Canadian politicians march with country that shoots at our diplomats
Maybe you shouldn't "Walk with Israel"
Every year in Canada, on “Jerusalem Day”, the politically charged anniversary of Israel’s conquest of East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War in 1967, the Toronto branch of the Jewish Federations of North America hosts the Walk with Israel event.
This event is branded as a family-friendly festival with rides and food, a tone far different from the violence it’s celebrating. And as someone who grew up in the Jewish day school system, attending Bialik in Toronto from JK to Grade 8, I know firsthand that virtually every Jewish family in those schools is taking their children.
My family was rare in that we stopped going a few years before I left Bialik. By age 10 or so, I was already forming strong pro-Palestine sentiments, and I very much had little interest in things like watching Benjamin Netanyahu give a speech.
Ultimately, that’s always been the problem with the Walk with Israel event. It has nothing to do with the Jewish community or our traditions. It commemorates the illegal occupation of East Jerusalem, and is a blatantly political demonstration in support of Israel and of the occupation.
But with the ongoing genocidal campaign conducted by the Israeli military in Gaza, to participate feels even more egregious. No, I do not support Israel killing Palestinians, or taking their land!
And yet that is exactly the anniversary which the Walk with Israel commemorates: the death, dispossession, and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians after the Six-Day War. This is not a day I have any interest in celebrating; the memory of what was done by Israel is a bitter one.
When I previously wrote about the recent Israeli attack on the diplomatic delegation to Jenin in the West Bank, I only knew of one Canadian diplomat in the delegation. Now, we know that there were four Canadians fired upon by the Israeli military, despite the delegation clearing the route in advance and being fully known to the Israeli military for the entire duration.
Further, in an interview on CBC’s Power & Politics with guest host Peter Armstrong, Israeli Ambassador to Canada Iddo Moed outrageously claimed that the delegation to Jenin was trying to “provoke” the soldiers, to which Mr. Armstrong responded with incredulity.
I have a very simple rule about international relations. If you try to murder our diplomats, we should no longer be on speaking terms. Acts like this against Canada can easily be considered casus belli. Indeed, how could shooting at clearly identified diplomats be anything other than an act of war?
We should not continue to engage with Israel, much less continuing to sell them propellant for artillery they use in wars of conquest against Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. If Canada had any backbone as a nation, we would have expelled the Israeli Ambassador and imposed actual sanctions against the regime.
But it appears that many Canadian politicians are totally fine with what Israel did!
At the 2025 iteration of the Walk with Israel, under the cloud of Israel’s attempted murder of Canadian diplomats, a whole plethora of Canadian politicians marched and picked the wrong side.
From the Conservative corner, we have MPs Roman Baber and Melissa Lantsman, and MPPs Michelle Cooper and Michael Kerzner. Coming from the Liberal caucus, we have MPs Vince Gasparro and Leslie Church.
Representing Toronto City Council, we have Brad Bradford, Shelley Carroll, Rachel Chernos Lin, Mike Colle, and James Pasternak, as well as TDSB trustees Shelley Laskin and Stacey Cline. And from the City of Vaughan, we have Councillor Gila Martow, and Mayor Steven Del Duca. For one final touch, we also have the Mayor of Markham, Frank Scarpitti.
Most strikingly, Toronto Chief of Police Myron Demkiw, infamous for his participation in the bathhouse raids against Toronto’s queer community, thought it was appropriate to take part in this pro-Israel rally, taking multiple photos with the above politicians while marching.
Tell me, have you ever seen a Toronto Chief of Police join a Palestine march, or take smiling photos with the participants? Of course you haven’t! Let us not pretend the law is applied equally here. Toronto City Council has explicitly voted to make sure it no longer does.
It is an act of absurdity that after Israel attempted to murder Canadian diplomats, all of these politicians and public officials would swarm from every level of government to support Israel, rather than our own country.
Every single one of these politicians has made a disgrace of themselves, participating in a propaganda march for a nation committing war crimes and shooting at diplomats. How can you be a leader in Canada if you refuse to stand up for Canadians against acts of war?
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Member of Parliament or a mere City Councillor, you are supposed to represent the Canadian people. To march with a foreign state which has targeted Canadians is to fundamentally betray your oath of office. It may not legally qualify as treason, but it’s certainly reprehensible.
There is nothing to celebrate about “Jerusalem Day”. It has nothing to do with Jewish identity; it is an artificial holiday created to commemorate occupation and expulsion, and I hold it in disdain. All of this was true before the war, and that truth resonates even stronger today.
The Walk with Israel should not exist. The fact that this year’s event began the march at Temple Sinai, my childhood synagogue, fills me with shame. This is not what the Jewish community should be, and yet too many of my fellow Jews in Toronto have openly embraced this.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Canadian politician or merely a Canadian citizen. None of you should have marched in this event. Because at this point?
If Israel’s actions have not offended you, then your moral compass is severely defective, and you are beyond my help.
Never even heard of this event. I have no jewish comrades who support genocide in London. They are all however of the Diaspora and well educated.
When Mark Carney stated that “Israel shot near delegates”, and not AT them, I was disgusted. Politics has become about money, and no longer represents what Canadians stand for. Free Palestine 🇨🇦❤️🇵🇸