A U of T student was among eight Jewish and Israeli women that occupied the Israeli Consulate yesterday for about two hours to protest the ongoing Israeli invasion into Gaza that has killed more than 700 people.
“It was an action in solidarity with the people of Gaza, we were there to demand that Israel stop its massacres,” said Jennifer Peto, a Master’s student at OISE. Peto was one of a group of ten women, led by Ryerson professor Judy Rebick.
The reasons for the protest were two-fold, said Rebick: “One was to bring attention to the fact that many Jews don’t agree with Israel, and that we’re only hearing one voice. The second is that we’re really upset about the assault on Gaza right now.” The Israeli Consulate responded by calling in the police.
Toronto Police seized the protesters for trespassing and causing a disturbance. “They handcuffed us and put us in a paddy wagon, I guess we were handcuffed for about an hour and a half, and then they let us go,” said Rebick.
Peto said they had no problems getting into the building in smaller groups, at around 10 a.m. “We had had valid reasons to get in, we are all Jewish so we were treated quite respectfully,” she said. “Israel is an apartheid state, so if you’re white and Jewish, they treat you extremely well. Some of us speak Hebrew and were able to do that. They treated us amazingly… At least until we sat down on the floor.”
Before the police entered the scene, said Peto, the consulate security grabbed her and tried to drag her out. “One of us was taking pictures,” she said. “He slapped her camera and she got hit in the face.”
The communications office at the Israeli Consulate did not return The Varsity’s phone calls.
Judith Deutsch, president of activist-prof group Science for Peace, was unable to get into the building. “All of us also felt that there was insufficient attention to the complicity of Canada not calling for a cease-fire,” said Deutsch. “Actually being the first country to withdraw funds in 2006 [when Hamas was elected] and not recognizing the government that was elected.”
Rebick pointed to Conservative MP Peter Kent, who blamed Hamas for Israeli shells that killed 40 Palestinians, including children, at a U.N. school in Gaza this week. She said the protest aimed to challenge the media’s distorted portrayal of the conflict. “It’s portrayed as a war between two equal forces, and the Israeli forces are overwhelmingly more armed more soldiers, they are disproportionately reacting to rockets that came before this happened, and they are killing civilians left, right and centre, and it’s not justified.”
