Saturday’s Palestinian Youth Movement ‘National March on Ottawa’ held on Parliament Hill commenced with the singing of the national anthem. No, not that one. It was the Palestinian anthem sung in Arabic. As a plethora of flags waved – Palestinian, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Algeria, and the communists were in attendance as well – there was nary a Maple Leaf in sight. Unless it was on a placard tastefully decorated with blood spots. The ubiquitous Hamas-cosplayers wore their heads totally swaddled in keffiyehs, decked out in camo-wear. There were more black balaclava-clad individuals than you would have seen in an Irish Republican Army parade in 1970s Belfast.
The Palestinian anthem, adopted in 1996, glorifies weapons, war, conquest, vendettas and death. Dark, but it set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. The purpose of this latest iteration of the never-ending Saturday protests in downtown Ottawa was ostensibly to raise awareness of the drive to have federal election candidates sign on to the ‘Palestine Platform’, and call for a “two-way arms embargo” on Israel. The second part of this embargo is that Canada would end arms purchases from the State of Israel. The Canadian Armed Forces should be so lucky!
This platform has five points:
1. Impose a two-way arms embargo on Israel. (Organizers distributed pamphlets outlining Canadian suppliers to the US F-35 fighter jet program).
2. End Canadian involvement in illegal Israeli settlements.
3. Address anti-Palestinian racism and protect freedom of expression on Palestine.
4. Recognize the State of Palestine.
5. Properly fund relief efforts in Gaza, including UNRWA. (Author’s note: Canada has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the UN Relief and Works Agency in recent years. Evidence exists of UNRWA employees participating in terrorist activities, and of aid being diverted to Hamas).
Ok, fair enough, a federal election campaign is underway, and like all advocacy groups, the Palestine Youth Movement is well within their rights to advocate for a specific cause. But that’s the thing about these never-ending marches and rallies; they never actually get beyond the hysterical harangues, and mind-numbing chanting to actually explain these proposals and how they might be achieved in the real world – you know, the one we actually live in.
“Protecting freedom of expression on Palestine”? Really? Since the first such protests – held before Israel even retaliated for the murderous attacks by Hamas of October 7, 2023 – the citizens of Ottawa have spent tens of millions of dollars on police protection, closed off the downtown core and the ByWard Market on a weekly basis, and turned a blind eye to transgressions that would have seen any other citizen tossed into the back of a police car. And we will never know the full costs of policing these protests.
At the same time that the ByWard Market reels from the fentanyl crisis and associated street crime, merchants must endure road closures EVERY weekend. It’s already a battle to increase local and tourist traffic to the Market. Who wants to be sitting at an outdoor patio and a bunch of Hamas cosplayers stream by, screaming ‘death to the Jews’? With tourist season around the corner and the Sens Mile soon to open on Elgin Street, the city has to get a handle on these protests. Meanwhile, the rest of us shake our heads and wonder, when is enough, enough?
Canada could theoretically recognize a State of Palestine, as a few other countries have, Ireland, Spain and Norway among them. But international law lays down four conditions for doing so under a convention agreed to 90 years ago: a state must possess a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to conduct international relations. Gaza has no functioning government, most ‘Palestinians’ live elsewhere in the Middle East, what authority remains, possesses limited to no capacity to conduct international relations other than with their bankers in Qatar, and Hamas’ decision to attack Israel has shattered the borders of Gaza. So, what would Canada be recognizing? A terror state propped up by the rickety regime in Tehran? That other countries have done so is irrelevant to Canada’s interests and foreign policy objectives. This hasn’t stopped hundreds of NDP, Green and Bloc candidates, in addition to shamefully, a handful of sitting Liberal MPS, including Kanata’s own Jenna Sudds, from endorsing the Platform.
There was no intellectual discussion of the Platform’s components or any explanation of why this would in the interests of Canadians beyond a voting block that has coalesced around these positions. Instead, attendees heard harangues about Israel, the “genocidal, fascistic state” that is “exterminating” Palestinians. Funny that one doesn’t see marches in Israel calling for such extermination, simply that the terrorists release the remaining Israeli hostages, and lay down their arms.
Mohawk activist Ellen Gabriel welcomed people to the occupied homeland of Turtle Island – the crowd cheered, though I wondered if they got the irony of that as they stood on ancestral Indigenous land. And she ran through the greatest hits of “white supremacy”. Mercifully, she only spoke for five minutes. Recently arrested antisemite Yves Engler was next up, generously introduced as a ‘journalist’ (author’s note: if he’s a journalist, I play centre for the Ottawa Senators).
Engler gave a spittle-laced diatribe on Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, calling him a “yapping chihuahua” for his support of Israel. Engler also called for war crimes investigations into Canadians who have enlisted in the Israeli Defence Forces (the IDF). Many came from one particular Jewish high school in Toronto, so thank you, Yves, for painting a clear target on the school. Surprisingly, he didn’t repeat his speculation that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad was behind the shooting up and firebombing of Jewish schools in Canada. I felt for the person who had to wipe off the microphone when he finished his diatribe.
There were the requisite ‘media lies’, “glory, glory to our martyrs”, and “long live the Intifada” chants. The usual ahistorical re-telling of the Nakba of 1948, and the Oslo Accords. In 1948, five Arab countries attacked the nascent Jewish state and they lost. The Oslo Accords would have fulfilled the two-state solution; PLO leader Yasser Arafat couldn’t say yes. You can look these up.
Three young children were brought up onto the stage, apparently having arrived in Canada from Gaza two days previous. Now, perhaps I’m a little soft, but I wondered whether they might be traumatized by their recent experiences, and escape to Canada, sans parents, and was it really the best thing for their mental state to put them on exhibit. And speaking of children, what is with parents giving their young kids signs that essentially call for the elimination of the State of Israel, and celebrate the Al Aqsa Flood, the attacks of October 7, 2023?
The crowd, estimated by CTV to be 2,000 or so, then left the Hill, walked south down O’Connor Street to halt in front of the office building housing the Israeli consulate. From there, it apparently moved easterly towards the Market, but I had left by then. One can only listen to so many verses of the Palestinian equivalents of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, and the dull, monotone chants of From the River to the Sea. Apparently, Ottawa police are tired of listening as well; most wore noise-cancelling headphones or earplugs.
I was left with two main observations from the afternoon: one, that Saturday was the first day of Passover, and it’s obvious that the march was a stick in the eye to Canada’s Jewish community, which is already reeling under unprecedented antisemitism. Secondly, and not unrelated, liberal democracies like Canada only work when the citizenry is aware of how their actions impact others. Simple human courtesy and respect for others are the glue that holds us together. The world is becoming more dangerous by the day with myriad threats. The hatred and intolerance – not just for the Jewish people but also any Canadian who disagrees with the Palestinian perspective — on display in these marches is illiberal, unCanadian and threatens the basis of our hitherto largely peaceable kingdom.
Finally, I thought about the anthem that opened the event. Now, I’m a Canadian nationalist and frankly object to any other country’s anthem being sung at the seat of our national government unless it follows O’ Canada. I was also curious about the lyrics to the Israeli anthem. Hatikvah – literally The Hope – incorporates the words, “Our hope is not lost, the hope of two thousand years, to be a free nation in our own land…”. May such hope be Canada’s.
Photos: Dan McCarthy
