Jewish groups condemn ‘fringe’ activists after Parliament Hill occupation

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Nineteen Jewish groups are condemning Tuesday’s Jews Say No To Genocide Coalition occupation on Parliament Hill, saying the “fringe coalition” is aligned with anti-Israel movements and not representative of the Canadian Jewish mainstream.

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An estimated 100 anti-Israel protesters stormed the lobby of Ottawa’s Confederation Building, which houses MPs’ offices. It prompted Parliamentary Protective Services and Ottawa police officers to swarm the area, with 14 protesters reportedly arrested and released.

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In a news release Tuesday morning, the Jews Say No coalition said it was made up of Jewish Canadians and announced its intention to indefinitely occupy the building, with “MPs and staff blocked from business as usual.”

On Wednesday, the 19 mainstream Jewish groups – including B’Nai Brith Canada, the Tafsik Organization and the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation  – said the protesters stood in direct opposition to the values of the Jewish community.

“Their actions represent an egregious distortion of Jewish values and a calculated attempt to hijack Jewish identity to serve a hateful anti-Zionist and antisemitic agenda,” the 19 groups said in a joint statement Wednesday afternoon.

The 19 groups say about 91 per cent of Canadian Jews believe Israel has a right to exist, citing numbers from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. They say Jews’ connection to Israel is a core part of their identity.

“We refuse to remain silent as Independent Jewish Voices and their partners recklessly endanger Jewish Canadians by perpetuating lies and fomenting hostility. Their shameful antics today, which trivialize genocide and vilify Israel, undermine Jewish safety and foster the very antisemitism they claim to oppose,” they said in the joint statement.

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The 19 groups urged Parliament and Canadians to see the protesters as “fringe activists operating outside the mainstream Jewish community.”

Other groups among the 19 include Allied Voices for Israel, Canadian Women Against Antisemitism, the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research and groups representing Jewish lawyers, doctors and educators.

In its release on Tuesday, the Jews Say No To Genocide Coalition said Canada must end “its active participation in Israel’s genocide,” adding that they were ready to occupy the building until Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly gave them a “concrete response.”

The area was soon cleared.

“Our politicians cannot be complacent in these marble hallways while Israel continues to burn Palestinians alive in their tents,” Niall Ricardo of Independent Jewish Voices Canada, one of the organizers, said in a news release.

“Every bomb Israel drops on Gaza and every missile they fire into Lebanon carries a grim truth: the warplanes and attack helicopters raining destruction on civilians could not fly without hundreds of Canadian-made components. Canada’s ongoing arms exports and diplomatic support make it complicit in these atrocities.”

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