VAUGHAN, Ont. — Rival protesters faced off on Thursday outside a synagogue north of Toronto, where a touring Israeli real estate exhibition promoting land for purchase in the occupied West Bank was making its final Canadian stop.
A York Regional Policeofficer with binocularsstood on the roof of the synagogue in the community of Thornhill, watching dozens of protesters below him who were waving Israeli flags on one side and Palestinian flags on the opposite side of the street.
On the steps of the synagogue where the Great Israeli Real Estate Event was being hosted, demonstrators played pop music, danced and chanted "Israel is a Jewish land."Across the street, protesters chanted "Palestine is not for sale" and called for the exhibition inside the synagogue to be shut down.
An online brochure for the event said speakers at the exhibition were addressing questions about purchasing real estate in several locations, including Israeli cities such as Tel Aviv and Haifa.
Palestinian protesters at Thursday's event said they were deeply concerned the list also includes Neve Daniel, Efrat and Ma'ale Adumim, which are all communities in the West Bank, a territory Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and has occupied since.
The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal. The settlements are built on land that Palestinians seek as part of a future state, and the Canadian government says they "constitute a serious obstacle to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace."
At the back entrance to the synagogue, a parking lot slowly filled up with cars Thursday afternoon, as members of the Jewish community trickled into the event under heavy security.
A Canadian Press reporter who registered for the event was told by a security guard outside the venue that media would not be allowed in.
A pro-Israel protester who did not want to be named said he was joining others to condemn the Oct. 7 incursions launched by Hamas in southern Israel that killed roughly 1,200 Israelis and touched off the Israel-Hamas war that has now raged for nearly five months.
Palestinian Canadian Ghada Sasa was at Thursday's pro-Palestinian protest after attending a similar one on Sunday.
In an interview Sunday, she said she "broke down and started crying" when she found out about the real estate event, calling it "unbelievable and horrific."
"They're here to steal Palestinian land right under our nose. How dare they sell this land in Canada. It's disgusting," added Sasa, a PhD candidate at McMaster University, who said her grandfather was forced from his home during the war that surrounded Israel's creation in 1948, which Palestinians refer to as the "Nakba," or catastrophe.
More than 500,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank, alongside about three million Palestinians. Consecutive Israeli governments have expanded settlements, but construction of homes for Jews in the West Bank has accelerated under the current right-wing government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Last month, the United States and Britain imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers accused of committing abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank. Canada has said it is considering a similar move.
Sasa said she tried to register for the real estate event but was denied entry.
"Even if I tried to walk in and tried to buy land back, I actually can't," she said.
Thornhill is the final Canadian stop for the Great Israeli Real Estate Event before it heads to the U.S. for stops in New York and New Jersey. There was an exhibition in Montreal on Tuesday.
Sasa said a lawyer who is part of a team of people organizingpro-Palestinian protests across Toronto is working on a request for an injunction that would prevent events that promote or sell land in settlements from taking place in Canada.
On Sunday, while Sasa and others were outside the synagogue protesting, Natalia Birnbaum, a Toronto-based real estate agent, was inside answering inquiries about investment opportunities.
Birnbaum said she was asked to bring her clients to the synagogue by a broker with the Israel-based realty Home in Israel, one of several groups also listed as a vendor for Thursday's event in Thornhill.
Birnbaum said in a phone interview on Tuesday that more real estate events have been taking place across North America due to rising interest in Israeli properties since Oct. 7.
"Maintaining a strong connection to the land of Israel is very fundamental to our religious beliefs," she said.
Birnbaum said about 100 people attended Sunday's event and many clients she spoke to also expressed interest in moving to Israel to escape rising antisemitism across Canada.
"They're really fearing the antisemitism and they're thinking, 'OK, maybe it's time we move, maybe we want to go to Israel,'" she said.
Birnbaum told The Canadian Press that her firm did not promote properties in the West Bank at the Sunday event.
Home in Israel was not immediately available to comment on the exhibition.
Reem Chahrour, who was at Thursday's protest, noted these types of events have been happening in Canada for decades but they feel particularly "horrifying" amid the brutal Israel-Hamas war.
"I was born and raised in a family with the generational trauma of being exiled from our land, so this isn't a surprise," she said while at Sunday's protest.
"However, there's an active unaliving of people, of children, of women, of men, of innocent people (in the Gaza Strip) living under Israeli occupation. It's honestly disrespectful. These events are horrific.Wait for the body to go cold."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 7, 2024.
Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version said Sasa's grandfather left his home in the West Bank during the 1948 war. In fact, he was expelled from his home in Ramla, a city in what is now Israel, during that conflict.
