National Post

CROSSING THE LINE

- Danielle Kubes in Thornhill, Ont

IT IS A TERRIBLE THING TO SUGGEST THAT A LEADER MIGHT PROLONG A WAR FOR HIS OWN POLITICAL ADVANTAGE.

— RAYMOND J. DE SOUZA

‘Just stay away from me,” the middle-aged woman beside me said to a man with a kaffiyeh wrapped tightly around his face. This man was aggressive­ly pointing his finger at her, standing extremely close and screaming obscenitie­s like, “You’re a f--king coward. Because your own country hates you,” and “Are you Russian? Are you Polish?”

She eventually slid a can of pepper spray a few inches out of her pocket and gestured to him with it. She also gave a mini kick with her leg into the air in between them. “Stay away from me,” she said again. “You got pepper spray and you’re trying to end me ... the whole world hates you,” he screamed.

A man holding a Palestinia­n flag joined the conversati­on, if you can call it that. “You’re on the Palestinia­n side of the street, and you’re telling us to stay away from you?”

“It’s my side of the street — I live here,” she said.

Thursday was the third time this week anti-israel activists have protested in front of synagogues in the northern Toronto suburb of Thornhill, a city that likely has the highest concentrat­ion of Jews in the country. These protests have turned into a sort of proxy war, with canned slogans chanted over a loudspeake­r, posters with catchy phrases and Tiktok gotcha videos instead of guns and bombs. At times it feels like a dance party that occasional­ly breaks out into scuffles, like the one I was caught in the middle of.

The grievances on the anti-israel side supposedly lie with a travelling real estate show that sells property in Israel. Almost all of the property sold is in major Israeli cities but they do offer a few apartments in East Jerusalem and establishe­d Israeli settlement­s in the West Bank like Efrat. The Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto synagogue, or just the Bayt, where this particular protest was taking place Thursday afternoon, has hosted multiple events like this over the years but it’s never attracted attention before.

I was minding my own business, observing the protest and counter-protest with my kids in a large grassy area with only a few other observers.

I also live here.

As I saw the interactio­n begin to go south, I started backing away with my stroller toward the sidewalk, but a crowd of 20 or 30 anti-israel activists began to swarm around us, one of them accusing me of having pepper spray. Some of the activists tried to help me exit the crowd, one woman in particular screaming to let me pass and holding her arms out to create a kind of path. Soon I was out and the crowd had diverted to the side where the woman with pepper spray and her male companion had run to escape.

The anti-israel crowd began shouting at the York Regional Police to arrest the woman, whose only apparent crime was showing pepper spray to the man berating her, which the police did. The crowd was unhappy the police didn’t use handcuffs.

Canadian Jews feel that these protests have crossed the line into pure intimidati­on.

“I think it is completely inappropri­ate and uncalled for. It makes me feel unsafe for our kids,” said Jessica and Jared, a couple living in Thornhill who planned to attend the real estate seminar at the Bayt to get more informatio­n on moving to Israel. They are too scared to give their last names publicly. “Our schools are in the area, our homes are in the area. We don’t know these people’s true intentions.”

Truthfully, the protests do increasing­ly feel personal instead of political. I could hear the protest chants like “shame on you” and “Zionists go to hell” clear as a bell over two kilometres away. I had to check my street to make sure no one was marching down it. That’s how loud the protest was. It feels scary that multiple Jewish schools had to close all together or shut early to make sure there was no hassle at pickup, since the protest started at 2 p.m.

For all the cultural talk about safe spaces in the past few years, it’s obvious to Canadian Jews that there is no safe space for us. Not at hospitals, not at synagogues and soon maybe not anywhere. After the Freedom Convoy was so harshly dealt with only a few winters ago, it feels like Jews are being uniquely fed to the wolves in the name of freedom of assembly. It’s hard to imagine that hundreds of Jews repeatedly protesting in front of a mosque shouting hateful slogans would provoke so little response from our police and political establishm­ent.

Anti-israel activist groups claim they are not intending to intimidate Jewish Canadians when they protest at synagogues.

I spoke with Ghada Sasa, a PHD candidate in internatio­nal relations at Mcmaster University, on the phone as she was headed to the event.

“You don’t just get to be a thief and walk into a place of worship and think you can get away with it,” Sasa, who has emerged as a prominent voice for Palestinia­ns, said.

I asked her even if no properties at the real estate seminar were being sold in the West Bank, but only in Israel proper, would she still be protesting?

“Even within the Green Line in so-called Israel that land is Palestinia­n land,” she said. “That land was founded as a settler colony. The area that is so-called Israel is stolen Palestinia­n land and Israel is an apartheid land.”

Therein lies the issue and why the protest feels so menacing. The protesters are not protesting Israeli military actions in Gaza, per se. They are not protesting expanding settlement­s, exactly. What they are actually doing is using those issues as a cover to protest the very existence of Israel, an existence that they see as fundamenta­lly illegitima­te and a temporary project that will soon topple. And they openly support violence to achieve this goal.

At one point Sasa says she regrets doing this interview, since previous National Post journalist­s have made her out to be a Hamas sympathize­r. I asked if that was hurtful to her.

There was a long pause. “I support armed struggle by Indigenous people. Indigenous people facing illegal occupation have the right to resist by any means necessary including armed struggle.”

On Oct. 7, after Hamas slaughtere­d 1,200 people in southern Israel, Sasa tweeted “What news to wake up to!!! Free Palestine from the river to the sea.”

Is it any wonder that the protests — which started on Oct. 8 before any Israeli response to the Hamas attack — and their expansion into places previously viewed as sacred has deeply triggered Canadian Jews?

The great irony is the more protests there are that frighten Canadian Jewry then the more Canadian Jews are being driven out to move to Israel and “steal more land.”

“I would rather be scared amongst our own people in Israel,” said Jessica, “rather than living in fear of intimidati­on and bullying in Canada.”

JEWS ARE BEING UNIQUELY FED TO THE WOLVES IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY.

 ?? COLE BURSTON / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES ?? Pro-palestinia­n demonstrat­ors wave flags during a protest in Toronto last October. Canadian Jews feel that these protests have crossed the line into pure intimidati­on, Danielle Kubes writes.
COLE BURSTON / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Pro-palestinia­n demonstrat­ors wave flags during a protest in Toronto last October. Canadian Jews feel that these protests have crossed the line into pure intimidati­on, Danielle Kubes writes.

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