“Intifada, Intifada, go back to the ovens,” were what Jewish and pro-Israel students had to endure on Wednesday night during a pro-Palestinian protest against a Reservist’s on Duty event at York University. Hundreds of anti-Israel students tried to storm and disrupt the event being held at the university campus with several scuffles breaking out.
Amit Deri, founder and CEO of Reservists on Duty, told The Jerusalem Post there were some 600 protesters who tried to disrupt the event and it became violent. “In the five years that we have been doing this, this was the biggest protests we’ve seen on a college campus,” he said. “It’s also the first time that we’ve seen a BDS and Antifa collaboration. ”He said that for two weeks leading up the event hundreds of posters had been plastered around the BDS movement on the campus in a bid to stop it from happening.
According to Deri, punches were thrown at pro-Israel attendees as the protest intensified. “There were 20 or 30 police officers that came and arrests were made,” he said.
Some of the Jewish students also had to be escorted off campus by police for protection.Deri warned that this sort of behavior will spread to other campuses. “It’s time to wake up and realize this,” he said, adding that this has not deterred them. “We will continue to speak - we will never be afraid to do so.”
Shar Leyb, who was one of the Reservists on Duty speakers at the event told the Post that they knew there would be a lot of protests leading up to the event. “There were hundreds of protests on campus that read ‘stop the IDF killers on campus,’ and ‘we do not let Zionists on York University campus,’” he explained. “As we were setting up, we heard some chanting outside and sure enough there were hundreds of Palestinians and their supporters, including Antifa and BDS, chanting ‘Intifada Intifada, go back to the ovens, you belong in Europe.’”
Aboud Dandachi, a current student and Syrian Refugee, confirmed the above in a series of tweets.
The videos garnered more than half a million views on Social Media in just a few hours before it was removed by Twitter.