On Monday, February 12th, thousands took to the streets of Toronto to protest Israel’s assault on Rafah, which by then had killed over 75 Palestinians as part of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The demonstration marched along University Avenue between two destinations: the Israeli consulate and U.S. consulate.
Hours later, a video was posted on X of a person dressed in a Spider-Man costume standing on a ledge outside Mount Sinai Hospital, waving a Palestinian flag. The video was used to make the accusation that the demonstration deliberately targeted the Jewish-founded hospital. The next day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and numerous other politicians took to X to denounce the “targeting” of Mount Sinai Hospital, decrying the act as an “antisemitic attack.”
But this story is entirely false. This supposed act of hate, happening along a common march route, is being used cynically to push abhorrent and severely dangerous rhetoric aimed at discrediting the resistance to Israel’s siege of Palestine. For those who participated in the action, the speed at which this entirely false story has spread throughout our leadership, our media, and our daily conversations is unprecedented. Particularly so at a time when we are continuing to mourn, to grieve the lives lost in this genocide.
At the same time, the harm this narrative is causing is nothing new to any of us. We know the state has in the past — and will in the future — paint peaceful protests as violent and dangerous, incite hate and terror, and utilize misinformation to justify increased police presence, including facial recognition technologies, at protests.
What happened at Mount Sinai
The ever-famous “Spiderman 4 Palestine” has been a frequent presence at Palestine rallies for months. Clad in a Spiderman costume, their routine is to climb across scaffolding around downtown construction sites along march routes to wave the Palestinian flag high and proud, much to the delight of those marching. Spiderman 4 Palestine is often surrounded by a flock of people with their phones out, snapping pictures of the high-flyer making solidarity with Palestine visible.
On Monday, Spiderman 4 Palestine was once again climbing scaffolding along the march route, including scaffolding that happened to be placed in front of the Mount Sinai Hospital sign. After waving the flag, they left. Contrary to reports, there was no blocking of vehicles, no “infiltrating” of the hospital, and certainly no harassment of health professionals providing care. In fact, the entrance nearest the scaffolding had closed at 6 pm—before the march had even moved from the Bloor & Yonge meetup location.
These facts, of course, meant nothing to our elected officials — in fact, some even added their own spins to take the fabrication even further. Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie claimed that protesters “infiltrated” the hospital to “intimidate Jewish doctors and patients.” The Toronto police promised to look into it. We saw further backlash from Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, all adding fuel to a fire that was cast onto protesters. The media ran a story based entirely on hearsay accusations.
To paint this act—the climbing of scaffolding downtown and waving a flag—as an antisemitic attack of protest, and expanding it by fabricating tales about “infiltrating” the hospital to “intimidate” Jews (many of whom were marching alongside Palestinians and have been for months), is reckless and irresponsible. JewsSayNoToGenocide has corrected the record in some reports, but politicians are not walking back their misleading words. In some respects, the damage has already been done — countless people have already been exposed to the outright lies. Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith’s tweet about the “incident” was seen 201,000 times, where he erroneously wrote that “targeting Mount Sinai serves only one purpose: to intimidate Toronto’s Jewish community. It is despicable and antisemitic.” This same narrative reared its ugly head when activists held flags and banners at the Avenue Rd overpass over Highway 401 Framed as an act of “intimidation” against the Jewish community, a mere banner drop is no longer allowed due to the harmful rhetoric being spun by the Zionist lobby, upheld by our political leadership.
Military power abroad, police power here
And while the political class and media occupy themselves with these fabrications, Israel’s cruel siege on Rafah continues. Rafah is not only a Palestinian town that deserves to be celebrated for all its glory; it was the last place of refuge for Palestinians. Rafah is the most densely populated area in the world. The occupier funneled over 1.4 million Palestinians here under the guise of refuge, garnering one of the largest refugee camps to exist. Then they fired, bomb after bomb, not to save hostages, but to prove a point. In Toronto, we face the echoes of this cruelty in the form of this misinformation campaign.
Not only do these attacks come on the eve of Mayor Chow’s sudden shift to support the full police budget increase, but we are seeing widespread support among our national leadership in an attempt to push the same racist narrative. Municipal budgets are being discussed all over our country, and so is Palestinian solidarity. As organizers, we know that Palestinian liberation is an essential part of all our liberation struggles — that the U.S. war machine (with Canada, Australia, and UK in tow) has deep stakes in the occupation of Palestine, and that they will pour countless dollars into protecting their interests. In a last-ditch effort to silence protesters, the ruling class has truly come together to reinforce their support for surveillance and enforcement — because without it, how could they justify their support for militancy overseas? How could they claim that a colonial state has some “right to exist”?
Police are militant forces trained to protect the state, particularly present now in spaces of Palestinian solidarity. In Ottawa, numerous solidarity rallies for Palestine or Trans children alike have resulted in activists receiving tickets of $500 for simply holding megaphones. While megaphones are an essential tool in rallies of all kinds, we are seeing this blatant targeting of workers, particularly low- or minimum-wage workers who will feel the impacts of such fines most deeply.
There is so much support we have garnered as a collective, as a movement. Solidarity is so powerful, it is love in its purest form when all we feel is rage. The power of solidarity has threatened the ideals of colonial states, of the ruling class. We must persist, as Gaza persists, as Palestinians persist in their fight to exist.
Hospitals are indeed being targeted—not by protesters, but by the Israeli state in the vicious campaign of genocide. Rather than raise red flags about the few remaining hospitals in Gaza that continue to be targeted, our Canadian leadership pours countless resources into artificial unrest surrounding Toronto’s Spiderman parading the most valuable tool of all: solidarity.
Author
Did you like this article? Help us produce more like it by donating $1, $2, or $5. Donate