OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared that he is a Zionist.
Trudeau made the remark in Ottawa on March 6 at the National Forum on Combatting Antisemitism.
“No one in Canada should ever be afraid to call themselves a Zionist,” he said. “I am a Zionist.”
Zionism is the belief that Israel is, and should remain, the Jewish homeland. The conference was not about Israel but about anti-Jewish feeling and actions in Canada. Trudeau’s speech tackled the Holocaust, Holocaust denial, and a rise in anti-Semitic speech and actions.
“I know the explosive rise of anti-Semitism we’ve seen since Hamas’ heinous October 7th attacks had left Canada’s Jewish community and Jewish communities around the globe feeling terrified and far too often alone,” Trudeau told forum participants.
The prime minister said that Holocaust denialism “is increasingly mainstream” and that anti-Semitism is “on the rise, particularly since Hamas’ brutal barbaric terrorist attack of October 7th.”
He emphasized that the current wave of pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah manifestations in Canada is “not normal”:
Holocaust denialism is on the rise, violent extremism is on the rise. What we, what you, are experiencing is not normal. Anti-Semites singing the praises of Hamas and Hezbollah while waving their flags in the streets of our cities is not normal. Jewish students being shouted down in their classrooms and campuses for simply expressing their identity, their opinions, their beliefs is not normal. Synagogues and Jewish day schools being attacked and firebombed by cowards in the night is not normal. The increasingly common deafening indifference toward or even rationalization of rising anti-Semitism is not normal.
Trudeau then gave the word “Zionist” his own definition, stripping its association with Israel to apply the word to “Jewish people” in general:
The term Zionist increasingly being tossed around as a pejorative in spite of the fact that it simply means believing in the right of Jewish people, like all people, to determine their own future. Is not normal. No one in Canada should ever be afraid to call themselves a Zionist. I am a Zionist.
The prime minister’s declaration was rewarded with a burst of applause.
Opponents of the state of Israel, or simply of Israel’s current war against the Arab population of Gaza, often take pains to deny that they are anti-Semites. Many critics of Israel’s actions since the attacks of October 7, 2023, are themselves Jewish.
