UPDATED: a frostbitten RightGirl reports (with pix):
I lost my voice screaming Infidels for Israel and God Bless the IDF. Two teenage girls who had just come to Canada from Israel stood in front of me, on the brink of tears when they saw the Hezbollah flag flying in the streets of a country where Hezbollah is ostensibly an illegal terrorist organization. I hugged them. I wanted to apologize for what they were seeing. They kept asking me “Why? Why are they doing this?” and I couldn’t answer.
I don’t know why.
I couldn’t attend the pro-Israel rally in downtown Toronto yesterday but RightGirl did and once again, the supporters of banned terrorist groups showed up and the cops did nothing.
JihadWatch has more pix and first hand reports, (including a close encounter with regular “Michael Coren” panelist and incurable commie pinko/union hack Syd Ryan, who’s either missing a chromosome or has got one too many…)
This is where I live, folks. I don’t know whether to say “get me outta here” or “send baseball bats and bear spray”.
I am an ex-pat American who has resided in Toronto for nearly twenty years. I’ve never seen Toronto like this. Complete with takbir [calls for the crowd to shout “Allahu akbar!”], the crowd was whipped into a frenzy by the organizers. Although I am a firm believer in free speech, I nevertheless somehow felt outraged by this display.
(…)
I participated in the counter-protest at the anti-Israel rally in Toronto today. According to one news report, there were about 5,000 “Palestinian” supporters and 200-300 Israel supporters.
There was a large police presence. Many police officers on foot, on bicycle and on horse, acted as a barricade in the middle of the road. The “Palestinian” side kept pushing toward us. The roar of their hateful chants could be heard a full city block away. The women’s voices were slightly hysterical; the men’s voices were full of rage. Many of them, male and female, gave us “the finger” and said nasty things, while the people on our side sang beautiful Israeli songs and chanted, “Down, down with Hamas,” “God bless Israel”, “Go, go, IDF” and my favourite (from Wendy a.k.a. Girl on the Right), “Infidels for Israel” (it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?). (Okay, a few on our side swore back at the rude people, but who can blame them?)
The hatred directed at us, fueled by fanaticism, an excess of testosterone in the young men, and adrenaline, was breathtaking. There were numerous Hamas and Hezbollah signs and, of course, the fashionable kaffiyeh was worn by many. I had a sense of unreality: Where was I today: Gaza? Beirut? Iran? I never thought this would ever happen in Canada. Feeling like Dorothy stuck in OZ, I said in disbelief to one of my companions: “We’re in Canada. We’re in Canada.” (“You’re not in Canada anymore, Jo.”)
(…)
Today was an unpleasant eye-opener for me and many others. Canada is changing and not for the better. Of course, I knew this, but coming face-to-face with 5,000 angry and potentially violent anti-Semites really brought the message home.
Those of you, left and right, who think the “average Canadian” would balk were multiculturalism to lose its “official” status tomorrow might (or might not) want to read these comments.
Dear “incrementalists” and fauxcons: your idea of what the “average Canadian” will or won’t go for is so ****ed it isn’t funny. Official Conservatives are worse than useless.
