The Al-Quds Day rally, an annual venue for anti-Israel rhetoric, took place in front of the U.S. consulate in downtown Toronto on March 14 as a war in the Middle East raged.

It almost never happened.

A day before, Premier Doug Ford of Ontario instructed Attorney General Doug Downey to issue an injunction to stop it from moving ahead. “This demonstration is nothing more than a breeding ground for hate and antisemitism,” Ford said in a video. “It glorifies violence. It celebrates terrorism. It has no place in Ontario. It has no place in Canada.”

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs applauded Ford’s decision to seek an injunction: “While peaceful protest is a right in Canada, the glorification of terrorist organizations, the spread of extremist ideology, and the incitement of violence have no place in our communities.”

Ford’s argument was rejected by Superior Court Justice Robert Centa after a 90-minute hearing and less than one hour before the rally was due to get under way at 3 p.m.

Ruling that the protesters have a right to free expression under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the judge said that the attorney general had not presented sufficient evidence to back up his claim that the rally would turn dangerous and prevent police from controlling the crowd.

Ford said he was “extremely disappointed” by the court’s verdict.

He issued his statement as the United States and Israel intensified their joint military campaign in Iran and in the wake of recent attacks during which unidentified assailants fired shots at the American consulate and three synagogues in and around Toronto.

Stephen Ellis, the Al Quds Day lawyer, denounced Ford, saying he was “pandering to the most backward political elements in our society … who are uncritically supporting Israel, no matter what it does.”

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Palestinian outfit, condemned Ford’s injunction as an “attack on civil liberties” and “a troubling effort to use state power to suppress a political demonstration in support of Palestinian rights.”

Al-Quds Day, which started in Iran in 1979 as a show of support for the Palestinians, unfolded in Toronto on a cold, partially sunny afternoon. It was a noisy, non-violent event in a multicultural city with a population of 2.7 million inhabitants that is home to the biggest Jewish, Muslim and Palestinian communities in Canada.

Hundreds of police officers, some sitting on horses and others standing next to bicycles, formed an implacable security line next to barricades designed to separate the opposing set of protesters.

According to the police, the event attracted 4,500 people.

On the north side of University Avenue, major thoroughfare, stood supporters of Israel and Iranian adversaries of the Islamic Republic of Iran, holding aloft the flags of Israel and of the pre-revolutionary Pahlavi monarchy.

The south side was filled mostly with Palestinians who reject a two-state solution and want Israel gone. They were joined by Iranians who admire the theocratic Iranian regime and by Canadian socialists and communists who despise Israel and denounce “U.S. and Israeli aggression” against Iran.

Almost lost in the crowd were two young ultra-Orthodox men in conspicuous black caftans and sidelocks. They were from the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect, which opposes Israel’s existence on purely religious grounds and calls for a binational state in its place.

As I arrived on the scene, I heard loud shouts from both sides over blaring music.

“Khamenei is a hog,” someone shouted. He was referring to Mojada Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader. He succeeded his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following his assassination on February 28, the first day of the current war.

Still others condemned members of the Iranian government as “extremist jihadists” and cursed the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a pillar of the regime.

One protester brandished an effigy of the late Iranian leader. Two others held up signs reading, “Thank you, Bibi” — a reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and “We won’t let Islamists take over Canada.”

As I walked around on the other side, I heard two chants, “Free, free Palestine” and “Stop the U.S. war machine,” as well as fighting words like “Zionist aggression” and “Zionist entity.”

These verbal arrows were clearly aimed at equating the Palestinian cause with Canadian opposition to the war in Iran.

The signs and placards here were radical in spirit and unambiguous in intent, underscoring the protesters’ hostility toward Israel and their wish of wiping it off the face of the earth.

A placard reading “From the River To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” spoke directly to this genocidal objective.

Signs abounded drawing connections between Netanyahu and Adolf Hitler and the Israel Defence Forces and the Islamic State organization.

A woman held a sign reading “Jews For A Free Palestine.” When I asked her whether she opposed Israeli statehood, she replied that she objected to “occupation.” When I asked if she was thinking of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, she refused to answer and shut down the conversation.

The two representatives from Neturei Karta strolled around with signs on their chests and backs: “Torah demands all Palestine be returned to Palestinian sovereignty. Israel is responsible for 77 years of tragic bloodshed of Arab and Jew.”

Another protester held what seemed like an antisemitic sign linking U.S. President Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and sex offender. It read, “Epstein regime abuses kids in U.S. and bomb them in Gaza & Iran.”

Two women sat beside another provocative sign, “Canadians will not die for Israel.”

Several men passed out political literature.

I picked up a flyer from the Socialist Equality Party. The headline read, “Stop the Criminal US-Israeli War Against Iran!” The text  lambasted the war as “a flagrant violation of the United States constitution and international law.” It denied that Iran’s nuclear program had triggered the war and claimed that the “real reasons” for it were two-fold: Washington’s desire to seize control of Iran’s oil and natural gas resources and its ambition for “global hegemony.”

It demanded “the immediate and unconditional cessation of all US and Israeli military operations against Iran and the broader US-Israeli campaign of aggression across the Middle East, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

A coalition of local organizations — Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, the Labour Council of Toronto and York Region, the Iranian Canadian Congress and the Toronto Association for Peace and Solidarity — blasted the war as a violation of the United Nations charter and claimed that the United States and Israel were driven by “the desire to control energy resources, strategic trade routes … and spheres of influence.”

Not a word about Iran’s worrisome nuclear program, its sponsorship of regional proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas, and its stated policy to destroy Israel, a member state of the United Nations.

The Al-Quds Day rally, in essence, was little more than a loud hate fest — a public relations gambit to spew venom at Israel and the United States and glorify the Palestinian crusade to eradicate the world’s only Jewish state.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)