Anti-Semitism: Canadian Anti-BDS Legislation

In a vote of 229-51 on February 22, 2016, the Canadian Parliament widely approved a measure condemning the activities of the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement against Israel. The motion was brought to the Parliament floor on November 18, 2015, by conservative members, but garned support from liberals as well and passed in a bipartisan vote. Liberal Canadian MP Michael Levitt stated during a debate on the motion that, “BDS is about intolerance. It’s a broader movement to demonize and delegitimize Israel, and to collectively punish all Israelis by holding Israel alone responsible for the Arab-Israeli conflict. Whereas anti-Semites have long targeted Jews throughout the world as the root of all society’s ills, this new form of anti-Semitism targets Israel as the Jew among the nations, singling out the Jewish State as the root of all ills in the world.”

The motion makes note of Canada and Israel's, “long history of friendship as well as economic and diplomatic relations,” and states that the BDS movement, “promotes the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel.”

Source: Shneider, Ilana. “Canadian Parliament passes a motion condemning BDS by a vote of 229-51,” CIJ, (February 22, 2016);
“Anti-BDS motion passes in Canadian Parliament with bipartisan support,” Haaretz (February 23, 2016);
“Trudeau backs conservative motion condemning BDS movement against Israel,” Huffington Post (February 23, 2016)