18 year old high school student was harassed and kicked by anti-Israel protesters after he staged a defiant one-man counter-protest in front of Metro Toronto Convention Centre which hosted former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the Canadian Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies Spirit of Hope gala on May 26, 2016.

The protest, organized by Actions4Palestine and endorsed by Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) – Toronto, Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) York, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN)-Canada, Stop the Jewish National Fund (JNF)-Canada, UofT Trans Inclusivity Project (TIP), Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) McMaster, United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine and Israel (UNJPPI), SAIA (UofT) and the Communist Party of Canada.

On their Facebook page the organizers wrote that Shimon Peres is the “former Prime Minister & President of Apartheid Israel, whose extensive list of atrocities include serving in the Haganah, a Zionist Militia that massacred Palestinians during 1948-1952, the planning and execution of the Qana Massacre in Lebanon; the killing of Palestinians during the Aqsa uprising; involvement in the massacre of Jenin and gave the green light for Israel’s violent incursion against besieged Gaza in February of 2008.”

Jordan Justein walked with an Israeli flag in front of a small group of fewer than 30 communists, radical anti-Israel Jews and a few Arabs who waved PLO and Communist flags, robotically chanted “free free Palestine”, waved signs denouncing Israeli “war crimes” and denounced Peres and Kissinger. The group included at least one member of Palestine House, which was de-funded by the previous Conservative government for its “pattern of support for extremism”.

Jordan told CIJnews that when he arrived at the protest, a police officer told him to move away from the Convention Centre for security reasons, and to stand closer to the anti-Israel crowd.

The officer also warned him that simply being at the demonstration with an Israeli flag could “incite a riot”. When Jordan moved across the street, the protesters swore at him, called him a “Zionist pig”, a “Zionist piece of sh*t”, a “kike” and a “provocateur”. A man with a Palestinian flag kicked him twice in the leg and told him to leave. When Jordan described the incident to the police, he was told to go and file a report.

Jordan explained to CIJnews that he staged the one-man counter-protest “because both my grandparents are Holocaust survivors, and as a young person I feel it’s my responsibility to stand up against anti-Semitism and for Israel”.

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