Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced a forthcoming ban on the annual Quds Day march, which “calls for the killing of an entire civilian population in Israel.”
Ontario’s premier-designate announced his decision to ban the anti-Israel Quds Day marches in the area of his governance, saying that “anti-Semitic ideology should never be permitted on the grounds of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.”
“Our government will take action to ensure that events like Quds Day, which calls for the killing of an entire civilian population in Israel, are no longer part of the landscape in Ontario,” Doug Ford tweeted Sunday.
Quds Day was established in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Anti-Zionist demonstrations are held across Iran on the last Friday of the Muslim month of Ramadan. Similar rallies are held at other locations around the world.
Calls for the death of Israel and the US are a dominant feature of these rallies. Flags of the Hezbollah terror organization and other anti-Israel entities are flown.
“Blatantly racist or anti-Semitic ideology should never be permitted on the grounds of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario or anywhere else in our province,” Ford stated.
At the march held last Friday in Toronto, Canada’s largest city and the capital of Ontario, one local Muslim religious leader, Sheikh Shafiq Hudda, called for “the eradication of the unjust powers such as the American empire, such as the Israeli Zionists.”
“The government of Israel, the State of Israel has committed acts that no other country and no other nation, no other entity has committed,” he charged, according to a transcript provided by MEMRI.
One organizer announced that “the clock is ticking, the time is coming when we will see the fall of the illegal entity of Israel. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Ford made his statement after B’nai Brith Canada launched a petition calling to bring an end to the Quds Day rally and fine its organizers.
“Enough is enough,” said Michael Mostyn, chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “The city of Toronto must stop rolling out the red carpet for hatemongers who threaten Jews and Israelis in our streets.”
“We know the city has the power to ban or restrict public gatherings, since it has done so before. It’s high time for City Hall to get tough on hatemongers and supporters of terrorism,” he added.