Pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators continued to turn out on the streets of the country’s major urban centres over the weekend in response to Israel’s new ground assault on Gaza, but the Harper government reiterated its support for the Jewish state’s military operation.

Pro-Israel demonstrators on Dec. 28 in downtown Toronto. [Rochelle Michaels photo]

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and elsewhere renewed calls for Israel to cease  its military operation –dubbed “Cast Lead” by the Israel Defence Forces and which began with an Israeli Air Force bombing campaign on Dec. 27 – while pro-Israel counter-protesters, most of whom were organized by the Jewish Defence League (JDL) in Toronto, sought to bringIsrael’s reasons for the attack to the fore.

Despite the protests, on Sunday, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon issued a statement regardingCanada’s position on the conflict.

It expressed concern over the “increase in hostilities”and urged renewed diplomatic efforts to ensure a “sustainable and durable ceasefire, starting with the halting of all rocket attacks on Israel. Canada maintains that the rocket attacks are the cause of this crisis.”

In Toronto, close to 1,000 protesters gathered in the downtown core and marched from Dundas Square to the front of the Israeli consulate on Bloor Street.

Both the CTVand the TorontoStar reported police presence at the demonstration, but no hostilities.

Though he couldn’t confirm numbers, Meir Weinstein, the JDL’s national director, said he believed his group was able to get somewhere between 250 and 300 people to Saturday’s protest to show solidarity with Israel, and it organized an “emergency”meeting late Sunday to streamline his organization’s response to growing pro-Palestinian activities in the city and to cobble together more volunteers for future protests.

“We had over 50 Israeli flags there and many more people not holding flags,” he said. “We’re looking for faster mobilization so we can have greater numbers at upcoming protests.”

Asked whether the latest protests were different than initial ones his group attended last week, Weinstein said he’d noticed a more intense “anti-Jewish” sentiment among the pro-Palestinian contingent.

“We hear people chanting ‘The ovens weren’t big enough!’ ‘Death to Jews,’ ‘Slaughter the Jews,’ and Israeli flags are being burned,” he said, adding that the JDL advised its supporters “not to engage”directly with pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

Israel’s backers should “just stand up for Israel. Wave your flag if you have one and support Israel to go all the way,” Weinstein said.

In Montreal on Sunday, about 5,000 people marched against Israel’s Gaza offensive, calling on the Harper government to change its position in support of Israel.

The three-hour event was noisy, but police reported no incidents.

The demonstration began at Cabot Square, at the corner of Atwater and Ste. Catherine streets, and proceeded to the Israeli consulate in Westmount Square and on to Phillips Square.

The most well-known speaker was newly elected MNA Amir Khadir, co-leader of the new Québec Solidaire party, who said: “The Palestinian people as well as the Israeli people are taken hostage by the situation of violence…

“The Israeli military has ruled Israel for 50 years and has interests in maintaining war and violence,” he added.

“In Israel there is an elite, political and military, that benefits from instability and war… [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper is just playing the game of these military rulers by blindly supporting the Israeli government.”

Khadir also took part in two earlier, much smaller, demonstrations, including one Jan. 2 where Israel’s “apartheid” was denounced, as well as another on Dec. 28 where Khadir is reported to have said that both Palestinians and Israelis are victims of the “war-mongering policies of the Zionist state.”

The Quebec-Israel Committee (QIC) said it was troubled by the “hateful character” of the demonstration, noting that there were repeated calls for the “murder of Jews” made in Arabic (“al-mawt al-Yahud”).

In addition, an Israeli flag was set on fire in front of the Israeli consulate.

“The violent and anti-Semitic rhetoric of numerous demonstrators echoes the radical Islamic speech that plagues the Middle East and has no place in Quebec and flouts the civic values of Quebec society,” QIC executive director Luciano Del Negro said in a statement.

In a statement Sunday, FrankDimant, B’nai Brith Canada’s executive vice president, defended Israel’s continued operations in Gaza and exhorted the international community to “follow Canada’s principled stance” on the situation by recognizing Hamas as the instigator of the conflict.

“For years, the terrorist group Hamas has ruthlessly and deliberately targeted Israel’s civilian population,” he said. “No sovereign state can stand idly by and allow a terrorist group to launch rockets against its citizens with impunity, nor allow it the means to re-arm and enhance its weapons capability, as has been the case with Hamas ever since Israel unilaterally evacuated the area.”

Speaking to The CJNon Monday, Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Canada-Israel Committee (CIC) – who witnessed the weekend demonstration in Ottawa – said his organization had alerted officials about the disturbing “tone and substance” of the rhetoric being chanted at protests across the country.

“The kind of language being used, ‘Death to the Jews,’ is the kind we haven’t heard since the [start of the second intifadah] in 2000,” he said. “The common element is support for Hamas, but nothing akin to genuine concern for the plight of Palestinians living under Hamas.”

Fogel said CIC has worked hard to explain Israel’s situation and expressed gratitude to all Canadian political parties for recognizing that Hamas is “the root” of the problem and the “immediate precipitant” of the Israeli offensive.

He said the Canadian political sector understands “pretty much unanimously”that Israel “could no longer accept or tolerate the chronic launching of missiles”against its citizenry.

Fogel added: “Israel had the obligation to respond, lest Hamas and others begin to contemplate that there was a new threshold of tolerance for the kind of terror they author.

“But larger than that… the reactions that are coming forward from the Arab world [show] they have drawn the conclusion that Israel is no longer the real enemy. The fight has moved from an Arab-Israeli conflict to one of extremism versus Arab nationalism. What they are saying, all of them quietly, some of them less quietly, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, even [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas… they’re saying ‘We can’t make common cause withIslamic extremism as defined and exported throughIran.’ That relates toHamas, Hezbollah and things happening in southeast Asia.”

Abbas has said that Hamas could have prevented Israel’s attack on Gaza and has called on it to renew its ceasefire with Israel.

Nationwide rallies in support of Israel have been scheduled for this evening to show support for Israel’s southern cities, whose citizens have been targets of Hamas rockets for the past eight years.

In Toronto, the rally will be held at the BethTzedec Synagogue, at 1700 Bathurst St., as a joint effort by UJAFederation of Greater Toronto, the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy, Canadian Jewish Congress, the CIC and the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee.

In Montreal, Federation CJA will hold its rally at the Beth Israel Beth Aaron Congregation, at 6800 Mackle Rd.

With files from Janice Arnold