The banner of the World Social Forum of 2015. Photo: Montserrat Boix via Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – The Canadian government withdrew its logo from the World Social Forum’s event list of partners, following complaints by parliament members that the program included antisemitic content, Canada’s National Post reported.

Two Liberal MPs said they saw on the event’s website a “blatantly antisemitic cartoon,” depicting a stereotypical Jew with a black hat and Star of David.

The cartoon, which was used to advertise a Forum session about Islamic terrorists being “in the service of world Zionism-capitalism,” was later removed from the website and the event was cancelled.

“The Prime Minister, the Government of Canada, and the Canadian Parliament have been very clear that we oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and that anti-Semitism is never acceptable,” MPs Anthony Housefather and Michael Levitt said in a joint statement.

The annual World Social Forum, which began on Tuesday in Montreal, is a gathering of an expected 10,000 activists from around the world seeking to find “concrete alternatives to the neoliberal economic model and to policies based on the exploitation of human beings and nature,” according to its website, which also states: “We have already taken a stand to exclude all people, organizations or activities that promote any kind of oppression, supporting Palestinians, and all the people struggling for their emancipation and freedom.”

An accompanying document also advises on the boycott of academics, artists and products it links to “Israeli apartheid.”

Famous anti-Israel activists, such as Noam Chomsky and American actor Danny Glover, have attended and supported the World Social Forum in the past.