A top Canadian Jewish group has filed a hate crimes complaint after an anti-Israel protest near Toronto was found to have been replete with antisemitic and pro-terrorist slogans.
B’nai Brith Canada filed the complaint with the Peel Regional Police over a July 4 demonstration in the city of Mississauga against possible annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel.
A video of the event revealed that protesters shouted in Arabic, “Palestine is our country, and the Jews are our dogs.”
Nope, not Lebanon.
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) July 8, 2020
Not Syria.
Not even Iran.
This. Is. Canada. 2020.
Canadian citizens are calling #Jews dogs out in the open while protesting #Palestinian rights. pic.twitter.com/aPUNnO2XXf
They also pledged to “sacrifice our soul and blood for Palestine” and urged “martyrs by the millions” to “march to Jerusalem.”
Mississauga has seen such incidents before. In 2017, demonstrators there chanted, “Remember Khaybar, oh you Jews, the Army of Muhammad will return.” The chant refers to a 7th-century massacre of Jews in the Hijaz by Muslims.
Michael Mostyn — chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada — said in a statement, “The display of antisemitism in Canada’s public squares is totally unacceptable. Opposition to Israeli policy can never be used as an excuse to demean Jews as ‘dogs’ or to threaten violence against them.”
“We have reached out to the high school attended by one of the rally’s organizers, and hope to visit at an appropriate time in order to educate students about the dark places to which rhetoric of this sort can lead,” he added.