The double standards are startling. A pro-Palestinian demonstrator’s threat garners front-page coverage while a prominent Zionist’s talk of violence is ignored.
Last Tuesday the National Post devoted half its front-page to a masked individual who threatened someone during a demonstration against Israel’s genocide. The next day the incident was also on the right-wing paper’s front-page while the Globe and Mail, Global and other more serious outlets also covered a threat made at Toronto’s Eaton Centre. Next to two police officers a masked protester tells someone who isn’t on camera “I’ll put you six feet deep.” Days after the brouhaha the police admitted the threat was made to “somebody who was antagonistic to the protestors” and video has emerged of the (probable) target shouting slurs and stepping on a Palestinian flag.
According to Caryma Sa’d, the individual who shot the widely publicized threat video is prominent Hindu supremacistactivist Ron Banerjee. Last year the well-known Islamophobe was “Investigated By Police For Advocating Genocide” after calling for murdering Muslims and Sikhs. Banerjee reportedly passed the video on to the former head of the Jewish Defence League Meir Weinstein, who he’s long worked with. Weinstein’s account is the source of the video on X, which has been viewed 5 million times.
A month ago the National Council of Canadian Muslims shared a video on X of Weinstein telling an audience to “learn how to fight, learn how to shoot” when asked what to do if Canada accepts refugees from Gaza. The media ignored Weinstein’s threats of violence even though he’s a far more consequential figure then the masked man at the Eaton Centre.
Weinstein is not just making idle threats. In 2021, some at a JDL organized counter protest who brought a knife, stick and bat instigated a fight with Palestine solidarity protesters (the Israel lobby claimed the JDL crowd were the victims). In 2017, JDL Toronto members organized a mob that beat a 55-year-old Palestinian professor and a younger Jewish activist at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington DC while in 2011 the RCMP launched an investigation against a number of JDL members who were thought to be plotting to bomb Palestine House in Mississauga. (In 2001 the FBI labeled the US branch of the JDL a “right-wing terrorist group” after its members were convicted in a series of violent acts, including the killing of the regional director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and a plot to assassinate a congressman.)
As I detail here the JDL operated as a quasi-fascist street mob in Toronto for more than half a century. It did so with the tacit support of Canada’s pro-Israel Jewish establishment. The JDL has co-sponsored demonstrations with B’nai B’rith and provided “security” for pro-Israel rallies, and even participated in the annual Walk for Israel organized by United Jewish Appeal of Greater Toronto. In a bid to get Toronto city council to block Al Quds Day in 2019, Weinstein coordinated with B’nai Brith leader Michael Mostyn, CIJA Vice President Noah Shack and city councillor James Pasternak, as highlighted in a photo of the four together at the city’s executive committee.
Six years ago I was viciously attacked by Alex Hundert, who was supported by some other leftists, for pointing out the ties between the fascist JDL and Toronto’s Jewish establishment. But the dalliance between Weinstein and B’nai Brith is extensive and continues. While they ignored Weinstein’s recent threats, CIJA, B’nai Brith and the other Israel lobby groups shared his video from the Eaton Centre. Even liberal Zionists such as JSpace Canada chair Joe Roberts promoted Weinstein’s video with no critical comment.
The media has once again highlighted its anti-Palestinian double standards. They’ve made a huge deal about a pro-Palestinian activist’s threats to somebody probably there to provoke while ignoring talk of violence by a prominent Zionist who was the source of their video.
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