By Breitbart News Network | Created at 2024-11-25 21:36:29 | Updated at 2024-11-27 05:41:23
1 day ago
Montreal Police Chief Fady Dagher said on Saturday that at least three people were arrested during violent pro-Palestinian, anti-NATO, and antisemitic protests in the downtown area on Friday, and more arrests were likely.
Protesters vandalized buildings in downtown Montreal, threw projectiles at the police, and set at least two vehicles on fire during the orgy of hatred and vandalism on Friday. Those arrested included a 22-year-old woman who assaulted police officers and two men, ages 22 and 28, who were charged with “obstructing police work.”
The protest was organized by two radical groups, Divest for Palestine and an anti-capitalist group called CLAC, and was ostensibly intended to criticize the meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) held in Montreal from Friday through Monday.
Divest for Palestine spokesperson Benoit Allard said his group’s objective was to demonstrate against NATO’s “complicity with the Israeli military” while it conducts “genocide” in Gaza and “war crimes” in Lebanon and Syria.
“It’s not okay to use money from our pension funds to invest in companies that are providing weapons to the state of Israel, that are being used to kill Palestinians,” Allard said.
“If we don’t want the anger, we have to address the root cause, and the root cause of this anger is injustice. Without justice, there won’t be peace. That anger is rooted in solidarity with all people that are struggling with oppression,” he said.
Allard insisted the violent protest was not “antisemitic” in character, and Chief Dagher bent over backwards to avoid leveling accusations of hate crimes or antisemitism, pending a more thorough investigation.
“I can’t make the correlation with yesterday’s acts, whether they were antisemitic or not,” Dagher said on Saturday, insisting only that “rioters” would be “held accountable” for their actions. He said the police have identified several more individuals who perpetrated acts of vandalism and assaults on police officers.
Dagher said there were about 800 people involved in the protests, but only “20 to 40” of them were responsible for acts of violence.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) on Sunday described some of the hateful behavior Dagher seemed reluctant to discuss in detail:
Attendees could be seen waving Palestinian, Lebanese and Iranian flags as well as one with the hammer and sickle, a communist symbol. Some protesters held a banner reading “intifada” in Arabic, a reference to violent Palestinian uprisings against Israel.
At one point, a group of protesters burned an effigy bearing the words “Netanyahu to the Hague,” a reference to the recent warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest issued by the International Criminal Court. Canada is one of several countries to confirm that it would arrest Netanyahu based on the warrant.
The administration of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was considerably less reticent about condemning the protest as a vile act of antisemitism — especially after Trudeau was blasted online for initially ignoring the protest to go dancing at a Taylor Swift concert in Toronto.
“Lawless protestors run roughshod over Montreal in violent protest. The Prime Minister dances. This is the Canada built by the Liberal government,” conservative MP Don Stewart of Toronto-St.Paul’s declared.
Stewart is the Conservative whose shock victory in June ended 30 years of Liberal control of his district, panicking Trudeau’s party and prompting calls for his resignation:
“The violent and hateful scenes we witnessed last night in the streets of Montreal, with attacks specifically targeting the Jewish community, are unacceptable,” said Quebec Premier Francois Legault of the conservative Coalition Avenir Quebec party.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre torched Trudeau on Saturday, dismissing the prime minister’s late and underwhelming condemnation of the protest as mere political damage control.
“You act surprised. We are reaping what you sowed,” Poilievre told Trudeau. “This is what happens when a Prime Minister spends nine years pushing toxic woke identity politics, dividing and subdividing people by race, gender, vaccine status, religion, region, age, wealth, etc.”
“You opened the borders to terrorists and lawbreakers and called anyone who questioned it racist. You send out your MPs to say one thing in a mosque and the opposite in a synagogue, one thing in a mandir and the opposite in a gurdwara,” Poilievre continued.
Poilievre demanded Trudeau submit to an immediate election, which the prime minister would almost certainly lose.
“While you were dancing, Montreal was burning. We won’t let you divide us anymore. Call an election now. We will fire you and reclaim our citizenship, our values, our lives, our freedom and, most of all, our country,” he said.
Trudeau finally addressed the protest on Saturday amid hoots of derision and comparison to the Emperor Nero, who infamously fiddled while Rome burned.
“What we saw on the streets of Montreal last night was appalling. Acts of antisemitism, intimidation, and violence must be condemned wherever we see them,” Trudeau belatedly said.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and Defense Minister Bill Blair rode to Trudeau’s rescue on Saturday, denouncing the “anarchy,” “violence,” and “hatred” of the Montreal demonstrators.
Joly said the protest was a display of “violence, hate, and antisemitism, and this has no place on our streets.”
“Those who spread hate and antisemitism, use violence, loot and destroy property must be condemned and held accountable. Rioting is not peaceful protest and has no place in Montreal or anywhere in Canada,” she said.
National Post columnist Michael Higgins noted that even when Trudeau, Joly, and Blair finally got around to condemning the Montreal riot a day later, they still used passive language — a perfect fit with the Liberal government’s policy of ignoring increasingly vicious acts of antisemitism ever since the October 7 atrocities.
“Both Joly and Trudeau believe these riots ‘must be condemned’ without actually doing the condemning. As if it was the responsibility of someone else to do that,” Higgins mused, comparing Trudeau’s flaccid response to pro-Hamas riots to his iron-fisted treatment of the Freedom Convoy truckers in 2022.
“Neither statement accepts any responsibility, nor do they even hint at the possibility that the Liberals might do something,” he said, seconding Poilievre’s argument that the ugly display in Montreal on Friday night was “the consequence of a government that has singularly failed to come to grips with the vile antisemites and the terrorist sympathizers who have been flooding the streets of Canada with hate for more than a year.”
“What we need is a strong prime minister willing to stand up for Canadian values, and to state those ideals publicly, loudly and often,” Higgins said.
