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William Barclay: The left's unhealthy obsession with Israel

The Greens, NDP and Liberals have all contributed

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On Jan. 7, Heather McPherson, the longtime member of Parliament for Edmonton-Strathcona and current leadership candidate for the federal New Democratic Party, sponsored an openly antisemitic petition that seeks to investigate and charge any Canadians who served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). 

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Unfortunately, McPherson is not at all alone in her vain crusade against Israel.

William Barclay: The left's unhealthy obsession with Israel Back to video

Rather, despite the fact that the left has long declared itself to be a champion of every beleaguered minority and all oppressed people, antisemitism dressed up as criticism of Israel has become a quintessential aspect of left-wing politics in Canada.

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Firstly, the Green Party itself has frequently endorsed the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS), movement, which uniquely targets the Jewish state, via a variety of internal motions and public statements. In addition, former leader Annamie Paul, who is Jewish, said she repeatedly experienced antisemitic outbursts from within the Green Party itself. The party’s former president, Paul Estrin, wrote in 2014 that he was “forced out” as overt Jew-hatred and antisemitism became so acceptable within its ranks. In fact, in 2021, Estrin publicly condemned in a National Post op/ed the antisemitism that inhabits the so-called “wolves washed in green.”

“The Green Party of Canada’s failure to support its leader, Annamie Paul … in the face of anti-Semitic attacks appears to be part of the party’s continued effort to exclude Jewish-Canadians who are unwilling to check important aspects of their Jewish identity at the door,” Estrin wrote at the time.

Moreover, unjustifed targeting of Israel has spread relentlessly throughout the New Democratic Party. 

In 2022, Joel Harden, a longtime member of provincial parliament from Ottawa, issued a public apology after he explicitly condemned the Jewish nation as “the single greatest threat … and the single greatest origin of violence in the Middle East.” And, in 2023, Ontario Premier Doug Ford led the legislature to censure the now-disgraced former NDP MPP for Hamilton-Centre, Sarah Jama, after she called for an “end to all occupation of Palestinian land” in days after October 7.

Over the past decade, a wide variety of NDP party members and politicians, such as federal candidate Morgan Wheeldon and MP Heather McPherson, have encouraged the myth that the Jewish nation happily indulges in ethnic cleansing and genocide. The NDP itself has supported policies that go well beyond mere criticism of the world’s only Jewish state, such as a 2024 motion in the House of Commons that trivialized Israel’s “right to exist,” indicted the state of Israel for “genocide,” even though there is no evidence that it is happening. The party has also supported BDS.

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Even the NDP’s leadership has carelessly reinforced a pernicious anti-Israel ideology with Jagmeet Singh, former leader of the NDP, declaring in a 2022 email to the NDP faithful that “Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories is at the centre of the challenges facing the Palestinian and Israeli people. There will be no long-term solution to the protracted conflict until the 55-year occupation ends.”

Finally, open disdain for Israel has also been embraced within the Liberal party.

In 2025, former Liberal MP Bill Casey explicitly stated on social media that it is not at all antisemitic or “uncommon for Jews around the world now to be shown scorn and disrespect … in the hope that the message will reach the Netanyahu government that what the Israel government is doing in Gaza is unacceptable.” 

Before that, former prime minister Justin Trudeausaid in November 2023 that, since October 7, the state of Israel had indulged in “the killing of women and children, of babies.”

In addition, since 2015, the Liberal government refused to earnestly or effectively confront antisemitic hate crimes in any capacity, and, as a result, violent antisemitic hate crimes increased astronomically. Throughout 2024, Canada tallied a record-setting 6,219 antisemitic incidents, or 17 outpourings of Jew-hatred per day. That same year, Anthony Housefather, a well-known Jewish MP in Montreal, told Politico that the Liberals’ position on Israel made him question his place in the party.

“I was so distressed with my government’s position on this issue, I really contemplated whether or not I still belonged,” he said.

Unfortunately, it is hard to believe that left-wing political parties and pundits’s outsized criticism of Israel is only about government policy or the plight of Palestinians.

Special to National Post

Twitter/X: @WillBarclayPCBG

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