponing both. Presidential elections are now expected in 2027. Abbas was elected in 2005 for a four-year term, but no presidential election has been held since.

Nor has Carney’s assurance that Hamas could play no part been tested. Hamas may be formally excluded from the ballot, but it could still exert influence through affiliated candidates, allied factions, intimidation or its continuing armed power. Canada cannot know whether Hamas has genuinely been excluded until candidates are registered, ballots are cast, results are respected, and power is transferred. Yet recognition came first.

Then there is demilitarization. Hamas remains armed.

Global Affairs told me in their email response that they welcomed “the proposed agreement on the disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza that was announced on July 30, which if accepted and implemented by all parties, could mark an important step towards peace and security.”

A proposal is not disarmament, and an arrangement announced in 2026 cannot retroactively justify recognition granted in 2025. A report from Reuters last week suggests there are unresolved disagreements over implementation and the handling of different weapons.

Carney did not say Hamas should discuss surrendering some heavy weapons. He said Hamas must disarm and the Palestinian state must be demilitarized. Retaining other weapons, fighters, tunnels or an independent command structure would not satisfy that commitment. One year later, Hamas remains armed.

The final commitment was that Abbas would “fundamentally reform” Palestinian governance. Global Affairs’ response establishes only that the Palestinian Authority has started or announced several processes. Constitutional work remains unfinished, national elections have not occurred and Abbas remains president more than two decades after his election.

If Canada concluded that fundamental reform had occurred, it should identify the standard and demonstrate how it was met. If merely promising or beginning reform was enough, Carney should not have presented fundamental reform as a predicate. Abbas had already made those promises on July 30, so what was Canada assessing during the 53 days before recognition? Global Affairs will not say.

Recognition was one of Canada’s principal pieces of diplomatic leverage. It could have been withheld until elections occurred, Hamas was demonstrably excluded, governance reforms reached an identifiable threshold and armed factions surrendered their weapons. Instead, Canada spent that leverage while every major outcome remained unresolved.

What happens if the elections are postponed, Hamas retains power, demilitarization fails or reform remains unfinished? Global Affairs identified no consequence. Canada has already recognized the state. It cannot offer recognition again.

One year ago, Canadians were told recognition was predicated on elections in which Hamas could play no part, fundamental governance reform and a demilitarized Palestinian state. Today, neither full general nor parliamentary or presidential elections have yet occurred, Hamas’s exclusion has not been tested, Hamas remains armed and fundamental reform has not been demonstrated. Canada’s recognition, meanwhile, is complete.

One year later, Ottawa has still not demonstrated that Carney’s predicates were ever genuine conditions. Canada granted recognition first and left elections, reform and demilitarization for later. Conditions that do not have to be met are not conditions. They are political cover.

Matthew Taub is the founder and executive director of Unapologetically Jewish, a national organization fighting antisemitism in Canada.

It has become almost a reflex. Every time antisemitism spikes, another attack occurs or new stats on antisemitism update; another Jewish organization, rabbi, public figure, or community leader feels compelled to issue a statement distancing themselves from Benjamin Netanyahu. The thinking seems obvious. If we make it clear that we don't support Israel's Prime Minister, perhaps people will see that we're "one of the good ones." Perhaps the anger directed at Israel won't be directed at us.

It doesn't work. It never has.

The uncomfortable truth is that the people attacking Jews are not stopping to ask who you would have voted for in Israel, a country where most Diaspora Jews don't even vote. They are not asking whether you support judicial reform, whether you think the coalition should collapse, or whether you would prefer another Prime Minister. They see one thing: you are a Jew. For many of them, that is enough.

Ironically, Israelis themselves are hardly united behind Benjamin Netanyahu. Depending on the poll, roughly 40 percent of Israelis continue to support him, while many others want different leadership. Likewise, support for a traditional two-state solution has collapsed since October 7. Today, approximately 80 percent of Jewish Israelis do not support creating a Palestinian state under current circumstances. Those are political debates taking place inside Israel. They are Israeli debates. They are not tests of whether a Jew deserves to live safely in Toronto, Montreal, New York, London, Paris, or Melbourne.

Yet many Diaspora Jews continue acting as though condemning Netanyahu is some kind of insurance policy against antisemitism.

It isn't.

The synagogue being firebombed is not asked whether its board supports Likud. The Jewish student being harassed on campus is not asked how they feel about coalition politics. The kosher restaurant being vandalized is not asked whether its owner supports Benny Gantz, Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett, or Benjamin Netanyahu. The people carrying out these attacks simply do not care.

Because this has never really been about Benjamin Netanyahu.

If Netanyahu retired tomorrow, antisemitism would not disappear. If Israel elected the most progressive government in its history, antisemitism would not disappear. If Israel accepted every international demand placed upon it, antisemitism would not disappear.

History has already answered this question.

For thousands of years, Jews have been accused of being too rich, too poor, too religious, too secular, too capitalist, too communist, too powerful, too weak. The accusation changes with the times, but the target never does.

Today, the demand has simply been updated. Jews are told they must first denounce Israel, or at the very least denounce its Prime Minister, before they deserve acceptance.

That is not a political expectation.

It is a loyalty test.

And Jews should refuse to take it.

None of this means Benjamin Netanyahu is above criticism. Like every democratic leader, he can and should be criticized for his policies, his decisions, and his leadership. Israelis themselves do it every single day. That is what democracies are supposed to do.

But there is a profound difference between criticizing a politician because you genuinely disagree with him and criticizing him because you think it will make antisemites leave you alone.

One is democracy.

The other is appeasement.

Too many Diaspora Jewish leaders have convinced themselves that if they create enough distance between themselves and Israel's government, they will somehow become exempt from antisemitism. Some have made a habit of publicly criticizing Netanyahu every time Jews come under attack, almost as if offering a disclaimer before defending their own community.

What message does that send?

It tells the world that before Jews can ask for safety, they must first apologize for another Jew.

No other community is expected to do this.

No one asks Canadian Muslims to denounce the leaders of Qatar, Iran, or Turkey before condemning anti-Muslim hatred. No one asks Christians to distance themselves from political leaders who identify as Christian before condemning attacks on churches.

Only Jews are expected to qualify their right to safety with a political disclaimer.

And some Jewish leaders have accepted that premise.

They shouldn't.

October 7 should have shattered that illusion.

Jewish schools need security whether they support Netanyahu or oppose him. Jewish businesses are targeted regardless of who they think should be Prime Minister. Jewish students are intimidated regardless of their views on judicial reform. Jewish institutions are vandalized regardless of whether they support a two-state solution.

The mob rarely asks for your politics before deciding whether you belong to the collective they have chosen to blame.

That is why this strategy is failing.

You cannot negotiate with prejudice by offering political concessions. You cannot defeat antisemitism by proving you are different from other Jews. And you cannot buy acceptance by publicly distancing yourself from Israel's elected government.

Benjamin Netanyahu is not the reason Jews are being targeted around the world. The rise in antisemitism is not a referendum on one Israeli politician. It is part of a much deeper hatred that existed before him and will almost certainly exist after him.

So to the Diaspora Jews and Jewish organizations who believe that loudly condemning Bibi will somehow make antisemites see you differently, ask yourselves one question:

Has it worked?

Has the vandalism stopped?

Have the shootings stopped?

Have Jewish students become safer?

Have the chants calling for the destruction of Israel disappeared?

Or has Jew hate continued to grow while you kept trying to prove you were one of the "acceptable" Jews?

At some point, we have to stop fighting the wrong battle.

Criticize Benjamin Netanyahu if you genuinely disagree with his policies. Support him if you believe he is the right leader for Israel. That is a legitimate political debate.

But stop pretending that your opinion of Israel's Prime Minister has anything to do with whether antisemites hate you.

It doesn't.

Benjamin Netanyahu isn't your problem. Jew hate is. Start fighting the right enemy.

There is an event taking place in Toronto called “Build From Our Values. Build for the World.”

Every Jewish leader in Canada should read its description.

Not because there is anything secret about it. Quite the opposite. The organizers are remarkably clear about what they intend to accomplish.

This is not simply a networking event for Muslim entrepreneurs. It is not a celebration of five successful professionals. It is not limited to launching startups, developing apps or creating new products.

The organizers ask whether technology, politics, finance, storytelling, art and civic engagement can be used to “transform the systems and societies around us.” They say the speakers’ work extends beyond solving immediate problems and influences “communities, institutions and the systems they operate within.”

Their stated goal is to build work rooted in Islamic values that “meaningfully changes the world around us.”

Then comes the line Jewish organizations need to understand:

“Muslims can build the systems society needs; rooted in our values, for the world.”

Read that again.

They are not asking how Muslims can become more comfortable inside systems built by others. They are asking how Muslims can build the systems society itself will use.

They are not thinking about representation as an end. They are thinking about institutional influence. They are connecting faith, professional development, political participation, finance, technology, culture, youth leadership and public policy into one long-term strategy.

They are building power.

Meanwhile, much of Canada’s organized Jewish community is still issuing statements.

This is what strategy looks like

Look at the people assembled for this event.

Dr. Mohamad Sawwaf is the co-founder and CEO of Manzil, an Islamic financial technology company offering Sharia-compliant mortgages, investments and other financial products. Manzil is not merely encouraging Muslims to participate in the existing financial system. It is developing financial infrastructure that allows Muslim Canadians to build wealth without compromising their religious convictions. Sawwaf has described the company as addressing financial inclusion through products governed by Islamic principles. Elevate describes Manzil as a Canadian Islamic fintech that manufactures and distributes halal financial solutions.

That is institution-building.

Fares Al Soud is the Liberal member of Parliament for Mississauga Centre. He is not merely a community activist trying to influence politicians from the outside. He sits inside Parliament. He currently serves on committees dealing with Canadian Heritage, privacy and ethics, and the scrutiny of regulations. Those are places where narratives, public policy and the machinery of government intersect. The House of Commons confirms his parliamentary roles.

Al Soud has also emerged as an outspoken Palestinian-Canadian voice. Organizations supporting the Vote Palestine campaign celebrated his election as a major advance for Palestinian political representation, and he has publicly accused Israel of committing genocide. Whether Jewish leaders agree with him is almost beside the strategic point. His community helped send one of its young voices directly into the institution where Canadian policy is written.

That is political power.

Yasin Osman is a photographer, visual storyteller and founder of Shoot For Peace. His organization uses photography, mentorship and creative programming to reach underserved young people. Its stated mission is “community healing through art,” with an emphasis on making artistic opportunities available to youth who might otherwise be excluded. Shoot For Peace says it began with the belief that art can offer different perspectives and build community.

That is not simply an arts program. It is leadership development, identity formation and narrative production.

Young people are being given cameras, skills, mentors and the authority to tell their own stories. Culture shapes what a society sees, whom it sympathizes with and which experiences it considers legitimate. A community that develops its own storytellers does not need to wait for established media institutions to represent it accurately. It creates the next generation of people who will influence those institutions from within.

That is cultural power.

Umair Ashraf is the executive director of The Canadian-Muslim Vote. The organization identifies itself as national, non-partisan and dedicated to empowering Canadian Muslims through political education and civic engagement. It reports engagement across more than 60 communities, with young people comprising 80 percent of its membership. The Canadian-Muslim Vote focuses on voter education, leadership development and sustained political participation.

This work produces something far more important than a single election result. It creates an electorate that politicians know must be consulted, courted and taken seriously.

In 2015, research commissioned by the organization estimated that Muslim voter turnout reached 79 percent, a dramatic increase from the estimate for the previous federal election. The organization specifically targeted ridings where mobilization could make a difference. The post-election report was not about symbolic inclusion. It was about measurable political participation.

That is electoral power.

Zubair Patel works in strategic initiatives and partnerships at BHive, a startup incubator helping international entrepreneurs establish and grow companies in Canada. He previously served in senior outreach roles connected to the Prime Minister’s Office and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. BHive says it has supported more than 100 startups from 17 countries since 2022. BHive sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship, immigration, government relationships and economic development.

That is network power.

The event’s host, Nabeeha Ahmed, brings together technology, politics, public relations, community programming and professional networks. Her background spans Microsoft, IBM, Dayforce, political outreach and some of Toronto’s most influential technology communities. She is not operating inside a single silo. She understands that modern influence is created by connecting silos that once operated separately.

That is connective power.

Place all of these speakers in one room and the larger strategy becomes impossible to miss.

Finance creates economic independence.

Politics creates access to legislation and government.

Voter mobilization creates electoral leverage.

Art creates narrative legitimacy.

Technology creates scale.

Youth programming creates continuity.

Professional networks create pipelines into institutions.

This is what it means to think in systems.

There is no secret conspiracy here

Let me be perfectly clear: Muslim Canadians have the right to organize, build institutions, mobilize voters, train leaders and bring their values into public life.

Jews have exercised those same democratic rights throughout Canadian history. Christians do it. Labour unions do it. Business associations do it. Environmental organizations do it. Every serious community understands that democratic participation requires more than posting opinions online.

The point is not that Muslims are doing something illegitimate.

The point is that they are doing something effective.

In fact, the organizers are telling us exactly what they are doing. Pillars Network describes itself as a Canadian Muslim movement building spaces for Islamic education, professional growth and cross-sector collaboration. Its purpose is to bring Muslims together to “learn, connect, upskill and collaborate around what we are responsible for building together.” Its other events use the same language and the same long-term framework.

They are not hiding the blueprint.

Our leaders are simply refusing to read it.

The Jewish communal failure

Now compare that level of strategic clarity with the response of Canada’s Jewish establishment.

For nearly three years, Jewish Canadians have watched synagogues attacked, schools fired upon, businesses targeted, students harassed, institutions occupied and openly antisemitic rhetoric normalized.

What has been the response?

Another statement.

Another roundtable.

Another meeting with a minister.

Another photograph with a politician.

Another carefully worded declaration that antisemitism has no place in Canada.

Another request for Jews to report incidents to an organization that will compile them into a report the following year.

That is not power. It is documentation.

Our legacy organizations confuse access with influence. They believe being invited into the room means they have shaped what happens inside it. They celebrate a minister repeating one of their talking points while the government continues adopting policies that make Jewish Canadians less secure and Israel more isolated.

They count meetings. Other communities count outcomes.

They count social-media impressions. Other communities develop candidates.

They count condemnations. Other communities mobilize ridings.

They produce antisemitism reports. Other communities train the people who will write government reports, advise cabinet ministers, create cultural narratives, build financial institutions and lead civic organizations.

They ask politicians to protect Jewish interests.

Other communities are developing the politicians.

That is why our organizations are out of their league.

Where is the Jewish pipeline?

Where is the national Jewish institution identifying promising young Jews and preparing them for careers in public policy, government, journalism, law, technology and culture?

Where is the serious voter-mobilization operation that makes it politically costly to ignore Jewish concerns?

Where is the national network connecting Jewish entrepreneurs, artists, lawyers, academics, policy experts, investigators, content creators and elected officials around a shared civilizational mission?

Where is the organization teaching young Jewish creators to tell Jewish stories rather than begging hostile institutions to tell those stories fairly?

Where is the Jewish strategy for entering school boards, teachers’ colleges, museums, human-rights agencies, municipal government, media organizations and the federal bureaucracy?

Where is the institution building financial independence for Jewish advocacy so that community organizations do not become terrified of upsetting a handful of donors or losing government approval?

We have no shortage of accomplished Jewish Canadians. What we lack is a serious mechanism for connecting them, training them and directing that collective capacity toward long-term Jewish security.

Instead, our establishment protects its territory.

Organizations compete for donors, access, invitations and credit. They guard relationships. They avoid confrontation. They treat independent Jewish voices as threats because those voices expose how little the established organizations have accomplished.

They manage the community instead of mobilizing it.

They manage antisemitism instead of defeating it.

They manage decline instead of building power.

They are thinking in generations

This Toronto event is important because it reveals a fundamentally different timeline.

Its organizers are not focused solely on the controversy of the week. They are asking what Muslim communities must build together and how Islamic values can guide work across entire sectors.

They are thinking in generations.

A young person attending this event may meet a member of Parliament, a fintech founder, a cultural storyteller, a political organizer or someone with experience inside the Prime Minister’s Office. That young person is being shown that faith and professional ambition do not need to be separated. Their identity can become the foundation of public leadership.

What message are young Jews receiving?

Keep your Magen David hidden if the room feels hostile.

Remove references to Israel from the event.

Avoid making colleagues uncomfortable.

Trust the institution that failed to protect you.

Fill out the incident-reporting form.

Wait for the communal organization to release its statement.

Then we wonder why Jewish students feel isolated and powerless.

Muslim leaders are telling their young people: Build the systems society needs.

Too many Jewish leaders are telling ours: Try not to attract attention.

That difference will shape the Canada of tomorrow.

The lesson is not fear. It is action.

This event should not make Jews afraid of Muslim organization.

It should make us furious about Jewish disorganization.

We should stop demanding that other communities become less strategic. We should demand that our own become more serious.

Jewish Canadians need institutions capable of research, political training, media production, cultural storytelling, legal action, leadership development and grassroots mobilization. We need organizations prepared to confront government, not merely maintain access to it. We need to develop candidates, policy experts and institutional leaders rather than hoping someone already inside the system will rescue us.

People will say we already have these. They’re right. We do. They’re not helping.  

We need to build around Jewish values without apologizing for them.

We need to teach our children that Jewish identity is not an obstacle to public leadership. Zionism is not a shameful secret. Jewish history is not something to be rewritten by people who despise Jewish sovereignty. Our values are not meant to survive only inside synagogues. They should inform what we build for the country around us.

The Muslim leaders at this event understand something our legacy organizations appear to have forgotten:

A community does not secure its future by asking others to preserve it.

It secures its future by developing the people, institutions, resources and courage required to shape what comes next.

They are building finance, political participation, cultural narratives, technology networks and leadership pipelines.

We are issuing statements about why someone should stop chanting outside a synagogue.

They are building for the world.

Our organizations are still asking permission to defend the Jewish community.

The answer is not another conference discussing the problem. It is not another report confirming what Jews already know. It is not another photograph with a politician who will abandon us when the political cost becomes inconvenient.

The answer is to build.

Build Jewish political power.

Build independent research.

Build legal capacity.

Build our own media.

Build leadership pipelines.

Build alliances from strength.

Build institutions prepared to fight.

Build from our values.

Build for our people.

And build as though the future of Jewish life in Canada depends on it.

Because it does.

This is an updated and expanded version of my March 7, 2026 National Post article, “Three synagogues hit by bullets. So much for ‘antisemitism has no place here,’” updated to reflect the continued escalation of antisemitism and targeted violence in Toronto.

On March 7, 2026, I wrote an article in the National Post after three synagogues in the Toronto area were struck by gunfire in a matter of days: Temple Emanu-El, BAYT and Shaarei Shomayim. Three Jewish houses of worship and three shooting incidents. At the time, I wrote something that should have been obvious: Canada could no longer pretend this was normal. I also wrote that we would inevitably hear the same response we hear after almost every antisemitic incident in this country: “Antisemitism has no place here.” I called it the political equivalent of “thoughts and prayers.”

Almost five months later, I think we need to revisit that statement because the situation has not improved. It has escalated. Since I wrote that article, the bullets have not stopped. This past weekend, two locations of Kiva’s, a Jewish-owned Toronto institution, were targeted by gunfire. Toronto police said they were investigating firearm discharges at both locations and believed the incidents were targeted and connected. Inka’s, another Jewish business in Toronto, has also been targeted by gunfire. Then came another shooting outside the United States Consulate in downtown Toronto, the second shooting incident at the consulate this year. We are now talking about synagogues, Jewish businesses and the U.S. Consulate being struck by gunfire. At what point do we stop treating each new incident as though it exists in a vacuum?

Ask yourself a simple question: what exactly would antisemitism having a place here look like? Apparently three synagogues being shot was not enough. Jewish schools requiring security was not enough. Jewish community centres requiring guards was not enough. Jewish businesses being vandalized was not enough. Protesters marching through Jewish neighbourhoods was not enough. Now we have Kiva’s. We have Inka’s. We have bullets. And somehow there is still room for politicians to stand in front of cameras and tell us that antisemitism has “no place” in Canada.

At some point, the slogan becomes insulting. Antisemitism does have a place here. That is the problem. It has been given space in our streets and normalized in our public discourse. Jews have spent nearly three years watching rhetoric that would be considered unacceptable if directed at almost any other minority become increasingly tolerated when the target is Jewish, Zionist or Israeli. Now we are watching the physical consequences of an environment that has been allowed to fester.

When I wrote my National Post article on March 7, I asked a question I desperately hoped would remain rhetorical: “Are we waiting until a mass casualty event before the seriousness of the threat is fully recognized?” Almost five months later, I am asking it again. What exactly are we waiting for? Nobody was killed at Kiva’s. Nobody was killed at Inka’s. Nobody was killed when the synagogues were shot. Nobody was killed in the latest shooting at the U.S. Consulate. Thank G-D. But the absence of bodies should not be confused with the absence of danger. A bullet does not become less serious because it missed someone, and a society does not get to measure its success against antisemitism by whether Jews have been fortunate enough to avoid being murdered.

We should also pay attention to what police have uncovered surrounding these shootings. Toronto police have publicly spoken about young “criminals for hire” being recruited to carry out shootings across the GTA. Police have said encrypted messaging applications are being used to hire young people to attack targets and film those attacks as proof before being paid. That raises an enormously important question: who is paying? Police should follow the money. They should identify the networks, the people recruiting the shooters, the people selecting the targets and the people financing the attacks. We need to know whether the individuals pulling the trigger are merely the final link in a much larger chain.

But we cannot allow the question of who is paying to become a way of avoiding another question: why are Jewish institutions and Jewish businesses such readily available targets? Someone may be paying a shooter. Someone may be recruiting them. Someone may be directing them. But they are operating in an environment where Jewish institutions have already been turned into acceptable symbols of political rage. The person pulling the trigger may be motivated by money, but someone still selected the target. Someone decided that a synagogue, a Jewish school or a Jewish-owned business was where the bullet should go.

That environment did not appear overnight. For years, Canadians have been told that increasingly extreme rhetoric around Jews and Israel is merely political expression. We have watched demonstrators scream about intifada. We have watched Jewish neighbourhoods become protest destinations. We have watched synagogues targeted because of events thousands of kilometres away. We have watched Jewish businesses targeted. We have watched Jewish Canadians told to answer for the actions of a foreign government before they are permitted to participate in public life. Every time Jews warned where this normalization could lead, we were told we were exaggerating.

We were told criticism of Israel is not antisemitism. Of course criticism of an Israeli government is not inherently antisemitic. Israelis criticize their governments every day. But shooting at a synagogue in Toronto is not criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu. Shooting at Kiva’s is not criticism of Israeli policy. Shooting at Inka’s is not Palestinian advocacy. Intimidating Jews in Toronto is not activism. Holding Canadian Jews collectively responsible for Israel is antisemitism. When political rage directed at Israel repeatedly finds Jewish targets in Canada, perhaps it is time we stop pretending there is no relationship between the rhetoric being normalized and the environment Jewish Canadians are being forced to live in.

This is the distinction our political leaders seem terrified to make. Instead, we receive condemnations after the fact: another statement, another social-media graphic, another politician telling us they “stand with the Jewish community,” and another declaration that antisemitism has no place here. Then everyone moves on until the next broken window, the next synagogue, the next Jewish business or the next bullet. That cycle is not fighting antisemitism. It is managing the public relations surrounding antisemitism, and there is a difference.

Fighting antisemitism requires confronting it before the bullet is fired. It means confronting the ideology that makes Jews legitimate targets. It means refusing to accept the idea that Canadian Jews inherit responsibility for every action taken by the State of Israel. It means recognizing that when people repeatedly bring a foreign conflict to Jewish neighbourhoods, Jewish schools, Jewish businesses and Jewish houses of worship, something profoundly dangerous is happening. It also means abandoning the fiction that Canada is somehow immune to antisemitism simply because our politicians repeatedly tell us that it is contrary to “Canadian values.” Values are not what we say after an attack. Values are what we are willing to defend before the next one.

There is another reason the attacks on Kiva’s and Inka’s matter. A synagogue is recognizably Jewish, as is a Jewish school. When those institutions are attacked, the community immediately understands what is being threatened. A bakery, a restaurant or a neighbourhood business is different. It represents ordinary life. People go for coffee, have lunch, meet their families and friends, or stop in on their way to work. That is precisely why attacks on Jewish-owned businesses should disturb every Canadian. Jewish life cannot exist only behind the security barriers surrounding synagogues and schools.

Jews should be able to pray without armed guards. Jewish children should be able to attend school without security assessments. Jewish families should be able to walk through their own neighbourhoods without wondering whether another demonstration is coming. Jewish Canadians should be able to walk into Kiva’s or Inka’s without being reminded that even the most ordinary parts of Jewish life can become targets. That should not be considered an unreasonable expectation in Toronto in 2026.

This is what normalization looks like. It is not one dramatic moment when Canada suddenly becomes antisemitic. It is a thousand smaller moments when society adjusts to things that should never have become normal. Security guards become normal. Concrete barriers become normal. Police cruisers outside synagogues become normal. Jewish schools conducting lockdown procedures become normal. Broken windows become normal. Threats become normal. Eventually, even bullets risk becoming just another headline. That is the line Canada cannot afford to cross.

On March 7, I wrote that three synagogues being shot in a matter of days was not random noise. It was escalation. I wish I had been wrong. Almost five months later, we have watched the target expand from synagogues and Jewish institutions to Jewish businesses such as Kiva’s and Inka’s, while the U.S. Consulate has again been targeted by gunfire. The trajectory is not moving in the right direction. The warnings have not been hysterical and they have not been exaggerated. If anything, we have underestimated how quickly the unacceptable can become ordinary when society becomes accustomed to it.

So I will ask Canada’s political leaders the same question I asked in March: how much further does this have to escalate before we stop responding to antisemitism and start confronting it? Stop telling Canadian Jews that antisemitism has no place here. Look around. It is already here. The question is whether Canada is finally prepared to do something about it before the next bullet finds a person instead of a window.

Palestine Action published a manual teaching clandestine cells how to select targets, conduct reconnaissance, damage property, avoid detection and destroy evidence. The real investigation is how this movement fits into the broader international activist ecosystem, including organizations operating here in Canada.

For the past three years, Canadians have been encouraged to view almost everything happening under the banner of Palestinian activism through the language of protest. Demonstrations become larger and more aggressive, businesses are targeted, property is damaged and masked activists increasingly speak the language of “resistance,” yet the public conversation almost always returns to the same comfortable description: protest. After reading Palestine Action: The Underground Manual, I think that description is becoming increasingly inadequate.

The document is remarkable not because of something hidden between the lines, but because of how explicit it is. Palestine Action does not simply encourage supporters to demonstrate against companies it considers complicit with Israel. The manual lays out an organized process beginning with the creation of what it openly calls a “cell.” It defines a cell as an autonomous group taking actions “without detection,” recommends keeping it to three to five trusted people and instructs participants to establish secure communications. After completing their first action, cells are told to send information to Palestine Action, which the manual says can respond with “potential future targets” and additional information.

That language should immediately change how this document is understood. This is not guidance for organizing a rally or engaging in conventional civil disobedience. The structure described is deliberately decentralized and clandestine. Small groups are created, secrecy is emphasized, targets are identified and communication with the larger organization continues after actions have been completed.

The next stage of the manual deals with selecting those targets. It encourages participants to research companies connected to the Israeli defence industry and makes clear that the strategy is intended to extend internationally. For participants outside Britain, the manual suggests looking for relevant companies in their own countries and says government buildings connected to defence decisions can also become targets.

Once a target has been identified, the manual moves into reconnaissance. Participants are instructed to study the physical environment surrounding a potential target, including security personnel, CCTV cameras, fences, barbed wire, access points and alarms. They are also encouraged to consider police patrols, unmarked police vehicles, the location of nearby police stations and estimated police response times. The document explicitly describes reconnaissance as vital to making an action as “smooth and damaging as possible.”

That sentence matters. There is a tremendous difference between preparing for a demonstration and gathering information intended to make an operation more damaging while reducing the likelihood of intervention. Studying police response times, surveillance coverage and building access points has nothing to do with holding a placard or exercising freedom of expression. The purpose stated in the manual is not ambiguous.

Neither is what follows. Participants are told that their action is intended to “disrupt, damage or destroy” the target. The manual describes previous destructive tactics involving windows and external equipment and discusses breaking into premises and damaging what is inside. Calling all of this “direct action” does not change what is being described. Political motivation does not transform sabotage into peaceful protest.

The manual also spends considerable time on avoiding identification. It discusses dividing responsibilities among members of the cell, avoiding paper or digital trails when acquiring equipment, concealing physical characteristics and leaving nothing behind that investigators might forensically examine. It separately addresses documenting actions while protecting the identities of those involved, including removing identifying information from images and obscuring faces or voices before material is published.

The post-action section is perhaps the most revealing. The instruction is effectively to destroy the evidence. Participants are told to remove materials connected with an action, avoid keeping incriminating items at home or in vehicles, remove identifying information from photographs and eliminate identifiable features from video footage. The manual specifically discusses the possibility of police searching participants' homes and the importance of ensuring there is nothing connecting them to the action.

Taken as a whole, the document describes an operational chain: create a small autonomous cell, communicate securely, select a target, conduct reconnaissance, plan destructive action, conceal identities, execute the action, publicize it and eliminate evidence afterward. Those are not words being imposed on Palestine Action by its opponents. That structure emerges from Palestine Action's own manual.

But the manual is only the beginning of the story. The more important investigation is the international ecosystem surrounding Palestine Action and how organizations within that ecosystem interact with one another. That includes the Palestinian Youth Movement, or PYM, which has become an influential force in Palestinian activism internationally and has a significant presence in Canada.

Precision matters here. Evidence of ideological alignment, coalition activity or political support is not automatically evidence of operational control. I have not seen evidence establishing that PYM wrote this manual, controls Palestine Action or directs its underground cells. Making that accusation without evidence would weaken the investigation rather than strengthen it. The question worth pursuing is different: what relationships, shared campaigns, coalitions, organizers, political objectives and support structures connect the organizations operating throughout this international movement?

PYM's public activism is transnational and strategically organized. It has participated in international campaigns aimed at corporations connected to Israel and has emerged as an important organizing presence in the post-October 7 protest movement. More significantly for this investigation, PYM publicly joined other organizations opposing the British government's move against Palestine Action. That does not establish that PYM endorses every tactic described in this manual, but it does make the relationship between the wider activist movement and Palestine Action worthy of much closer examination.

There is a tendency to treat each organization in this ecosystem as though it exists in a vacuum. One group organizes a demonstration. Another conducts a boycott campaign. Another engages in direct action. Another provides legal advocacy. Another promotes the resulting material online. Each activity is examined individually, and the broader infrastructure is rarely mapped. That may be precisely why we continue to misunderstand what has developed.

The right investigative question is not whether everyone attending a PYM demonstration supports sabotage. Clearly, that cannot simply be assumed. The question is how the ecosystem functions. Which organizations collaborate? Which campaigns are shared? Which organizers move between groups? Which organizations amplify one another? Who provides legal, financial or communications infrastructure? Which Canadian organizations have relationships with international groups? Which tactics developed overseas are being promoted or adopted here?

Those questions become particularly important because Palestine Action's manual is explicitly international. It encourages activists outside Britain to identify targets in their own countries. Canada therefore cannot dismiss this as a British problem involving a British organization. We should be asking whether this material has circulated here, whether Canadian activists have communicated with the organization, whether similar operational models have appeared in Canadian incidents and whether law enforcement is examining individual acts in isolation when it should also be looking for broader patterns.

This is also where Canada's political and media vocabulary has failed us. We have stretched the word “protest” so far that it increasingly describes almost anything done in service of a political cause. Blocking infrastructure is protest. Targeting businesses is protest. Trespassing is protest. Vandalism is protest. Property destruction becomes “direct action.” Sabotage becomes “resistance.” At some point, language stops informing the public and begins concealing what is happening.

There is nothing inconsistent about vigorously defending peaceful pro-Palestinian protest while also recognizing that clandestine sabotage belongs in an entirely different category. People have every right to criticize Israel, advocate for Palestinians, organize demonstrations and challenge Canadian foreign policy. Those freedoms should be protected. They do not require Canadians to pretend that an underground cell conducting reconnaissance on a target and attempting to avoid police detection is engaged in the same activity.

For the Jewish community, there is another reason this investigation matters. We have spent years responding to individual incidents while paying considerably less attention to the infrastructure producing them. A business is vandalized and we condemn the vandalism. A Jewish institution is targeted and we demand additional security. A demonstration enters a Jewish neighbourhood and we argue about policing. Then everyone moves on to the next incident. What we rarely ask is whether some of these events belong to a larger ideological and organizational ecosystem.

That is where the investigation now needs to go. The masked activist holding the hammer is the most visible part of the story, but perhaps the least interesting. The more important questions concern the organizations, networks, campaigns, communications structures and ideological infrastructure behind the person holding it. We need to understand who legitimizes these tactics, who amplifies the resulting actions, who provides political cover, how organizations interact internationally and whether any of that infrastructure reaches into Canada.

The Underground Manual gives us an extraordinary starting point because it eliminates much of the guesswork about Palestine Action's own model. Its readers are told to create cells operating without detection. They are taught to select targets and conduct reconnaissance. They are told that the objective is to damage or destroy. They receive advice intended to reduce identification and forensic exposure, followed by instructions to eliminate evidence after the action.

Now we need to find out what sits around it.

Who is connected to whom? Who works together? Who defends whom? Who funds what? Who provides infrastructure? How do ideas and tactics travel between Britain, the United States and Canada? Where does PYM fit? Where do other organizations fit? And how much of this network have Canadian authorities actually mapped?

Those answers should be established with documents, financial records, organizational statements, campaign histories and demonstrable connections, not assumptions. That is what will make this an exposé rather than another opinion piece.

The manual has given us the first piece.

Now we follow the network.

Read more

There is a phrase I hear over and over again: “Why can’t you just be a good Jew?” Ironically, it almost always comes from people who insist they are not antisemitic. They tell me they have nothing against Jews. They only oppose Israel. They respect Judaism. They respect Jewish people. Then, almost in the same breath, they begin explaining to me how I should behave as a Jew.

Subscribe now

Recently, I debated Dimitri Lascaris, a lawyer, political activist, and one of Canada’s most outspoken anti-Israel advocates. He has spent years campaigning against Israel, supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and calling for sweeping international measures against the Jewish state.

During our exchange, he told me that I should be a “good Jew.” He argued that I should condemn Israel as a country because of the actions of its government. He contrasted that with himself, saying that as a Greek, he condemns the Greek government—not Greece itself.

But then came the contradiction.

He wasn’t asking me to criticize a government. He was asking me to condemn Israel itself. Not a particular policy. Not a specific decision. The country.

And when I refused, he suggested that I should question what kind of Jew I was.

Think about that for a moment.

A non-Jew was telling a Jew what it means to be a “good Jew.”

Not by explaining Judaism.

Not by asking questions.

Not by trying to understand.

But by setting a political test for Jewish legitimacy.

Agree with me about Israel, and you’re a good Jew.

Disagree, and perhaps you should question your identity.

That wasn’t simply criticism of Israeli policy. It was an attempt to define Jewish identity through someone else’s political expectations. And that is precisely what this article is about.

For centuries, Jews have been told that acceptance comes with conditions. You can stay, provided you don’t become too visible. You can succeed, provided you don’t become too influential. You can practise your faith, provided you keep it private. You can live among us, provided you don’t remind us that you’re different.

Today, the conditions have changed, but the principle has not. Now the demand is political. Be the right kind of Jew. Be the Jew who publicly denounces Israel. Be the Jew who accepts every accusation made against the Jewish state. Be the Jew who apologizes for Jewish self-determination. Be the Jew who reassures everyone else that they don’t have to feel uncomfortable with the existence of the world’s only Jewish state. Then, and only then, do you become the “good Jew.”

This isn’t a new phenomenon. The words have changed. The mechanism hasn’t.

For generations, antisemites decided who the “good Jews” were. The Jews who converted. The Jews who stayed quiet. The Jews who knew their place. The Jews who were willing to distance themselves from their own people in exchange for acceptance.

Today, the test has simply changed.

“Just denounce Israel.”

“Stop talking about antisemitism.”

“Distance yourself from Zionism.”

“Be one of the good Jews.”

The target has shifted from religion to Jewish collective identity, but the underlying message is identical: your acceptance depends on rejecting an essential part of who you are.

The new playbook is simply the old playbook wearing modern clothes.

This also explains why certain Jewish voices are elevated while others are ignored. Not because they represent the Jewish community. Not because they are experts. Not because they reflect mainstream Jewish opinion. They are elevated because they validate a particular narrative. Their Jewish identity becomes a shield.

“See? Even this Jew agrees.”

The argument is no longer evaluated on its evidence. It is validated by selecting the Jew who says what people already wanted to hear. That isn’t diversity of thought. It’s tokenism. The individual is no longer valued for who they are or what they know. They are valued because they can be used as proof that criticism of Jews—or of Jewish self-determination—cannot possibly be antisemitic.

Imagine telling a Black person what the acceptable Black opinion is. Imagine telling a Muslim what a “good Muslim” believes. Imagine telling an Indigenous leader which parts of their history they are allowed to defend. Most people would immediately recognize that as prejudice.

Yet when it comes to Jews, many feel perfectly comfortable explaining what constitutes acceptable Jewish behaviour. Some even divide Jews into categories: good Jews, bad Jews, useful Jews, problematic Jews.

Notice what has happened.

The non-Jew has become the person deciding which Jews deserve respect.

Today’s respectability test isn’t about religious observance. It’s about Zionism. Support Jewish self-determination and you’re labelled an extremist. Believe Israel has a right to exist and you’re morally compromised. Talk about antisemitism and you’re accused of trying to silence criticism. Refuse to denounce Israel on demand and suddenly you’re one of the “bad Jews.”

The moment you refuse to meet someone else’s expectations of what a Jew should believe, your character is questioned instead of your argument.

Real dialogue begins with curiosity. This begins with conditions. The message isn’t, “Help me understand why you think that.” The message is, “You’ll only be acceptable once you agree with me.” That isn’t conversation. It’s ideological gatekeeping.

I don’t need permission to be proudly Jewish. I don’t need permission to support the existence of the Jewish state. I don’t need permission to speak about antisemitism. And I certainly don’t need someone who isn’t Jewish deciding whether I’m one of the “good ones.” I’ve already had that conversation—in a public debate.

History has shown us where dividing Jews into acceptable and unacceptable categories leads. The labels change. The mechanism does not.

Being a good person has nothing to do with whether someone supports or opposes Israel. It has everything to do with whether they can disagree without trying to define another person’s identity.

If someone tells a Jew how a Jew is supposed to think, if someone decides which Jews deserve to be heard, or if someone only respects Jews who repeat their politics, then they should ask themselves a difficult question:

Who appointed them the authority on what makes a “good Jew”?

Jews have spent thousands of years surviving people who believed they had that authority. We don’t need another generation deciding which Jews are acceptable.

We decide who we are.

Not our critics.

Not our opponents.

And certainly not those who claim they aren’t antisemitic while demanding that Jews prove their worth by denouncing the world’s only Jewish state.

That isn’t a new idea.

It’s one of the oldest ideas in history.

Only the language has changed.

There is a sentence Jews have been hearing for centuries, even if the wording changes.

“Be one of the good Jews.”

Today, it sounds different. It sounds like, “Real Jews oppose Israel.” Or, “If you cared about human rights, you’d reject the Jewish state.” Or perhaps the most common version of all: “Don’t conflate Judaism with Israel.”

A commenter recently wrote to me: “It’s antisemitic to conflate Israel with Judaism... A lot of Jews have disavowed Israel as a Jewish state because they understandably don’t want some of the worst crimes of the 21st century to be done under the guise of Judaism.”

At first glance, many people will read that as political criticism. It isn’t. It is something much deeper. It is an attempt to decide what kind of Jew is acceptable.

Notice what is happening. I am not being told how to evaluate a government or a particular military operation. I am being told how I should express my Jewish identity. The implication is clear: if I identify with Israel as the Jewish homeland, then there is something morally wrong with my Judaism.

No one demands that Canadians reject Canada in order to be considered ethical Canadians. No one tells Greeks they must renounce Greece or that Armenians must distance themselves from Armenia before their opinions deserve respect. Yet Jews are routinely expected to prove their morality by distancing themselves from the world’s only Jewish state.

That is not a political standard. It is an ethnic and religious one.

One of the most common refrains is, “Don’t conflate Judaism with Israel.” Of course Judaism and the modern State of Israel are not identical. Judaism existed for thousands of years before 1948. Millions of Jews live outside Israel, and Israeli governments, like every democratic government, are open to criticism.

But acknowledging those truths does not erase another truth: for the overwhelming majority of Jews, Israel is not simply another country on a map. It is woven into our history, our prayers, our language, our holidays, and our identity as a people.

For more than two thousand years Jews have prayed facing Jerusalem. At the end of every Passover Seder we proclaim, “Next year in Jerusalem.” We break a glass at weddings to remember the destruction of Jerusalem. The Hebrew language, the festivals, the Bible, and Jewish memory are inseparable from the Land of Israel.

To tell Jews that Israel has nothing to do with Judaism is not respecting Jewish identity. It is redefining Judaism on behalf of Jews.

Perhaps the most revealing part of comments like this is not that they criticize Israel. Criticism of governments is entirely legitimate. What is revealing is the insistence that Jews who reject Israel are somehow the authentic representatives of Judaism, while Jews who embrace Israel are viewed as morally compromised.

This is an old tactic. Find members of a minority who agree with your position, then use them to invalidate the rest of that minority. “These Jews agree with us, therefore the other Jews are the problem.”

Imagine applying that logic to any other community. Imagine saying, “We found Indigenous people who reject Indigenous land claims, therefore they represent authentic Indigenous opinion.” Or, “We found women who oppose feminism, therefore they speak for women.” Most people would immediately recognize how flawed that reasoning is.

Yet when it comes to Jews, this approach has become remarkably common. The acceptable Jew is the Jew who rejects one of the central pillars of Jewish peoplehood.

One of the strangest developments since October 7 has been watching non-Jews explain Judaism to Jews. We are told what Judaism really teaches, which rabbis matter, which Jewish organizations are legitimate, which Jews are authentic, and which Jewish beliefs are acceptable.

Imagine someone confidently explaining Islam to Muslims or Sikhism to Sikhs in the same way. Most people would recognize it as arrogant and offensive. When it happens to Jews, however, it is too often celebrated as enlightened.

Let’s also be clear about something important. Criticizing the Israeli government is not antisemitic. Israelis criticize their government every day. Jews around the world criticize Israeli governments every day. Democracies are built on disagreement.

The line is crossed when Jews are told that their Jewish identity is only morally acceptable if they reject Jewish self-determination. It is crossed when Jews are expected to renounce something central to the identity of most of the Jewish people simply to earn social acceptance. And it is crossed when others appoint themselves as the arbiters of which Jews count as “real Jews.”

Ultimately, comments like this are not really about Israeli policy. They are about setting conditions for Jewish acceptance. The message is simple: “You can be Jewish... just not that kind of Jewish.”

History has taught us where that road leads. The language evolves. The demand does not.

For centuries, Jews have been told what kind of Jews they are permitted to be. We don’t need anyone else’s permission now.

The modern pro-Palestinian movement has become remarkably effective at one thing: making Jews and supporters of Israel afraid to speak. Its most powerful weapon is not evidence. It is shame.

Rather than persuading through history, facts, or open debate, much of the movement relies on social pressure. Its objective is often not to change an opponent’s mind, but to make holding certain beliefs socially, professionally, and morally unacceptable.

Believe that Israel has a right to exist? You may be called a colonizer, a genocide supporter, an apartheid apologist, a racist or, increasingly, a Jewish supremacist. The accusation comes before the conversation. The label replaces the argument.

The purpose is not difficult to understand. Most people have families, businesses, careers, friendships and reputations they want to protect. If expressing support for Israel carries the threat of public humiliation, professional consequences or social isolation, many people will decide that silence is safer. That is not persuasion. It is ideological enforcement.

You do not have to defeat someone’s argument if you can make them too frightened to express it. You do not have to prove that Zionism is evil if you can make the word itself socially poisonous. You do not have to debate Jewish history, Jewish indigeneity or Jewish self-determination if you can declare the person raising those subjects morally illegitimate before they finish speaking.

This is why serious debate is so frequently avoided. The movement demands that the world have a conversation about Palestine, but often refuses to have a conversation with anyone who challenges its underlying assumptions. Invitations to debate are declined. Historical questions are dismissed. Evidence that complicates the narrative is labelled propaganda. Instead, there are slogans, edited videos, public call-outs and accusations designed to produce a verdict before any evidence has been examined.

If the movement’s historical case is overwhelming, why fear debate? If its evidence is conclusive, why avoid scrutiny? If its position is morally unassailable, why must disagreement be punished rather than answered? Ideas that are strong enough to govern public life should also be strong enough to survive a conversation.

The language that dominates today’s activist movement did not appear overnight. Much of it was developed decades ago. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union invested heavily in anti-Zionist propaganda, systematically portraying Zionism as imperialism, colonialism, fascism and racism. This was not simply criticism of Israeli governments. It was an effort to redefine the Jewish national movement itself as morally illegitimate.

That campaign reached one of its most significant milestones in 1975 when the United Nations adopted Resolution 3379 declaring that Zionism was a form of racism. Although the resolution was repealed in 1991, its political impact remains. Once Zionism had been framed as racism, support for Jewish self-determination no longer had to be debated. It simply had to be condemned.

The vocabulary has evolved, but the strategy has not. Today the language includes “settler colonialism,” “apartheid,” “white supremacy,” “Jewish supremacy,” and “genocide.” Whether those terms accurately describe reality often becomes secondary to their political purpose. Once someone has been labelled, many people stop listening before they ever examine the evidence.

The Islamic Revolution in Iran added another layer to this strategy. When Ayatollah Khomeini established the Islamic Republic in 1979, the regime openly sought to export its revolutionary Islamist ideology throughout the Middle East and beyond. It understood that ideas, language and narrative could become strategic weapons every bit as important as military power.

To be historically accurate, Iran’s clerical regime did not invent the word “Islamophobia.” The term existed long before the revolution. However, Islamist movements increasingly benefited from framing criticism of political Islam as prejudice against Muslims themselves. Over time, the distinction between criticizing an ideology and hating a people became increasingly blurred.

That distinction matters enormously.

Hatred of Muslims because they are Muslim is bigotry. It deserves to be condemned wherever it exists. But political Islam is an ideology. Islamism is a political movement. Iran’s theocratic government, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah are political and militant organizations. Criticizing their beliefs, objectives or actions is not hatred toward Muslims any more than criticizing Christian nationalism is hatred toward Christians.

Yet many activists intentionally erase that distinction. The accusation of Islamophobia is often expanded far beyond genuine anti-Muslim prejudice to include criticism of Islamist ideology itself. The result is predictable. Journalists hesitate. Politicians soften their language. Academics avoid difficult subjects. Institutions become reluctant to ask legitimate questions, not because the questions are unfair, but because they fear the consequences of asking them.

This creates a striking double standard.

Criticize political Islam and you may be accused of Islamophobia. Support the existence of the world’s only Jewish state and you may be accused of being a Jewish supremacist. One ideology is shielded from scrutiny while Jewish national identity is portrayed as inherently suspect.

The movement frequently demands extraordinary sensitivity toward anything associated with Islam while showing remarkably little restraint when speaking about Jews or Zionism. Jewish history is reduced to colonialism. Jewish indigeneity is dismissed. Jewish self-determination becomes supremacy. Calls for Israel’s elimination are often defended as resistance, while support for Israel’s continued existence is portrayed as extremism.

That contradiction is not accidental. It shifts the conversation away from evidence and toward moral intimidation. Once someone is labelled racist, supremacist or Islamophobic, their arguments become irrelevant because the accusation itself becomes the verdict.

This is why public shaming has become such an effective political tool. A debate requires both sides to defend their ideas. Shaming requires only an accusation. Debate invites evidence. Shaming discourages anyone from even listening.

The objective is not necessarily to c

onvince supporters of Israel that they are wrong. The objective is to convince them that speaking is not worth the personal cost. That is how a spiral of silence develops. People who believe they are alone become quiet. Their silence makes others believe the dominant narrative is universally accepted, even when it is not.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this movement is that it increasingly tells Jews what kind of Jews they are allowed to be. Jews who reject Zionism are often embraced as proof that the movement cannot be antisemitic. Jews who believe the Jewish people have a right to self-determination are labelled privileged, colonial, racist or supremacist.

This is not inclusion. It is conditional acceptance. It tells Jews they are welcome only if they surrender a central part of their identity. No other minority is routinely expected to renounce its national history or collective identity before being allowed to speak about discrimination directed against it.

None of this means every supporter of Palestinian rights embraces these tactics. Many genuinely seek peace, dignity and security for both Palestinians and Israelis. Many reject antisemitism and are willing to engage in honest dialogue. They deserve respect for doing so.

But the activist culture that increasingly dominates the movement has normalized moral intimidation over intellectual engagement. It has replaced difficult conversations with slogans, history with hashtags, nuance with absolutes, and debate with accusations.

Israel, like every democracy, should be criticized when criticism is warranted. Governments are not beyond scrutiny. Military decisions should be examined. Policies should be debated.

But there is a profound difference between criticizing a government and denying an entire people the right to national self-determination. There is a difference between opposing a policy and declaring the very existence of the Jewish state illegitimate.

Those distinctions matter.

Because shame is not evidence. Labels are not arguments. Outrage is not history. And any movement that must frighten people into silence has not demonstrated the strength of its ideas. It has only demonstrated its fear of having them challenged.

The response cannot be silence. The response cannot be retreat. And it certainly cannot be apologizing for believing that the Jewish people deserve what every other nation on earth is expected to have—the right to exist in peace, security, and self-determination.

For too long, too many Jews and supporters of Israel have allowed themselves to be placed on the defensive. We have accepted debates where our legitimacy is questioned before the first word is spoken. We have accepted labels instead of arguments, accusations instead of evidence, and outrage instead of history. That must end.

The next time someone calls you a “Zio”, ask them to define “Zio”. The next time someone calls you a Jewish supremacist, ask them whether they believe the Jewish people are entitled to the same right of national self-determination as every other people. The next time someone labels legitimate criticism of political Islam as Islamophobia, calmly explain the difference between criticizing an ideology and hating a people.

Do not be dragged into shouting matches. Do not allow yourself to become what your critics expect you to become. Stay calm. Stay informed. Stay grounded in history, facts, and evidence. Ask questions. Demand definitions. Force the conversation back to substance.

Know your history well enough that slogans cannot shake your confidence. Know your values well enough that accusations cannot define your character. Know the facts well enough that propaganda cannot replace reality. Most importantly, refuse to let anyone else define what it means to be Jewish, what it means to be a Zionist, or what it means to stand with Israel.

There is nothing shameful about believing the Jewish people have the same right to self-determination as every other nation. There is nothing shameful about opposing antisemitism. There is nothing shameful about demanding truth instead of propaganda, dialogue instead of intimidation, and evidence instead of slogans.

Every time someone refuses to be intimidated, the strategy of shame loses a little more of its power. Every time someone asks a difficult question, propaganda becomes a little weaker. Every time someone speaks with confidence and integrity, another person watching quietly realizes they are not alone.

That is how cultures change. That is how movements lose momentum. That is how truth begins to break through the noise.

The future of the Jewish people has never been secured by those who remained silent. It has always been secured by those who had the courage to stand when standing was difficult.

This generation is no different.

Stand tall. Know your history. Speak with confidence. Challenge falsehoods with facts. Reject intimidation. Reject shame. Don’t be on the defensive. Be on the right!

Above all, be unapologetically Jewish.

Because when we refuse to surrender our voice, we do more than defend ourselves. We ensure that the next generation inherits our courage instead of our fear.

Share Unapologetically Jewish

The most successful political campaigns do not begin with slogans. They begin by constructing the world in which those slogans will eventually sound reasonable.

They build the organizations. They recruit the activists. They educate the educators. They cultivate donors, journalists, artists, academics and institutional gatekeepers. They introduce a vocabulary, repeat it until it becomes familiar, and then enforce it until disagreement sounds not merely incorrect, but immoral.

By the time the public notices, the argument has already been decided.

That is the uncomfortable warning inside an extraordinary account written by Gary Wexler, a veteran Jewish communications strategist, advertising executive and former professor at the University of Southern California. In November 2023, Wexler published an article titled “The Inside Story of How Palestinians Took Over the World.” The headline was intentionally theatrical. The story beneath it was not.

Wexler described a meeting that allegedly took place nearly three decades earlier, during the hopeful years surrounding the Oslo Accords. At the time, much of the Jewish world believed history was bending toward peace. Israel’s leaders spoke about reconciliation, regional cooperation and Shimon Peres’s vision of a “New Middle East.” Jewish organizations funded coexistence programs, dialogue initiatives and civil-society partnerships. The atmosphere, Wexler recalled, was almost euphoric.

The future appeared to be arriving.

But while Jewish institutions were preparing for peace, Wexler says that some Palestinian political organizers were preparing for something very different: a long-term global communications campaign designed to transform how the world understood Israel, Zionism and eventually the Jews themselves.

Wexler had been hired by the Ford Foundation to help develop a marketing institute for organizations receiving its support in Israel. Along with his colleague Debra London, he interviewed both Jewish and Arab civil-society groups. The Jewish organizations, he wrote, spoke enthusiastically about peace, coexistence, economic partnership and mutual prosperity.

The Arab organizations were having another conversation.

According to Wexler, they spoke about independence, dignity, political power, self-rule and statehood. That distinction alone was not sinister. Palestinians had every right to pursue national aspirations and political rights. What troubled Wexler was that the language of mutual recognition was largely absent. When sensitive questions arose, he said, organization after organization directed him toward one man: Ameer Makhoul, the executive director of Ittijah, an umbrella organization for Arab civil-society groups in Israel.

When Wexler finally met Makhoul, the conversation reportedly moved far beyond nonprofit marketing.

Wexler says Makhoul recited his personal and professional history back to him—his university activism, his Zionist work, his summers volunteering on a kibbutz and the Jewish organizations his agency represented. Then, according to Wexler’s account, Makhoul described the strategy.

Palestinian organizers would develop campus activists across the United States and around the world. They would bring students to refugee camps, just as Zionist organizations brought Jewish students to Israel. They would build global pro-Palestinian organizations to rival or exceed global pro-Israel institutions. They would create professional public-relations campaigns, cultivate international media coverage and finance the effort through European governments, Arab and Muslim states, wealthy donors and international organizations.

The goal was not a viral moment.

The goal was infrastructure.

Wexler’s account is one man’s recollection of a private conversation, and it should be described honestly as such. There is no transcript of the meeting. There is no document signed “the Palestinian plan.” Palestinians are not a single ideological organism, and it would be both inaccurate and morally wrong to treat millions of people as though they were collectively responsible for one organizer’s alleged words.

But the significance of Wexler’s story does not depend entirely on whether every sentence was recalled perfectly.

It rests on what happened next.

Because the infrastructure he says was described to him was, in fact, built.

The Palestinian cause became deeply embedded within Western academic, activist and institutional culture. Students for Justice in Palestine and similar organizations developed chapters across university campuses. The BDS movement formally emerged from a 2005 call issued by a coalition of Palestinian civil-society organizations, asking international institutions, unions, churches, universities and cultural organizations to impose boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Israel Apartheid Week became an annual event across campuses internationally. Academic associations debated and sometimes adopted boycott resolutions. Faculty networks began organizing explicitly around Palestinian advocacy and academic boycotts. Student governments became battlegrounds over divestment. Progressive organizations incorporated Palestine into campaigns involving race, policing, immigration, climate activism, feminism, sexuality and Indigenous rights.

This was not simply the spread of sympathy for Palestinian civilians. Sympathy does not require a coordinated vocabulary, recurring tactics, institutional alliances and identical ideological frameworks appearing across unrelated movements.

This was the construction of a political ecosystem.

The most consequential achievement of that ecosystem was not convincing everyone to support Palestinian statehood. Many Jews and Israelis support Palestinian self-determination. The real achievement was convincing a generation that the conflict should no longer be understood as a clash between two national movements, two traumatized peoples or two competing historical narratives.

Instead, it was compressed into a moral binary.

Oppressor and oppressed.

Colonizer and Indigenous.

White and racialized.

Powerful and powerless.

Apartheid and resistance.

Once that framework was established, the historical details became almost irrelevant. Jewish indigeneity could be dismissed. Centuries of Jewish presence in the land could be ignored. The expulsion of Jews from Arab and Muslim countries could disappear. The diversity of Israeli society could be erased. Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime could be described as secondary reactions rather than ideological actors with agency, intentions and stated objectives.

Israel was no longer a country whose policies could be debated.

It became a symbol of everything the progressive world had been trained to oppose.

That transformation did not happen accidentally.

The 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Durban became one of its defining moments. The official governmental conference ultimately removed some of its most inflammatory language, but the accompanying NGO Forum produced a declaration describing Israel as a “racist, apartheid state” and called for its international isolation. The gathering became notorious for anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric, imagery and literature, helping internationalize a political vocabulary that would later become ordinary within Western activist spaces.

Durban provided the architecture. BDS provided the mechanism. Campuses provided the recruits. Social media eventually provided the distribution system.

And Jewish institutions largely failed to understand what was happening.

We kept treating each development as an isolated public-relations problem. A boycott resolution appeared, and we sent speakers. An apartheid event appeared, and we printed fact sheets. A hostile professor taught ideological propaganda, and we filed a complaint. A celebrity repeated misinformation, and we rushed to correct the record.

We believed the problem was a shortage of facts.

It was not.

The problem was that facts were being introduced into a moral structure designed to reject them.

When Israel produced evidence, the evidence was called propaganda. When Jewish students described antisemitism, they were accused of weaponizing identity. When Jews explained that Zionism was a central expression of Jewish peoplehood, activists informed them that Zionism had nothing to do with Judaism. When Jews objected to slogans promising the elimination of Israel, they were told they were suppressing Palestinian speech.

Jewish identity was accepted only when separated from Jewish power, Jewish sovereignty and Jewish collective self-defence.

A Jew could be welcomed as a religious minority, a Holocaust descendant, a social-justice volunteer or a critic of Israel. But the Jew who insisted on Jewish national legitimacy became suspect.

The Jewish victim was embraced.

The Jewish actor was condemned.

The Jewish corpse was mourned.

The Jewish soldier was criminalized.

The Jewish refugee of history was remembered.

The Jew who refused to become a refugee again was called an oppressor.

This is how the communications strategy moved beyond Israel and reached the Jews themselves.

The campaign did not have to persuade everyone that Jews were evil. It only had to make Jewish collective power morally illegitimate. Once Israel became the world’s symbolic colonizer, Zionism became racism. Once Zionism became racism, defending Israel became complicity. Once defending Israel became complicity, Jews could be excluded from progressive coalitions unless they publicly renounced a central component of Jewish identity.

The conversion of anti-Israel politics into a test of moral belonging was one of the most successful political branding campaigns of the modern era.

October 7 should have shattered it.

Instead, October 7 revealed how firmly it had taken hold.

Before the bodies had been identified, the excuses began. Before Israel responded militarily, demonstrations appeared blaming Israel. Students and professors celebrated “resistance” while Israeli communities were still burning. Posters of kidnapped children were ripped down. Jewish students were told that their grief was political propaganda. Mass murder was contextualized before it was condemned, when it was condemned at all.

This was not spontaneous outrage at Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza. It began before that war had meaningfully commenced.

The ideological machinery was already running.

In the months that followed, university encampments spread across North America and Europe using strikingly similar language, demands, visual symbolism and tactics. Buildings were occupied. Classes were interrupted. Jewish students reported exclusion, harassment and fear. Administrators who had developed elaborate frameworks for protecting minority communities suddenly discovered philosophical uncertainty when the minority being targeted was Jewish.

A Brandeis University study of Jewish students found that anti-Israel hostility after October 7 contributed to isolation, destroyed friendships and led some students to avoid discussing Israel or conceal aspects of their Jewish identity. Students also described being pushed out of organizations and social spaces that were central to campus life.

Research conducted by the AMCHA Initiative has repeatedly found strong correlations between the presence of active anti-Zionist organizations and antisemitic activity on campuses. Its earlier research reported dramatically higher rates of antisemitic incidents at universities with active anti-Zionist groups, while later reports examined the growing involvement of faculty networks, academic departments and boycott advocates in campus activism.

Correlation does not prove that every member of an anti-Israel organization is antisemitic. Criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic. Palestinian students are entitled to advocate for their people, criticize Israeli policies and describe their families’ experiences.

But we should stop pretending that an ideological movement dedicated to dismantling the Jewish state can saturate campuses without consequences for the Jewish students who view that state as part of their peoplehood, history, family and collective survival.

The consequences are no longer theoretical.

They are visible in students hiding Stars of David beneath their clothing. They are visible in Jewish events requiring security. They are visible when Zionists are removed from social-justice spaces, when Jewish institutions are vandalized over the actions of a foreign government, and when Jewish businesses, schools, synagogues and charities are treated as legitimate targets for political intimidation.

They are visible when protest movements use “Zionist” the way previous generations used “Jew”: as a flexible word capable of meaning banker, donor, capitalist, media manipulator, supremacist, conspirator, disloyal citizen or enemy of humanity.

The vocabulary has been modernized.

The target remains recognizable.

Wexler’s deepest insight is that the Jewish world misunderstood the scale of the contest. We thought we were engaged in a debate about Israel’s policies. Our opponents were building a global movement around Israel’s legitimacy.

We produced explanations.

They produced identities.

We published brochures.

They built academic departments.

We organized solidarity missions.

They organized ideological ecosystems.

We asked whether people supported a two-state solution.

They asked whether Jewish statehood should exist at all.

For decades, many Jewish organizations approached the problem as though better messaging would solve it. They searched for the perfect sentence, the perfect spokesperson, the perfect viral video, the perfect billboard.

But no slogan can defeat an infrastructure.

A movement that spent decades recruiting students cannot be answered with a weekend seminar. A movement that embedded its vocabulary within universities cannot be answered with another downloadable fact sheet. A movement that formed alliances across race, class, gender, religion and politics cannot be answered by Jewish organizations competing with one another for donations and attention.

This is not a communications inconvenience.

It is a contest over cultural power.

The first step in responding is to abandon the belief that telling Israel’s story more politely will somehow cause institutions committed to Israel’s illegitimacy to reconsider. Communication matters, but strategy must come before messaging.

The Jewish world needs intellectual infrastructure capable of operating for decades, not news cycles. We need scholars, researchers, filmmakers, artists, lawyers, organizers, teachers, writers and cultural creators who understand that Jewish legitimacy cannot be defended only during moments of crisis.

We need to teach Jewish history as a living national history, not a sequence of persecutions culminating in the Holocaust. Young Jews must understand Zionism before others define it for them. They must know that Jewish connection to Israel did not begin in 1948, that Jews are not foreign intruders in their ancestral homeland, and that Jewish sovereignty is not a reward granted by Europe out of guilt.

We need to challenge ideological capture inside universities while defending genuine academic freedom. Professors should be free to criticize Israel. They should not be free to turn classrooms into compulsory political indoctrination or punish Jewish students for refusing to renounce their identity.

We need to trace funding networks, organizational partnerships and political relationships with the same seriousness used by the movements opposing us. Transparency is not persecution. Following money is not paranoia. Understanding how advocacy organizations cooperate, train activists, share materials and influence public institutions is ordinary democratic accountability.

We also need to stop surrendering the language.

“Resistance” cannot become a moral solvent that cleanses every atrocity. “Decolonization” cannot be accepted as permission to murder civilians. “Anti-Zionism” cannot receive an automatic exemption from scrutiny when it repeatedly reproduces traditional antisemitic accusations and demands political homelessness for the Jewish people alone.

Most importantly, the Jewish world must stop fighting only on terrain selected by its opponents.

We cannot spend our future endlessly proving that we are not colonizers, not supremacists, not conspirators and not uniquely evil. A people permanently seated in the defendant’s chair has already surrendered the structure of the debate.

We must construct our own moral language.

Jewish sovereignty is not an apology.

Jewish self-defence is not a scandal.

Jewish continuity is not oppression.

Jewish peoplehood is not a metaphor.

And Israel’s existence is not a question to be reopened whenever the world becomes uncomfortable with Jews possessing power.

Gary Wexler’s account should not be read as proof of a single secret plan controlled by every Palestinian organization. That would be simplistic and irresponsible. It should be read as something both more credible and more disturbing: an eyewitness warning about the power of patient, sophisticated, internationally funded political organizing.

The lesson is not that Palestinians were uniquely clever or uniquely sinister.

The lesson is that they—or at least the organizations Wexler encountered—understood something we did not.

Narratives do not simply describe political reality.

They create it.

They determine which victims are believed, which violence is excused, which histories are remembered and which peoples are permitted to defend themselves. They shape the students who later become journalists, teachers, lawyers, civil servants, politicians and cultural leaders.

The campus activist of yesterday is the institutional gatekeeper of today.

The slogan painted on cardboard eventually becomes the terminology of a human-rights report.

The theory taught in a seminar eventually becomes government policy.

The accusation repeated at a rally eventually becomes common knowledge.

They built the battlefield while we were still talking about peace.

They trained activists while we trained donors.

They developed a global language while we drafted another defensive press release.

Now the strategy is no longer hidden in a meeting room in Haifa. It is playing out in front of us—in universities, unions, newsrooms, cultural institutions, charities, international bodies and city streets.

The question is no longer whether Gary Wexler was warning us.

The question is whether we are finally prepared to understand the warning.

And whether, after three decades of arriving late, the Jewish world is ready to build something capable of lasting longer than the next crisis.

GARY WEXLERS ORIGINAL ARTICLE - CLICK HERE

Share Unapologetically Jewish

There is a question Jewish leaders across Canada and the United States should be asking themselves, and it is not what will keep donors comfortable, what will avoid controversy, or what language will satisfy politicians, editorial boards, activists, and institutions whose concern for Jews has too often proved conditional. The question is older, more demanding, and far less interested in appearances.

What would King David do?

It may sound dramatic, but this is a dramatic moment. Jewish communities across North America spent generations believing that safety had finally become permanent. We built institutions, entered public life, supported universities, helped shape civic culture, and placed enormous trust in liberal democracy. We believed that if we contributed enough, integrated enough, served enough, donated enough, and proved our loyalty often enough, the societies around us would stand with us when it mattered.

For a long time, that belief seemed justified. Canada and the United States gave Jews opportunities our ancestors could barely have imagined. We became judges, physicians, artists, entrepreneurs, academics, public servants, elected officials, and community builders. We established synagogues, schools, charities, hospitals, cultural centres, and institutions that enriched not only Jewish life but the broader countries around us. Jews did not merely find refuge in North America. We helped build it.

But comfort has a way of disguising vulnerability. Success can cause a people to forget lessons that survival once made impossible to ignore. When the climate changed, too many of our institutions discovered that they knew how to function during acceptance but not how to lead through hostility. They understood relationship-building, philanthropy, access, and representation. They were far less prepared for intimidation, ideological aggression, institutional betrayal, and a public environment in which Jewish legitimacy itself could once again be placed on trial.

That is why King David matters.

David was not a consensus manager. He was not chosen because he knew how to make danger sound less dangerous. He was not elevated because he understood how to issue the perfect statement after a crisis had already occurred. He was chosen because he understood responsibility. Before he was a king, he was a shepherd, and the defining quality of a shepherd is not eloquence. It is the willingness to place oneself between the flock and the threat.

When Goliath stood before Israel, everyone could see him. The danger was obvious. The humiliation was public. The threats were repeated. Yet the size of the enemy had convinced the people that inaction was prudence. They had begun to treat fear as wisdom and paralysis as strategy. David saw the same giant and reached a different conclusion. The fact that the threat was large did not make resistance reckless. It made resistance necessary.

That distinction is at the heart of the crisis facing Jewish leadership today.

Across Canada and the United States, Jews are being told to remain calm while the environment around them becomes more openly hostile. We are told not to overreact, not to generalize, not to politicize, not to make others uncomfortable, and not to sound alarmist. We are told to wait for investigations, wait for reviews, wait for committees, wait for consultations, and wait for institutions to rediscover the courage they somehow misplace whenever Jewish safety becomes politically inconvenient.

The Jewish community has become exceptionally skilled at documenting danger. We produce reports, gather statistics, hold emergency meetings, write letters, organize delegations, and issue statements condemning hatred in the strongest possible terms. Then, too often, we return to business as usual. The press release is treated as the response. The meeting is treated as the achievement. The promise of further dialogue is treated as progress.

David would not have confused documentation with defence. He would not have mistaken access for influence or visibility for power. He would not have measured Jewish security by how many politicians attended a gala, posed beside a menorah, or offered warm words inside a synagogue. He would have asked what changed after the cameras left. Did the threats stop? Did the intimidation end? Did governments enforce the law equally? Did universities protect Jewish students? Did schools become safer? Did institutions face consequences for abandoning their responsibilities? Did Jewish families feel more secure, or did Jewish leaders simply become better at describing the problem?

Leadership is not measured by proximity to power. It is measured by what power is persuaded, compelled, or organized to do.

This is where Jewish leadership across North America must confront an uncomfortable truth. For too long, many institutions have prioritized relationships over results. They have protected access, reputations, invitations, funding arrangements, advisory seats, political connections, and carefully cultivated partnerships. Yet access that produces no action is not influence. It is theatre.

A photograph with a minister is not a strategy. A private meeting is not a victory. A sympathetic conversation is not protection. A promise to continue the dialogue is not accountability. None of these things are meaningless, but they become meaningless when they are repeatedly presented as substitutes for outcomes.

King David built Jewish sovereignty through clarity. He understood who threatened his people, what unity required, and why alliances mattered. He also understood that alliances could never replace Jewish responsibility. That lesson is essential for Jews in Canada and the United States today.

We should seek allies. We should build coalitions. We should work with governments, law enforcement, educators, religious communities, civil society, and people of conscience. We should defend democracy and participate in it fully. But we must stop acting as though Jewish survival depends on convincing everyone to love us.

It does not.

History has never worked that way. The Jewish people have survived because we learned to build even when we were not loved, organize even when we were not welcomed, and defend our future even when others questioned our right to have one. The goal was never universal approval. The goal was Jewish continuity.

That requires strong schools, strong families, strong synagogues, strong legal advocacy, strong political organization, strong media, strong communal intelligence, strong security, and above all, strong Jewish confidence. The greatest danger facing Jews in North America is not only external hatred. It is internal hesitation. It is the fear of sounding too Jewish, too Zionist, too direct, too demanding, or too unwilling to accept the explanations offered by institutions that repeatedly fail us.

There is a generation of Jewish leadership that learned to survive by being agreeable. That approach may have worked in a different era. It does not work in this one. The environment changed, but too much of our leadership did not. They continue speaking the language of accommodation while others speak the language of pressure. They seek dialogue with people who seek leverage. They offer nuance to movements that offer certainty. They pursue mutual understanding with activists who do not misunderstand us at all.

That is the part we must finally accept. Some people do not oppose Jews because we have failed to explain ourselves properly. They oppose Jewish peoplehood, Jewish sovereignty, Jewish history, Jewish self-defence, and the legitimacy of Jews exercising collective power. No educational campaign will persuade everyone. No perfectly crafted statement will satisfy those who believe Jewish rights must always remain conditional.

David would not spend the future of his people trying to win the approval of those committed to weakening them. He would prepare the Jewish people to stand without it.

That does not mean abandoning democracy. It means using it seriously. It means demanding equal enforcement of the law, challenging discriminatory institutions, supporting litigation where necessary, funding research, exposing networks that target Jewish charities, schools, camps, businesses, and public life, and holding politicians accountable not only for what they say at Jewish events but for what they do when Jewish interests conflict with political convenience.

It means making Jewish votes, Jewish philanthropy, Jewish advocacy, Jewish organization, and Jewish institutional power matter. Not through intimidation, but through participation, persistence, coordination, memory, and consequence.

David was not only a warrior. He was a builder, and that may be the most important lesson of all. Jewish leadership cannot exist only in reaction. We cannot spend the next generation moving from crisis to crisis, protest to protest, scandal to scandal, hoping that the next incident will finally awaken the public. We must build institutions designed for the world as it is, not the world we wish still existed.

We need independent Jewish media that does not wait for permission to tell the truth. We need legal organizations willing to challenge governments and public bodies. We need researchers prepared to follow the money, the networks, the organizations, and the ideologies shaping the hostility around us. We need young Jews trained not only to explain Judaism but to defend Jewish legitimacy. We need leaders who understand that Jewish pride is not extremism, Jewish self-defence is not aggression, and Jewish sovereignty is not a historical embarrassment requiring endless justification.

We need a new Jewish confidence. Not arrogance, not cruelty, and not indifference to others. Confidence. The confidence to say that our history matters, our safety matters, our children matter, Israel matters, Jewish continuity matters, and none of those truths require an apology.

David was also deeply flawed. That is part of why his example matters. He made serious mistakes. He was capable of poor judgment, anger, and moral failure. Yet when confronted, he could admit wrongdoing. He did not pretend leadership required infallibility. It required accountability.

That is another lesson our institutions desperately need. Too many Jewish organizations treat internal criticism as betrayal. They confuse loyalty to an institution with loyalty to the Jewish people. They protect structures even when those structures no longer serve the mission. But Jewish leadership does not belong to organizations. It belongs to the Jewish people.

Every institution is temporary. The people are not.

If an organization is no longer capable of meeting the moment, it must change. If a leader is more concerned with maintaining access than producing results, that leader must be challenged. If a strategy has failed, it must be replaced. Jewish unity does not mean silence. It means shared purpose.

David united tribes that did not always trust one another. He did not eliminate disagreement. He created a centre strong enough to survive it. That is what North American Jewry needs now. Not uniformity, not obedience, but purpose.

Religious Jews and secular Jews, progressive Jews and conservative Jews, Canadian Jews and American Jews, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, Russian, Persian, Israeli, and every Jewish community in between do not need to agree on everything. We need to agree that Jewish life is worth defending, Jewish history cannot be rewritten without challenge, Jewish children should not inherit fear as their primary identity, Israel's existence is not a debate to be reopened whenever Jewish enemies demand it, and democracy is only meaningful if Jews receive the same rights, protection, and dignity promised to everyone else.

We also need to agree that leadership must be judged by outcomes. Are Jews safer? Are our institutions stronger? Are our children more confident? Are governments more accountable? Are laws enforced more equally? Are the organizations targeting Jewish life being exposed and challenged? Are we building the infrastructure needed for the next twenty years, or merely managing the anxiety of the present?

For centuries, Jews have survived because each generation eventually remembered what the previous one learned through hardship: safety is never inherited. It is built. King David understood that walls are erected before the enemy arrives, not after. Armies are trained before the battle begins. Identity is strengthened before it is challenged. A people prepares for danger while others are still debating whether the danger is real.

The Jewish communities of Canada and the United States now stand at one of those moments in history. We can continue believing that another statement, another meeting, another advisory council, or another promise from another politician will restore what has been lost. Or we can rediscover a lesson as old as Jewish history itself: no people remain secure by hoping others will defend their future.

David never asked whether defending his people would make him popular. He asked whether he had fulfilled the responsibility placed upon him. He understood that leadership was not about protecting his position. It was about protecting his people. He understood that strength was not the absence of morality, and humility was not the absence of courage.

What would King David do?

He would recognize the threat before recognition became fashionable. He would unite the people without demanding uniformity. He would hold leaders accountable. He would build institutions capable of surviving hostility. He would prepare the next generation to inherit confidence instead of fear. He would seek allies without outsourcing responsibility. He would use power not to elevate himself, but to secure the future of his people.

Most importantly, he would build before it was too late.

The question is no longer what King David would do.

The question is whether we still possess the courage to do what leadership requires.