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May 31st, 2021 
Awake Goy On Wednesday May 18th, Windsor, Ontario’s Palestinian community came together with hundreds of supporters to protest the recent escalations of Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing. The latest atrocities included the violent desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the expulsions of families in East Jerusalem, the campaign of state and mob violence against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and yet another horrific massacre against the besieged Gaza Strip.
While Palestinian activists in Windsor have experienced suppression from the Windsor police in the past, what we saw in response to this critical protest was something new. The scale of police presence and intimidation tactics that we witnessed have disturbed the entire community. We are now hearing about how Palestinian protests across Canada are being subjected to similar police suppression, and it’s bringing to light a long overdue assessment of the role that Canadian police play in the oppression of the Palestinian people.
Police approached us right at the beginning to try to prevent the protest with threats of charges and fines. After failing to deny our right to protest, it was clear to us that they were finding subversive ways to ‘neutralize’ the protest. They quickly conceded our right to hold the protest, but then focused on the unusual demand to not use any speakers due to new noise rules being implemented. They wanted no chanting, no speeches, and essentially minimal disruptions for the public. This type of intimidation and rules were not there for the relatively untouched anti-lockdown protests and labour dispute rallies that had been happening around the same time around Windsor.
Throughout the entire event, police aggressively approached individuals suspected of being organizers and took photos of their faces in what we assumed were attempts to find targets for charges. They waited until the end before finally throwing charges and large fines on someone they arbitrarily decided was a main organizer (he wasn’t). They then proceeded to hand out dozens of massive fines to people as they dispersed in their cars. We later learned of complaints over people honking their horns or playing Palestinian anthems loudly, so the police introduced a “new police initiative targeted at noise,” as their spokesperson explained in a CBC report. They blocked off streets to trap groups of cars and then passed out tickets for anything they could—not just any ‘unreasonable noise’—but also dangerously waving Palestinian flags or not wearing a seatbelt.
Ask anyone in Windsor, and they’ll likely recall many similar noisy scenes in the streets following victories by Italy’s national football team or for a socially-distanced birthday celebration. In a tweet, police announced proudly that they handed out over twenty-five tickets, with some families being given thousands of dollars worth of fines. Many witnesses reported blatant discrimination against cars with Arab drivers or Palestinian flags.
Similar scenes unfolded at protests across Canada: at least 12 people were charged for a protest in Hamilton; in Halifax, police first signaled approval for a socially-distanced car rally, but then suddenly handed out 17 tickets for both crowd and traffic rules; another socially-distanced car rally in Calgary led to an astonishing 100 traffic and noise tickets. In Mississauga, a Palestinian youth was reportedly assaulted by police and needed community intervention to avoid being detained.
So we can summarize what happened in Windsor and other cities in the last couple of weeks like this: Palestinians attempted to raise our voices about genocidal policies that are expelling and killing hundreds of people, and the response we got was a discussion about noise and traffic by-laws.
The problem is not the Palestinian community’s inability to follow city by-laws: the problem is Canada’s total complicity in Israeli oppression, to the point that we aren’t given any effective way to even raise the issue. And the reason for that is that we’re not just dealing with Israeli oppression: Palestinians need to begin recognizing the full extent of the oppression we face here in Canada.
How many Palestinians in Windsor know that the Windsor Police Department is one of many Ontario police departments that have built strong ties with the Israeli apartheid regime? Police in Ontario have repeatedly received training and resources from Israeli security forces on their suppression tactics. A 2005 Israel National News article reported: “Police chiefs from across Ontario, Canada are on a five-day visit to Israel, studying Israeli police procedures… Ontario police hoped to use the visit to improve their capacity to effectively deal with policing and security issues impacting Ontario communities.”
Not only have Canadian police departments been receiving training by Israel’s oppressive apartheid system, but they’ve repeatedly stated their intentions to emulate Israeli policies and tactics here in Canada. Palestinians here generally have no idea.
The 2008 “Canada-Israel Public Security Cooperation” is an agreement in effect right now that Canada and Israel set up to integrate the concerns, tactics, and values of Canadian police with Israeli police. According to the agreement, for at least the last 13 years, Israeli security forces have been involved in how Canadian police identify and assess “threats” and “public safety concerns.” They’ve been facilitating ongoing “technical exchange cooperation, including education, training, and exercises.” Palestinians everywhere know very well what Israeli security forces consider to be threats and what their public safety concerns revolve around: the existence of any Palestinian anywhere, especially those who refuse to give up their rights.
After the protest, many people argued over the allegations of racism from the police. Kole Kilibarda’s important report on Canada’s close security ties with Israel highlights important questions about how trying to copy Israel’s policing methods “conditions the Canadian state’s attitudes towards Arab and Muslim communities,” given how Israeli security forces view and treat Arabs and Muslims.
The discussions about us being too noisy reminded me of how “maintaining quiet” is a very common theme in the way Israelis speak about their suppression of Palestinians. For example, at the beginning of this latest massacre in Gaza, Israel summarized the goal of its operation as simply “achieving complete quiet.” At the same time that he was busy trying to silence Palestinians there, police in Canada were focused on silencing Palestinians protesting against Netanyahu’s actions. Many groups and experts have been sounding the alarm on this relationship, such as Independent Jewish Voices Canada, which states that “Canada has imported the Israeli occupation and repression of Palestinians. Through its wars and its repression of Palestinian dissent, Israel promotes its weapons as ‘battleproven’… Israel is integrated in Canada’s public security.”
So now that we have more context: is it really a surprise to see Windsor police aggressively attempt to shut down Palestinian protests? The Palestinian community in Windsor and across Canada must come to terms with the fact that the police in our communities enthusiastically endorse and work closely with Israel’s apartheid regime. For all future protests and activism, we must be aware that the police are openly allied with our oppressors: so how can we expect them to be neutral in how they deal with us? A very productive move that Palestinian communities in Canada should consider is a public meeting with their police departments demanding answers on whether they can be trusted by Palestinian-Canadians.
Whether Palestinians are living in Canada or directly under Israeli rule, the key factor that maintains their suppression is keeping them unheard and unseen by the Western public. Basic realities about our situation have been purged from all mainstream media and social institutions a long time ago; without this erasure, it would be difficult for Israel to continue its crimes or for Canada to support them. We’re of course used to this in Western media’s coverage of the Israel’s apartheid regime, but we should note how the same dynamics apply on local news coverage of Palestinian communities.
The Windsor Star’s sole article on our protest was entitled “Pro-Palestinian rally in downtown Windsor leads to charge, tickets,” because they decided to make the story about the noise violations and how disruptive the Palestinian community is. No organizer was spoken to, no message from the protest was reported, and there was not a word about what was happening to Palestinians in the entire article. The bulk of the article simply quotes Windsor Police’s statement against the protestors, coupled with clips that seem to specifically highlight the protest’s brief Arabic speeches and chants.
The erasure of our humanity has simply become the norm in this country, and all this is deeply internalized by any Palestinian living here. We are conditioned to remain silent and to accept that our society will never truly hear or see our situation. And this is the reason why we see such a huge impulse among Palestinians to be especially loud and disruptive at some of our protests: the extreme degree of helplessness and erasure leads to an extreme compulsion to finally be seen. It’s not just trying to capitalize on the rare opportunity Palestinians get to bring our plight into public consciousness: for many Palestinians, it’s also a sudden, euphoric, and very personal opportunity to assert our humanity in this country. Hence the celebratory nature of lots of the rallies. There is finally a release of the built up emotional repression that comes from being in a country where expressing basic realities about our situation is a taboo; one that we’re often taught to only whisper about in private.
This also creates the problem of many members of our community being so unfamiliar with being able to express themselves openly, and so inexperienced with having any type of dialogue with the Canadian public. There is a serious lack of strongly established, resourceful Palestinian political organizing in Canada; we don’t have a public relations machine or effective standard tactics yet—especially in Windsor. Organizing protests in Windsor has always been a struggle because of this. The Palestinian community has simply not been allowed to develop an organized infrastructure, so when the community scrambles to come together in response to the latest Israeli atrocities making headlines, people are generally very free to express themselves however they want. The honking, the loud music, the dangerous flag-waving, the Arabic chants, and basically everything that irritates the wider community so much, is simply the forceful, public self-expression of people excited to just be seen by their society.
Moreover, there is still so much effort put into informative speeches, press releases, and public relations, but we’re still always ignored. The only time we receive significant attention from the media or the wider community is when we’re too disruptive. So my view at this point is that the police and the Canadian public are completely incapable of empathizing or listening to Palestinians no matter what we do or say. That attitude towards us didn’t come from nowhere.
The Windsor Police’s spokesperson specifically said they ticketed excessive honking because it “isn’t necessary during a peaceful protest”—subtly implying that Palestinians simply honking their horns to bring attention to ethnic cleansing is bordering on violence. Both their statements and their treatment of Palestinian protestors seem to indicate that Windsor Police can’t help but see aggression embedded in Palestinian protests and that their role is to contain it.
While the bombing of Gaza has ended for now, Israel has accelerated its ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem and arrested thousands of its Palestinian citizens in a massive crackdown. The overwhelming sentiment among us in Windsor is that we must continue organizing more protests, starting with a car rally planned for next week. This will present a key test for our community in response to the police crackdown and noise complaints at the last protest: will the honking, flag-waving, and noisiness disappear in fear of more fines and charges? In this dialogue between local authorities and Palestinians, it’s my hope that we can set an example for other Canadian cities on how to finally push our struggle in this country forward.
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