The Canadian Government appears to be creeping towards the censorship of speech and activism in support of Palestinian human rights.

Public Safety Canada recently published a document that described anti-Zionism wholly as a form of antisemitism. Pro-Israel lobby organizations have been asking Canada to conflate these terms for years, to shut down debate about Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

We must push back against this statement. We know that it is completely legitimate to oppose Zionism, which is the political ideology behind the creation of the state of Israel. Like all nationalist ideologies rooted in colonialism, it is not simply benign. Zionism is experienced by Palestinians as dispossession and oppression, due to the historic planned mass ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine by Zionist forces, and Israel’s ongoing crimes of occupation, apartheid, and genocide.

Anti-Zionism is a legitimate form of expression against concrete injustices against the Palestinian people. We cannot allow our government to silence these perspectives.

Join us in calling on Minister of Public Safety Anandasangaree to retract this statement and affirm that anti-Zionism is a legitimate form of political expression.