A Dangerous Anti-Semitic Thesis That Nobody's Read

MPPs, academics, and columnists weigh in on an important issue they may or may not know anything about.

Here’s a story that’s guaranteed to make you angry at somebody. The objects of your outrage may be any of the following: Ontario Conservatives, the University of Toronto, a woman named Jenny Peto, or National Post op-ed columnists. U of T recently awarded Peto a masters degree for her thesis entitled “The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism, and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education.” In it Peto, who identifies as Jewish, argues that while Jews make up a privileged group in Western society, the “organized Jewish community” promotes a politically advantageous myth of victimhood through hegemonic Holocaust education projects.

The Post’s Jonathan Kay has written several fiery columns denouncing Peto and calling for sweeping changes at the university. In his most forceful piece he declares that Peto represents a “new breed” of “self-hating Jew,” which he characterizes as “young, militantly anti-racist, pro-Palestinian leftists – mostly female, heavily gay, draped in kafiyehs and sanctimony.” What Kay means by “heavily gay,” or what Peto’s sexuality has to do with her paper, he doesn’t say. Nor is it clear that he’s actually read her thesis in full.

Last week, several Ontario Conservative MPPs took the unprecedented step of denouncing Peto’s thesis in the legislature, despite admitting they had not read it. This strikes us in The Mark Newsroom as both serious interference in academic freedom and a big waste of time.

The Post’s John Moore was one of the few columnists who (sort of) came to the defence of Peto’s thesis, writing that it “is a perhaps arguable idea that suffers the unfortunate fate of also being a major talking point of anti-Semites …The fact that 99 per cent of critics haven’t even read [her] paper makes it pretty clear that the denunciation … springs more from the unpopularity of [her] ideas than from demonstrable errors in fact or reasoning.”

Macleans.ca blogger Robyn Urback and the Globe and Mail’s Brent Sasley did read Peto’s paper, and both of them found pretty serious gaps in its reasoning.

If you’ve got a few hours and some anger to spare, you can always read it yourself.