Amid a hail of swearing and the shouting of slogans, the pair of protesters approach the line of police officers. One demonstrator\u2019s face is completely covered by a keffiyah and sunglasses, the other is a shorter man, wearing all black, who carries a clipboard and a paper map.<\/p>\n
Although the scene around them is chaotic, the exchange between the protesters and the officers is civil.<\/p>\n
Can we march down this street? the activists ask, their Palestinian flags flying against the grey sky. The officers, deployed by the dozens this day to seal off the area\u2019s residential roads, respond: keep moving.<\/p>\n
The roughly 20 protesters obey, chanting \u201cFree, free Palestine!\u201d and \u201cFrom the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!\u201d as they go. Behind them trails a smaller group with a megaphone of their own, trying to drown out the marchers with calls of \u201cF\u2014-, f\u2014- Palestine!\u201d and \u201cFrom the river to the sea, Israel is all you\u2019ll see!\u201d<\/p>\n
The nasty, roving shouting match in a Jewish neighbourhood in North York is at the heart of a bitter dispute. Amid alarming antisemitic incidents in the GTA, weekly anti-Israel protests in the community have led to calls from politicians for a crackdown, and tested the Toronto Police Service\u2019s ability to balance local residents\u2019 concerns with activists\u2019 Charter rights. The two opposing sides at the centre of the storm agree on almost nothing, except that the authorities are getting the situation wrong.<\/p>\n
Ground zero for the fight is the suburban intersection of Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue, where \u2014 next to a strip mall home to a Metro, Wimpy\u2019s Diner and Dollar Store \u2014 pro-Palestinian activists have shown up for the past 75 weeks or so to denounce Israel\u2019s conduct of the war in Gaza and alleged rights abuses.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s offensive in the Palestinian territory has killed more than 72,000, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The campaign, which followed Hamas\u2019s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that killed 1,200, has been characterized as genocide by UN-commissioned experts, an allegation vehemently rejected by Israel.<\/p>\n
Each Sunday, the demonstrators have faced off against a crowd of Israel supporters who say the activists\u2019 very presence in the neighbourhood, which has no government institutions but is home to thousands of Jews, is hateful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen this every week,\u201d said Adam Grech, a 22-year-old student who lives in the area. \u201cI think it\u2019s just kind of disgusting that they come here on purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
The protesters say they\u2019ve chosen the intersection not to harass Jewish residents, but in response to pro-Israel rallies held there after Oct. 7 that they claim were \u201ccelebrating a genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A Toronto police inspector talks to pro-Palestinian supporters during last weekend\u2019s protest near the corner of Bathurst and Sheppard.<\/p>\n
Richard Lautens\/Toronto Star<\/p>\n
Then, Toronto police changed the rules<\/p>\n
As protesters began to arrive this past Sunday morning, the scene looked much as it had in previous weeks. Demonstrators, some organized through GTA4Palestine,\u00a0a loose subset of the Toronto area\u2019s pro-Palestinian activists, set up signs and flags on the northeast corner; on the northwest was the pro-Israel contingent, with flags and signs of their own. Passing drivers honked, or rolled down their windows to shout abuse into the mild spring air. The Metro was busy with shoppers preparing for the coming holiday; its kosher options advertised in end-of-aisle displays.<\/p>\n
But this day was different. The week before, the Toronto Police Service announced a directive banning protesters from the area\u2019s residential streets. The force justified the restriction based on the \u201cchanging security landscape\u201d in the city. In early March, three GTA synagogues were hit by gunfire. On March 15, protesters at the intersection allegedly displayed antisemitic signs of hook-nosed Jewish caricatures. Police Chief Myron Demkiw announced\u00a0<\/a>Thursday<\/a>, while the Jewish community was marking the first full day of Passover,\u00a0that his force had charged a 33-year-old man with public incitement of hatred in connection with those images. A day later, a restaurant in North York owned by a Jewish activist was shot up<\/a>. Police didn\u2019t immediately say whether they were investigating it as a hate-motivated crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n GTA4Palestine\u00a0say they have only marched on side streets two or three times since they started more than a year ago, without serious incident. They nevertheless oppose the new restriction, which they say\u00a0is further evidence of an unjust system that denies rights to Palestinians and their supporters both in Canada and abroad, while protecting Israel and its boosters.<\/p>\n \u201cCharter rights for some, checkpoints for others,\u201d read one of their signs Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n Around 1 p.m., the protesters set out to test the limits of the new rule\u00a0\u2014 not to violate it, they said, but to publicly demonstrate how their rights were being curtailed. They crossed the intersection and headed west on the north side of Sheppard, as some pro-Israeli demonstrators hurried after them.<\/p>\n The police were prepared. As marchers reached the first side street, Hove Avenue, they encountered about a half-dozen officers, who formed a cordon with their bicycles and cruisers to block the roadway. One protester carrying a clipboard with a paper map approached and asks where their group is allowed to go. Police said stick to Sheppard.\u00a0<\/p>\n For the next hour, the protesters kept marching, the scene repeated at every side street: protesters asked if they were allowed in, and police kept them on the main thoroughfare. As they marched, they traded chants and insults with the pro-Israeli group, while officers on bikes and in police cars followed.\u00a0The activists made no attempt to break through police lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n Daniela Bonamico, the day\u2019s emcee for GTA4Palestine, cheerfully led a call and response.<\/p>\n \u201cOne, two, three, four, genocide no more! Five, six, seven, eight, Israel is a terrorist state!\u201d she shouted through a megaphone. \u201cViva viva Palestina! Viva viva intifada!\u201d<\/p>\n A man in a green sweater raced to get to the front of the march. \u201cWe don\u2019t need racists in our neighbourhood\u201d he yelled. \u201cYou\u2019re not coming into this neighbourhood, a\u2014\u2014\u2014s!\u201d<\/p>\n A protester wearing a keffiyah sang a song in response. \u201cAll the Zionists are racists!\u201d he repeated.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGod bless the Israel Defense Forces!\u201d yelled a man in motorcycle jacket and yarmulke, as he filmed the protesters with his phone.<\/p>\n An elderly resident watched the scene through his front door. A family paused on their porch to watch the group go by. As the protesters passed a midrise apartment building, a woman rushed out onto her balcony. \u201cF\u2014- Palestine!\u201d she shouted, to cheers from the Israeli counterdemonstrators, as she gave the marchers the finger.<\/p>\n At one point, a counterdemonstrator who had been heckling the protesters through her megaphone yelled derogatory comments about Muslims. At another, a protester in a Blue Jays jersey, their face covered by a kaffiyeh, appeared to turn and deliver a Nazi salute.<\/p>\n One of the few moments the noise died down was when protesters approach the Darchei Noam synagogue at Wilmington Avenue. A GTA4Palestine organizer went over to a police officer to make clear that they\u2019re weren\u2019t protesting the religious building;\u00a0Bonamico put down her megaphone until the group had walked past.<\/p>\n Protesters set out to highlight the order preventing them from marching on residential streets.<\/p>\n R.J. Johnston\/Toronto Star<\/p>\n After marching six blocks, they turned back when police stopped them from entering Wilson Heights Boulevard, and an hour after they started, they returned to Bathurst and Sheppard. There was some final commotion over a man who had shown up wearing what looked like a burqa, which the pro-Palestinian contingent took as a provocation. Then, after some parting shouts, the demonstration broke up.<\/p>\n Across this divide, nothing is simple<\/p>\n Guidy Mamann, an organizer of the pro-Israeli protests, says GTA4Palestine came to his neighbourhood to \u201cdegrade people.\u201d He likened the antisemitic signs on display last month to Nazi propaganda and said they served no purpose but to \u201cincite the hatred of Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n Mamann\u2019s 93-year-old mother-in-law lost family in the Holocaust and shops in the local plaza, he said. \u201cThe last thing she needs to see are those images of her childhood where her six sisters and her parents were taken to a camp to be murdered,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is disgraceful to be seen on a Toronto street, let alone a Jewish neighbourhood.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n