Front Burner - West Bank real estate, protests at Canadian synagogue

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

Ahead of its event at a Thornhill, Ontario synagogue, the “great Israeli Real Estate Event” seemed to list settlements in the occupied West Bank on its website – settlements which the UN and Canada consider a violation of international law. On March 7th, Front Burner’s team made their way into the event and confirmed the marketing of West Bank real estate.So how did some real estate enterprises discuss properties in the West Bank? How did protesters outside the synagogue react? And what can their face off outside a synagogue tell us about how the conflicts in Gaza and the West Bank are reverberating in Canada? Front Burner host Jayme Poisson explains. 

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey everybody, Jamie here. I'm here in Thornhill, Ontario, outside the Bate Synagogue with our producer Derek. Hey Derek. Hey Jamie. So we're here because there is a very large protest going on outside the synagogue.

There are several hundred people there, pro-Palestinian protesters, pro-Israeli protesters. pro-Palestinian protesters, pro-Israeli protesters. And the genesis of this protest is because there is a real estate event going on inside the synagogue tonight. And, you know, at the heart of the controversy here is that some of the vendors have advertised that they're selling property in the West Bank, which is, of course, a piece of territory that, according to the United Nations and Canada, is occupied by Israel.

So we're going to go into the protest now. When we got to the street in front of Beth Avraham Yosef of Toronto Synagogue nearly two weeks ago, we found it had become this stark dividing line. It separated hundreds of protesters kept to their respective sides by police in high-vis vests. But it was also this concrete symbol or manifestation of the divide between some Canadians over the war in Gaza. On the southern sidewalk and high up the stairs to the synagogue was a sea of Israeli flags, and some Canadian ones too, with signs that said things like, Kamos equals ISIS.

Dance music blasted from PA speakers. Targeting synagogue, attacking churches. This is really disgusting. And we hold the line here for freedom of religion. On the north sidewalk was a blend of Palestinian flags and black and white keffiyahs, the scarves that protesters have taken as a symbol of resistance. To the wooden fence behind them that stood guard over suburbia, protesters had stuck signs that said things like Free Palestine.

We came here today to protest the event that is happening in the synagogue. They are, on the other side, distorting the whole idea of why we are here. We quickly ran into protesters on both sides who defied the easy stereotypes of who supports each cause. Like Salman Seema, among the demonstrators on the synagogue side, who said he's a refugee from Iran, who runs a group called the International Coalition Against Discrimination. I'm not a Jewish person. I'm a Muslim. I practice Islam. It doesn't matter which religious you are. discrimination. And among the people protesting under Palestinian flags, we met a rabbi, Rabbi David Miviser, who's a member of the group Independent Jewish Voices. So I'm here because this synagogue is hosting a real estate sales promotion event selling properties built on stolen Palestinian land. And I

want to shut it down. I want to expose it so people know about it. A big part of all our conversations at these protests was the fact that they took place outside a synagogue, a place of worship. Rabbi Mivisar was clear. He said the protest wasn't directed at the synagogue, but at what was happening inside.

If a synagogue was holding a sale in its parking lot of stolen cars, would the police do something about that? If it was like, we are selling cars that we just picked up from a criminal gang that stole them from people all over Toronto, and we're going to sell them in our parking lot. But we're a synagogue, so we're allowed to, you know, enjoy this kind of impunity. And if anybody objects, then that's really anti-Semitic, because, hey, we're a synagogue. So they're using the synagogue as a kind of a shield, and that should not be permitted.

I also spoke to Basil Abdul-Kadr with Toronto for Palestine about this. He's organized protests for Gaza in Toronto before. We are going to be painted with a broad brush as anti-Semites simply because we're protesting outside of a house of worship. We're protesting the event that's taking place inside there. Whether it took place in a gym or a basement or any structure, we would be out here protesting as we are. But from the pro-Israel protesters in front of the synagogue,

and especially from people like Hani Al-Malay, who worships there, I kept hearing that the protests were about far more than one event. You don't think that they want peace in Gaza? You don't think they want peace in Gaza? No way. They want to take over all of Israel. Are you listening to what they're chanting? All they keep chanting is that they want the whole land. They want the Jews out. It's not like let's negotiate. It's like get out and give it back. I kept asking protesters if they'd spoken to people on the other side of the street and they routinely said they hadn't been able to or that it might seem like confrontation. So over the course of the afternoon and evening, we did our best to pass between the lines and put these perspectives against each

other so that you can hear them in conversation together. Eventually, I was able to speak to the senior rabbi of the synagogue in question. His name is Rabbi Daniel Korobkin. Yeah, the genesis of the protest, it's really a pretense. The genesis of the protest is that I believe that they were looking for an opportunity to come to our property in the middle of the Jewish community and intimidate because of what's going on in Israel today. If you were to ask anyone from the other side, do you believe that Israel proper is not occupied territory? Do you believe it's not stolen land?

I don't think that there would be a response to say that, no, we only believe that the area beyond the Green Line is occupied territory. Listen to the chants. The chants are, from the rivers to the sea, Palestine will be free. And the fact that people have come to the doorstep of our synagogue and really spat on our holy place is really, to us, not only a lack of civility, but it's unacceptable. It should be unacceptable for Canadian society

because Jews are the canary in the coal mine. Today it's the synagogue. Tomorrow they'll find a pretense to protest against the church, to protest against the Hindu temple. All they're looking for is an opening to do this. This is the unraveling of our society that we're seeing before our eyes. This actually wasn't the first real estate event of this kind that Thornhill saw this month. There was one in a different synagogue earlier in the week. A 27-year-old Vaughan man is facing several charges. It's alleged the man identified by York Regional Police became confrontational with several pro-Palestinian protesters and fired a nail gun at them.

Why are you doing that? You shot that at me and you shot it at another guy. To be clear, as far as we know, that previous event was unconnected and from different organizers. The demonstration we were at that Thursday was around the event called the, quote, Great Israeli Real Estate Event. It was part of a traveling series of real estate fairs, which included a stop at the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue of Montreal two days earlier. The company does have listings of properties in the West Bank on its website, but we weren't able to verify whether those were offered at the event today. Pro-Palestinian groups were served a court injunction yesterday during a demonstration

outside a synagogue in Kotenesh. A lot of questions remained from these previous shows, so it became clear that to understand the full picture of what was happening at the synagogue on Thursday, we really needed to understand what was happening inside the real estate event. We gathered our notes and made a plan. I am just in the car. There was a poster that we saw advertising this event, right, Derek? And there are three locations that certainly do seem to be in occupied territory in the West Bank. We took a look at the maps. Yeah, there's certainly land being sold in Tel Aviv and so on, but at least three of them are in the occupied West Bank.

And so what we're going to do now is we're going to go to the synagogue where this expo is held. Let's go. I promise God I will be free. pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo.

50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Cups. So this event was being advertised to the public, and we reached out to try and get access as press, as CBC News, but we didn't hear back. It seemed to us that there was a public interest in answering whether real estate in the occupied West Bank was being sold or just marketed at the synagogue?

Or was all of this just a baseless accusation? Those aren't the kind of answers you can get talking to protesters outside the event. And since our attempts to gain access as journalists didn't happen, we just showed up. We gave our names, didn't say that we were reporting, and were allowed in. That means you're not going to hear anything from when we were in the synagogue. But we did take notes, photos, and brochures. Right after we left, we talked through what happened, starting with when we approached the doors. One of the guys at the gate there asked us if we belonged to a synagogue. We told him no, and he still said it was okay for us to go in as long as

we weren't causing any trouble and we should probably say that he did mention that there were security there and if there were people who were going to cause trouble then they would be kicked out so we have two like i think confirmations one was that book that was over the green line that she wouldn't give us but i did take a photo of it which has the the name of the project yeah so i just another you know there was i did hear one of the guys uh who was manning one of the cubicles essentially because there were many different vendors there say that at some point there was going to be a lot more real estate available in Gaza. I heard it as well, yes.

Yeah. Like what I didn't expect it to be was kind of this trade show in a way. Inside a kind of conference room in the building, there were about 15 to 20 booths set up. We didn't see any evidence of actual sales being made on the premises or any documents being signed, although there was a booth with lawyers available. And most of the booths simply advertised real estate in places like Tel Aviv. But we saw two exceptions. The first booth had banners with the names of different cities and settlements on it, including one we recognized as a settlement inside the occupied West Bank. That was Maale Ademim. We had sat down with a member of the real estate firm,

and back in the car, we described the conversation in as much detail as we could, while the memories were still fresh. Well, I mean, she did spend quite a bit of time talking about the politics of Israel, but she immediately steered us toward an area that at one point I asked her if it was like in disputed territory and she flat out said that it wasn't and um uh she also had another project uh we asked her about it she said it was over the green line I tried to take the brochure and she refused to basically allow us to take this free brochure. She said that she likes to talk to people in person about it and that it wasn't for us.

And you got a photo of the cover of this document, though. I do. I do have the photo. The Green Line is a term often used for the map line that divides Israel from the occupied West Bank. used for the map line that divides Israel from the occupied West Bank. The line itself actually stems from a ceasefire agreement at the end of the Israeli-Arab war in 1949. According to the UN, the EU, Canada, and the majority of the international community, Israeli settlements over that map line are a violation of international law. And in recent years, Israel has dramatically expanded settlement construction. Israeli settlements have expanded by a record amount, the UN Human Rights Office said on Friday. The number of settlers has been rapidly increasing.

Nearly 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements. Just this month, Israel's government came out with plans to build more than 3,400 new homes in the occupied West Bank. 70% of those homes are set for Moaleh Adumim. Again, when we talked to that real estate agent at the first booth we visited, that was the settlement on the banner that hung behind her. The UN and Canada consider these settlements against international law specifically because of an article in the Fourth Geneva Convention. Article 49 forbids occupying powers from transferring their civilians into the territory they occupy.

And the West Bank has been considered to be under Israeli military occupation since 1967, after the Six-Day War. The UN and Canada also both say these settlements are a barrier to lasting peace. settlements are a barrier to lasting peace. Actually, Canada's foreign affairs minister, Melanie Jolie, went to the West Bank and met with the Palestinian Authority's foreign affairs minister last week. Jolie said she spoke with the Palestinians about extremist settler violence, which is rising. Newly emboldened since the start of the war in Gaza. Settler violence has soared to its highest levels since the UN started recording data. There are now six incidents a day on average.

The UN says that overall, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October, including 100 children. And that 15 Israelis were killed in the West Bank in that time as well. Also, the UN says that 4,000 Palestinians were displaced in the West Bank just last year. Israel disagrees that it's illegally occupying the West Bank, saying the land was already contested

when it was seized. Israel also says it has an ancestral and religious claim to the land and that its presence on the land is important for Israel's security. So that happened. You know, the conversation kind of ended a bit abruptly. Then we went to another booth and they absolutely do have properties that are listed, like specific properties that are listed. So we had a much shorter conversation with a realtor at a second booth. We picked up a brochure from her, which had a few listings we thought might be in the West Bank, specifically in the settlement of Efrat, south of Jerusalem. And I want to read you one of these listings. So it says, Hagol Street, Efrat, for sale cottage with tremendous potential, a cottage for sale on

four levels. It goes on in a quiet and pastoral location. There are a couple of other listings in Efrat, and these all seem to be pre-existing buildings. Of the over 3,000 homes Israel just announced for the West Bank, almost 700 are set for Efrat. So after we got confirmation that real estate companies at this event were advertising property in the occupied West Bank, we grabbed our recording gear and headed to the protest lines to get reactions. On the pro-Palestinian side, they actually seemed shocked that we had made it in. I'd love to see it.

We tried to get inside. They wouldn't allow us. Standing to the side of the protest, we showed the Afrat listings to protester Basil Abdel-Kader and Lama Osama, who's Palestinian and the president of the Multicultural Community Association in Oakville. So how do you feel when you see this in a listing like this? Disgusting. Disgusting. We're sitting on our land in front of our eyes.

It's criminal. And the fact that this is allowed to happen, I'm trying to wrap my mind around how brazen it is that this event is happening and how under the radar it still manages to fly. We also showed the listings to Rabbi Miviser, the member of Independent Jewish Voices. We were actually just inside. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. We were looking at some properties in Efrat. I know Efrat very well. I've been there a lot. I have friends who live there.

Rabbi, when we show you this picture, three-bedroom apartment, like what are you thinking when you see that? What am I thinking? So first of all, it looks like a very nice place to live. I had friends that decided to settle in Ifrat. This looks like it's not their house, but it could be. And I know it's built on land that was Palestinian land. And after 67... And so we decided to ask Rabbi Korobkin of the Beit Synagogue

as plainly as we could about the West Bank and about properties in occupied territory being marketed to Canadians in his synagogue. Do you support Canadians having the opportunity to buy property in territory that the United Nations and Canada deems occupied. If a person immigrates to Israel and they want to live in a land that Israel says is part of Israel, then I think that they should have a right to do that. If a person is a dual citizen of both Canada and Israel, and they want to spend part of their time in Israel and part of their time in Canada, that's for them to take up with the state of Israel when they're there. Honey Almaleh also told me that she believes personally that, quote, the land was given to us.

We have been having this event in our synagogue every year for many, many, many years. And it's not only in the occupied areas. It's all across Israel to allow people to move to Israel. And our belief is that the Messiah will come when the majority of the Jews live in Israel. So there is a religious belief to move there. And so what we want is people to own property in any area of Israel, not just the disputed areas. And that's what this is all about. And they come every year to do this. So this might be a good time to try and answer some legal questions. Since Canada considers

Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be in violation of international law, could promoting properties for sale in occupied territory lead to actual legal repercussions on Canadian soil? Some legal experts, including Alex Neve, a professor of international human rights law at the University of Ottawa and Dalhousie, said this could potentially contravene international laws set out in the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Acts and the Geneva Conventions Act. These laws have been incorporated into Canada's domestic laws. We put this legal argument to the office of Minister Arif Arani, the country's justice minister, and asked if they were going to take any action. For example, requesting the RCMP investigate.

They told us this was a question for the Department of Global Affairs. We pushed back, saying we thought it was absolutely a question for the attorney general to field and cc'd global affairs. No one got back to us. Back at the protest, we tried to focus our interviews on the real estate event. And people did want to talk about it. But of course, this is not happening in a vacuum. There is a war raging in Gaza and a very long history here. The conversations quickly slipped into that wider context.

You know, there's a whole backdrop of history here. Jews have been called out for being Jews for centuries. Rabbi Korobkin with the synagogue told me the protests invoked something personal. My grandparents were murdered in the Shoah because they were Jews. They were shot in the back and thrown into a communal grave. After you hear what these people are chanting, accusing us of genocide and wishing genocide for us, you sort of think to yourself that history is starting to repeat itself. And that's traumatizing to our entire community,

many if not most of whom have at least one grandparent who went through the Holocaust. Across the street, Rabbi Miviser also told me some of his history, a story about how in the past he could have easily been on the pro-Israeli side. But his experiences changed that. Well, just personally, I've lived in Israel or Palestine for a number of years. I've lived there four years, going all the way back to 1971. I've personally seen Palestinians' homes being destroyed,

their lands being taken from them. I've been with them. I've actually put myself between them and Israeli soldiers. I've used myself as a human shield because I know they won't shoot me. And I feel as a Jew, I have an absolute moral and religious obligation to stand for justice and for what's right. And particularly as a rabbi, I have a kind of a role to play that other people don't. So I asked Rabbi Meviser about the charge that we heard from people, including Rabbi Korobkin, that protesters wished genocide upon Jewish people.

I want to say that that whole fear of genocide or that narrative, like this is so dangerous and a big threat to the Jews, that's very artificial and manufactured and promoted, and it's very powerful, but it's a complete fallacy. So some of the people that we talked to over there, they feel that everyone on this side of the street would like to see them not exist anymore, essentially. And do you feel like that's what's happening on this? No, no, that's not true at all. It isn't that we think they shouldn't exist. We think they need to stop the behavior that they're doing. They're engaged in behavior that actually is genocidal. No one thinks that Jews shouldn't

exist. No one thinks that Jews shouldn't be able to live a Jewish life. No one thinks that Jews shouldn't exist. No one thinks that Jews shouldn't be able to live a Jewish life. No one thinks that. What we think is Jews have to stop stealing land, demolishing homes, killing innocent people. And that's a very long list and I won't go through the whole thing. These words from the rabbi, they didn't seem to change the way people on the steps of the synagogue felt. People like Honey. Do you feel like all the people on the other side of the street want to kill you? Yes. Well, most of them. I don't know if all of them, but I'm sure a lot of them do.

We talked to a rabbi over there, Rabbi David, and he said there's nobody who wants the elimination of the Jewish people. No one wants. Go across the street and ask those people there and they will tell you that they want the elimination of the Jewish people. They want them out. They would prefer if they were dead. They really don't want us there. So we also spoke to Basil Abdel-Kader on the pro-Palestinian side about whether protesters were making these kind of calls. I'm not going to pretend like I know the content of every single person's heart on the pro-Palestine side, and I'm also not going to pretend like anti-Semitism isn't something terrible like any form of racism is, and it exists, and it should be struck down and fought.

But to depict us as advocating killing all the Jews or the destruction of the state of Israel, which is, I defy anybody who would make that claim to show us evidence of people en masse chanting these things. This is the tactic that has been used against pro-Palestinian demonstrators for decades. Basil also told me something about what he saw as he watched the pro-Israeli protests

from across the chasm in the street. I see a sort of rabid fanaticism that I hadn't, I wasn't aware existed here. The cheer and glee that they have in celebrating what is largely considered across the world to be a genocide is a bit shocking at first, right? And you feel like they're celebrating what's happening in Gaza right now? You feel like that's what you're hearing today? Absolutely. I mean, the chants that we're saying,

among others, about Palestine is not for sale, we're also saying stop bombing our children and the genocide and the occupation. And in response to that, they're playing house music, they're cheering, they're chanting, they're mocking us. I was shocked when I came on Sunday and saw the same thing. One protester on the Palestinian side, Lama Osama, did tell us she had a productive conversation at the margins of the protest. But as the atmosphere around them kept intensifying, it was interrupted physically. I tried to speak to one of those guys in there and we were having a peaceful discussion. He was telling me that this is so sad what's happening.

I said, yeah, I totally agree. He was telling me that this is so sad what's happening. I said, yeah, I totally agree. And he told me that he's Jewish, he's married to a Christian, and his daughter is married to a Muslim. And I'm like, that's great. This is what we have to celebrate. And then out of nowhere, a guy came and attacked me.

And he pulled my hair, pulled my shirt, and he pulled my scarf, and he put it on the ground, stepping on it. Actually, as Lemma was telling me the story, we were interrupted too. So, you too, Lemma. There's an ambulance going by. Dozens of York Regional Police officers were walking between the protests and lining up at the sides that Thursday, including almost a dozen police horses. Police said three people were arrested and charged, tied to three different incidents that day. A protester on the pro-Palestinian side, Ben,

told us he'd witnessed attacks. It was a couple who pepper-sprayed a couple of Palestine Solidarity protesters, and then it was the man who kicked our friend. So it goes without saying that the vast majority of the people at these protests were not violent. And actually, there was one thing that we heard universally, one point of agreement. That's a disappointment in us, the media. I'm not friendly with CBC.

If she can't record it, I can't talk. For protesters on the synagogue side of the street, we heard it seemed like we were ignoring the over 100 hostages Hamas is still believed to be holding and the close to 1,200 people killed on October 7th, a majority of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities. And I think it's rather sad that the Western media focuses

on the plight of the Palestinians, and I am very sympathetic towards them. But I think we have to make a distinction between the Palestinian people and Hamas. The public, the media seems to have forgotten what happened on October the 7th. On the pro-Palestinian side, we heard exhaustion. I'm sorry if my answers are a little bit short or not as detailed because we're so tired as a community of having to repeat ourselves and kind of reintroduce this thing that's been going on for decades.

You're tired of people asking you why you're here. Yeah. Why don't you guys focus more on the suffering of our community rather than keep saying, oh, they feel that they're threatened from us because we chant. I mean, they're after our chants. They're after our flag. Okay, what are we supposed to do?

Should we just stay silent? I don't get it. Like, what are we supposed to do? I've been thinking a lot about some of these critiques. But also since that day, there's one person in particular we talked to who I can't seem to get off my mind. So my name is Jamie. I have a podcast. It's called Front Burner with the CBC.

I don't trust the media, the Canadian media anymore. I'm really, I'm really sorry to hear that. I'm really sorry to hear that. That afternoon, a line of police had come down the street from the east to keep both sides basically squared in front of the synagogue. In the empty road behind that, in the literal shadow of the police officers, a lone woman sat on the curb. She had this full-sized Palestinian flag attached to a plank of wood that she'd been waving slowly, dutifully.

You know, I know you don't want to talk to me, but I'm really curious to know why you're saying that you don't trust the media. Because of the lies, the half-truths, the wrong context. It's wrong. I asked her for an example. The dehumanization of the Palestinian people. Palestinian people die. Other people killed.

I'm not going to give the media any more ammunition to hang us with. I'm sorry you feel that way. Do you think I'm wrong? You tell me, do you think I'm wrong? You tell me. Do you think I'm wrong? You say. Why can't you say it? Say it!

I actually answered your questions. Why can't you open up your mouth and say I'm not wrong? That's why I don't trust the media. You have your limitations You open up your mouth and say, I'm not wrong. That's why I don't trust the media. You have your limitations because of your position, because of whom you're working for. Because you can't say that, you lose your job. You can't say the truth. What kind of media is that?

She told us that we could use the audio we recorded of her. But when we asked for her name, she seemed to look at us like we didn't deserve it. That's enough for you today. Just your first name? No. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Have a good day. Once it got dark, the last person we spoke with was Rena Epstein.

She'd been standing high on the steps of the synagogue with Honey, where they had a vantage point on the rows of protesters chanting toward them. What brings you here today? Well, what's happening is that... Hold on. Ask her first. I mean, I know it's her. Eventually, what Rena described for me was fear.

My heart bleeds for the people who live in Gaza, the innocent people, Hamas, who's stealing from them, stealing their food. I wish that we could help them in any way we could. And these people here aren't doing it in a peaceful way. There's ways to get your message across and to come into my area, where I live, to go in front of the Eaton Center and Yorkdale, where I'm afraid as a Jew to go shopping. This is not the way to make peace. This is a way to make hate and have people distance from each other. As we walked away to the chants and music from both sides bouncing between grids of suburban homes, I had Rina's comments on my mind, but it was also impossible not to reflect on people like Lama, who told me about her connection to the region we're talking about, and who, even from

a protest in Canada, seemed so determined to do something material for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. I'm the granddaughter of a Palestinian man who was expelled from Jaffa today in 1948. And he walked barefoot all the way to Jordan. So whatever is happening in here is connected to my ancestors. More than 31,000 Gazans have been killed in this war, according to the health ministry there. The U.N. is warning of famine. Most of 2 million people are displaced. Lema actually organizes a program that's sending hundreds of tents from Canada to Gaza.

I mean, there's a lot of hundreds of people in here, probably a thousand. They have people who lost family in Gaza. So our community is hurting. Our community is suffering. Canada needs to support these people. Okay, we are leaving the protest. Still several hundred people there. Pretty large police presence still.

I think if I'm struck kind of by one thing, Derek, it's that those... I don't know. I don't really have anything to say right now. About a week after attending the real estate event in Thornhill, an email went out from one of the vendors there. There was another event in Brooklyn, New York, planned for later in March. It had been canceled due to, quote, security reasons. Protesters had planned to be there.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.