Toronto’s Jews dispute claims by police that they aren’t under threat

Article content

OTTAWA — They aren’t buying it.

Article content

That’s the response from Toronto’s Jewish community to a tweet Friday from Toronto Police, assuring the city’s Jewish community — reeling from years of harassment, abuse and assault from Islamist and far-left radicals — that they face “no known threats.”

Article content

Article content

“There are no known threats to Toronto’s Jewish community,” read a post to X on TPS’s official account on Friday, just hours after police announced the dismantlement of the second alleged ISIS terror plot targeting Toronto’s Jews in just five months.

“We are actively monitoring, working with our partners, and increasing our presence where needed, to ensure community safety.”

Optics, intent of TPS tweet questioned

Reaction to the post was swift from Toronto’s Jewish community, who have been dealing with constant threats ever since the Oct. 7 2023 attacks which saw hundreds of Palestinian terrorists storm Gaza-adjacent towns, unleashing a campaign of murder, kidnapping and sexual assault against Israeli men, women and children.

Article content

Article content

Article content

“Toronto’s Jewish community isn’t safe,” said Deputy Conservative Leader Melissa Lantsman — also MP for Thornhill.

“The weekly gatherings of lawless mobs aren’t peaceful protests; they are threats meant to intimidate Jews.”

Indeed, Toronto has seen regular “pro-Palestine” marches undertaken by far-left and Islamist activists, even before Israel began military operations meant to stamp out Palestinian terror.

Nearly 800 anti-Israel marches since Oct. 7 attacks

According to Toronto Police, anti-Israel activists staged 798 such demonstrations since the Oct. 7 attacks, resulting in 169 arrests and 309 criminal charges.

These marches included demonstrations at Jewish-owned businesses — including a loud rally at the Indigo bookstore at Eaton Centre, targeting Indigo’s Jewish CEO Heather Reisman — and marches through the city’s Jewish neighbourhoods, harassing and intimidating residents in their homes.

Article content

Recommended video

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Play Video

While Toronto Police are present at many at these rallies, officials have been under intense scrutiny for turning a blind eye to the hateful conduct of many of the demonstrators — often excusing the conduct as either not meeting the threshold for criminality, or protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Marches into predominantly Jewish neighbourhoods and chants praising ‘intifada’ and ‘resistance by any means’ are clear incitements to violence, and are criminal under Canadian law and never actually punished,” Lantsman said.

“Worse, TPS’s response is wilful blindness, and ignoring the obvious erodes public trust.”

Article content

Policing protests ‘complex area of law,’ TPS says

Toronto Police spokesperson Stephanie Sayer said the tweet was “intended to provide reassurance based on our operational threat assessment” at the time following Friday’s charges in the foiled ISIS terror plot, and said the service issued a follow-up tweet to provide clarity.

“Our commitment is not reflected in a single tweet – it is reflected in our actions,” Sayer said, adding TPS has a  “clear willingness to pursue complex and serious hate-crime charges when the legal threshold is met.”

Toronto Police have dealt with a number of questionable incidents since the anti-Israel protests began — including video of uniformed TPS members delivering coffee to anti-Israeli protesters illegally occupying the Avenue Rd. bridge, TPS documents accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing, and uniformed Muslim liaison officers bragging on official TPS podcasts that the Oct. 7 attacks prompted a surge in converts to Islam.

Article content

“Police play a critical role in responding to hate-motivated crime and threats, and we act when conduct crosses the criminal threshold,” Sayer said, adding TPS stands “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the city’s Jewish community.

“At the same time, not all hateful or offensive speech is criminal under Canadian law. Some behaviour may be deeply upsetting or harmful without meeting the legal standard for police enforcement.”

Fears that Toronto terror attack ‘inevitable’

Aviva Klompas, founder and CEO of pro-Israel think tank Boundless, told the Toronto Sun that if there truly were “no known threats,” the city’s Jews wouldn’t have to turn their meeting places into fortresses in order to gather safely.

“Anyone paying attention to what happened in Australia knows an attack like that could easily happen in Canada,” she said.

Article content

“We’ve watched protesters march through Toronto’s streets carrying the flags of terrorist organizations and openly calling to ‘globalize the intifada.’”

Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow Casey Babb, who is also an adviser to Secure Canada, acknowledges the tweet was little more than a poorly-worded attempt at reassuring the public, saying that Canada’s Jewish community has never been under as much threat as it currently is.

“We know that there is, in fact, a heightened risk of attacks against the Jewish community from coast to coast, so in that sense, the messaging should be more nuanced and carefully worded,” he said.

“Everyone in the community is on edge, and for good reason.”

Last week, former ambassadors told the Sun that an anti-Jewish terror attack in Canada wasn’t only inevitable, but imminent — fuelled largely by police inaction and indifference among political leaders.

“For too long, antisemitism has been treated as politically inconvenient to confront and dismissed as ‘just protest’ or ‘heated rhetoric,’” Klompas said.

“The result is that Jewish safety has become negotiable. Statements and well-wishes are no substitute for enforcement and prosecutions.”

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume

Article content