A secretive Toronto police unit is targeting activists by accusing them of anti-Semitism, in a strategy with long precedent in policing, reports John Clarke

In recent months, a ‘Hate Crimes Unit’ of the Toronto Police has come to the fore as the cutting edge of an effort to intimidate and stifle Palestine solidarity in this city. Very dangerously, this body has taken the false accusation of anti-Semitism that has been used to slander those who challenge Israel’s crimes and applied it in the realms of law enforcement.

The Breach reports that the operations of this sinister police unit have been supported by a ‘secretive committee’, known as the Hate Crime Working Group, that ‘is composed of nearly two dozen Crown prosecutors, some of whose public comments show pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian bias’. This body ‘has given “politically-motivated” backing to the Toronto police’s targeting of pro-Palestine activism.’ By any reasonable standards, it is fair to conclude that a political police operation against those who support the Palestinian struggle is underway.

Perceived threat

Before looking more closely at how the distorted notion of hate crime is being applied by police and prosecutors, it should be understood that this development reflects the alarm that the ruling establishment feels about the strength and momentum of Palestine solidarity. This movement is perceived as a threat because it challenges Canada’s longstanding support for the Zionist colonial project, but also because those taking to the streets express a major shift in popular thinking that has taken place during the long months that the genocide in Gaza has unfolded. A recent opinion poll testifies to this major shift in attitudes very powerfully.

Since 7 October, political leaders and media have sought to demonise those who are mobilising to oppose the assault on Gaza. Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, has thundered against ‘hate rallies going down our streets trying to intimidate our Jewish communities.’ Toronto’s supposedly progressive Mayor, Olivia Chow, was challenged last October after she falsely accused a demonstration at City Hall that was called by the Palestinian Youth Movement of ‘glorifying [the] murder and kidnapping of women and children.’

The police may be only too happy to target protests in solidarity with the Palestinians, but they are nonetheless taking their cue from those in political power. By January of this year, it was clear that this process of targeting pro-Palestinian activity had become a strategic priority for the Toronto Police. Rallies at an overpass over a major highway were banned on the grounds that ‘critical infrastructure’ was under threat and because ‘members of Toronto’s Jewish community, are feeling increasingly unsafe amid the ongoing protests.’ Police Chief Myron Demkiw ominously asserted that ‘officers would increasingly be “applying a criminal lens” when policing protests in the city.’

Last November, eleven people were arrested in Toronto after posters were put up and red paint splashed on an Indigo bookstore. The action was directed at the company’s CEO, Heather Reisman, because of her long-standing support for Israel and her role in recruiting for the Israeli occupation forces. The police, with sections of the media cheering them on, immediately asserted that they were dealing with a ‘hate-motivated’ act and the Hate Crimes Unit was put on the case. A police spokesperson bluntly declared that ‘the victim [Reisman] was specifically targeted because they are [or are perceived to be] Jewish.’

Eleven people were arrested during early morning armed raids on their homes which were utterly outrageous, given the relatively minor nature of the charges laid against them. The Hate Crimes Unit clearly wanted to create a public frenzy around this case and to generate the impression that some very dangerous people were being rounded up. By May, however, it had been necessary to drop the charges against four of the accused and the viability of this elaborate spectacle is clearly in doubt.

The threat posed to legal rights and democratic freedoms by this whole exercise in political policing is very serious indeed. The Breach interviewed ‘policing scholars and lawyers’ who suggest that the protections that Canada’s constitution is supposed to provide are being undermined in order to achieve the ‘strategic incapacitation’ of ‘a growing Palestinian solidarity movement.’

The pursuit of that very strategy has been determined and relentless. The work of the Hate Crimes Unit has been directed into an ongoing operation known as ‘Project Resolute’ and it has been expanded from six officers to thirty-two. It has also been learned that the Unit has established a ‘fully-integrated intelligence sharing model’ to investigate pro-Palestinian activities that shares information with the federal police force and the national security agency.

The involvement of the Hate Crime Working Group, operating within the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, adds another highly dangerous element to the attack that is underway. This committee ‘has attempted to impose more severe criminal charges against individuals involved in peaceful protests since Oct. 7, or thwart the dropping of charges.’ It is ‘working closely with Project Resolute, providing legal backing to their dramatic targeting of the Palestinian solidarity movement.’

Joshua Sealy-Harrington, an assistant professor of law at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), says that the working group is ‘helping [the police] label political opponents of the Israeli state as “hateful”. The term is intentionally amorphous to permit the arbitrary exercise of state and police power.’ He adds that the secret methods employed ‘make clear that it is politicizing prosecutions and evading accountability.’

The working group also appears to have alarming connections with the Israeli Consulate. As the Breach explains, ‘police themselves had been trying to get in touch with the consulate to solicit these views, without any success. But it turned out that the prosecutors – the members of the Hate Crime Working Group – had a direct line.’

Red squad

The unsavoury activities linked to Project Resolute are actually only a dangerous continuation of political policing in Toronto. In the 1930s, the Police Chief was the notorious Dennis Draper who conducted a veritable war against left wing organisations and movements of resistance among the unemployed. He is ‘best remembered for organizing a Red Squad within the police department to suppress strikes and left wing meetings, political rallies and demonstrations.’

In the early 2000s, when I was an organiser with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), we had frequent dealings with officers from the Intelligence Division of the Toronto Police. On one occasion, when several of them came to our office to try to intimidate us, one of them introduced himself as a member of the Red Squad. When three of us faced a jury trial for charges related to an OCAP protest, the links between the Crown Attorney’s office and police Intelligence became abundantly clear and the theory of the prosecution was obviously based on their intelligence gathering and analysis. The present Hate Crimes Unit is a component part of the Intelligence Division and, if it is breaking some very dangerous new ground, it still draws on some long established practices.

The Project Resolute attack by police and prosecutors on Palestine solidarity and democratic rights is a manifestation of a very ominous trend. By equating support for a liberation struggle with hate speech and by heavily criminalising minor acts of disobedience, it poses a major threat to free expression and the right to protest. The utter brutality of the assault on Gaza has created a crisis of legitimacy for the military, economic and diplomatic support that Western political establishments have given to the Israeli state. This has led to a wide-ranging effort to stifle those who give expression to the outrage over Israel’s blatant crimes that now exists and the Hate Crimes Unit is the hard edge of this initiative.

Clearly, it is necessary to push back against this serious attack and the conduct of the police must be exposed and challenged. The Toronto Police and the Ontario government must be held accountable for the abuses for which the Hate Crimes Unit and the Hate Crime Working Group are responsible. As serious as these attacks are, however, it is essential that we do not allow ourselves to be intimidated. No underhanded police tactics can stop a movement of Palestine solidarity that is going from strength to strength, and its vital work should continue with determination and confidence.