After the Israel–Hamas war erupted in October 2023, a previously obscure concept began gaining traction in Canada: anti-Palestinian racism (APR). Coined in 2022 by the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association (ACLA), a group advocating for Arab communities, APR has since become a political tool for pro-Palestine activists to stifle legitimate criticism and challenge Canada’s established policies on Israel and antisemitism.
According to the ACLA, the concept of APR is defined as “a form of anti-Arab racism that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes or dehumanizes Palestinians.” Examples of such discrimination include failing to recognize Palestinians as indigenous to the region and “defaming” activists with accusations of antisemitism or being “a terrorist threat/sympathizer.”
Cover to Promote Islamism and Antisemitism
At first glance, the definition sounds benign. But in reality, APR functions as a lawfare tactic that has little to do with combating discrimination. Intended to suppress legitimate discussion about the Middle East conflict, it recasts any criticism of Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad as “racism,” effectively shielding them from scrutiny and accountability.
As Canada openly embraces such propaganda, we are witnessing, in real time, a nation losing control of its own future.
Observers have raised legitimate concern about the origin of APR, which lacks independent validation and is promoted primarily by advocacy groups with clear political motives. In practice, the term adds little conceptual value, as it substantially overlaps with Islamophobia and national origin–based discrimination.
APR advocates also oppose the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. That definition includes Holocaust inversion, accusing Jews of dual loyalty, and invoking conspiracy theories about Jewish control of media, government and finance.
Organizations—including Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups such as the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM)—have been lobbying institutions and governments to adopt APR as part of their broader anti-discrimination frameworks. Interestingly, the NCCM has received public funding in the past to build resources and create training for school boards about Islamophobia.
The Toronto District School Board (TDSB)—Canada’s largest, serving 250,000 students across nearly 600 schools—formally recognized APR within its anti-hate strategy last year, setting a precedent for politicized indoctrination in classrooms. Other school boards could follow suit.
Worryingly, a Canadian parliamentary committee report on “Islamophobia” endorsed APR. Pro-Palestine groups even invoked the concept in court while fighting the injunction to remove the University of Toronto encampment last year.
A report by the Islamophobia Research Hub at York University urged governments across Canada to “recognize and adopt” a definition of APR “as a distinct and detrimental form of racism that operates at multiple levels of state and society.” At least two researchers at the hub—Sarah Abou-Bakr and Lina El Bakir—served as former employees of the NCCM.
Arab Canadian Lawyers Association
Founded in 2005, the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association (ACLA) is a Toronto-based federal not-for-profit that lists Ameena Sultan, Jerry Khouri, and Dania Majid as its directors. Majid also functions as its president.
Both Khouri and Majid hold key positions at “Hearing Palestine,” a self-proclaimed “intellectual hub” at the University of Toronto that amplifies anti-Israel and pro-terror rhetoric under the banners of “academic freedom” and “equity and inclusion.” The overlap between these entities illustrates how activist and academic spaces have merged to normalize Islamist extremism.
Adding to the concern, the Government of Canada awarded the ACLA C$99,950 in grant funding under its Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program to conduct an APR education and training project from January 2025 to March 2026. In 2023, the ACLA also received C$2,000 to fund the French translation of its report, titled “Anti-Palestinian Racism: Naming, Framings and Manifestations.”
Ameena Sultan
Ameena Sultan, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer and founder of Sultan Law, is widely regarded as the driving force behind the national campaign to institutionalize APR.
At a November 2024 consultation hosted by the Canadian Council for Refugees and attended by then-Immigration Minister Marc Miller, she alleged that Canada’s immigration system was riddled with anti-Palestinian racism and accused Israel of targeting her clients’ asylum claims to “erase Palestinian identity.”
Sultan and the ACLA signed a November 2023 open letter—endorsed by roughly 600 Canadian legal professionals—that appeared to justify Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel.
Sultan previously served on the board of the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), which lost federal funding in 2009 after allegedly expressing support for terrorism. In 2005, while representing CAF before a parliamentary committee, Sultan opposed revoking citizenship or deporting individuals convicted of terrorism, calling the measures “highly problematic.”
In 2012, Sultan was a featured speaker at an event organized by Samidoun—a Vancouver-based organization that Canada and the U.S. listed as a terrorist entity last year—for “Palestinian Prisoners Day.”
Sultan maintains ties to two other pro-Palestine groups, namely, Toronto Palestinian Families and the Coalition of Palestinian Families, the latter of which she is listed as a director.
A Divisive Security Threat
Tamara Gottlieb, co-founder of Jewish Educators and Families Association of Canada (JEFA), told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) that “APR frameworks recast any criticism of the ‘Palestinian narrative’ as racism. That narrative – rooted in a foreign geopolitical agenda – is now being smuggled into Canadian schools and policy under the guise of anti-racism. Zionism and Jewish identity are treated as hate, and even acknowledging historical facts is labelled racist. A society that substitutes fundamental freedoms and objective truth with virtuous-sounding propaganda becomes vulnerable to foreign and ideological interference. As Canada openly embraces such propaganda, we are witnessing, in real time, a nation losing control of its own future.”
Indeed, the activities of the ACLA and Sultan exemplify how legal advocacy can evolve into ideological lawfare—using policy, institutions, and education systems to advance the aims of extremist movements. This isn’t misguided activism; it forms part of a broader, insidious campaign that threatens national security and undermines social cohesion.
