On the weekend of July 25 and 26, in Parc Angrinon, located in Montreal’s east end, the third annual ‘Palestine’ in the Park was held. While presenting itself as an event featuring children’s programs and culture, it also offered in our view deeply problematic content that raises serious questions about how such an event received permission to be held on public property.
The event’s website condemns “78 years” of “the Zionist occupation,” a reference to Israel’s independence in 1948, in what we see as a clear attempt to delegitimize the Jewish State’s very existence in its historic and ancestral homeland.
This is not a minor problem, but a foundational one. Seeing Israel in its entirety as a foreign and illegal occupation is not the basis for any kind of peace, but of rejectionism and a denial of the Jewish state’s right to exist.
That was hardly the end of the controversies of ‘Palestine’ in the Park.
Four separate times over two days, the program schedule offered a “prisoners exhibition tour,” which organizers noted would feature the sale of artwork from Palestinian prisoners.
On the festival’s Facebook (Meta) page, images featured a small child walking on a map of Israel, with the Jewish State’s name erased, and replaced with Arabic-only towns. Crafts for sale featured a Palestinian flag transposed over all of Israel, and in one image, a small child was featured holding a map of Israel, replaced with what appears to be the keffiyeh, a checkered headdress used as a symbol of anti-Israel activism.
In fact, on multiple occasions, photos from the festival’s Facebook page displayed small children engaging with imagery that erased Israel in its entirety.
Among those listed as partners on the event’s website is the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a group that has been at the centre of many of Canada’s anti-Israel protests. In the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023 massacres in southern Israel, PYM organized events where it called on followers to “celebrate the resistance’s success…” Since then, PYM – despite its radical activities – has been treated with little skepticism by the news media.
PYM has also collaborated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a banned terrorist organization in Canada, according to official Israeli documentation. Indeed, PYM’s website used to feature the Annual Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Scholarship, named after a former senior leader of the PFLP terrorist group.
One of PYM’s former leaders, Yara Shoufani (who currently serves as the president of Canadians for Justice & Peace in the Middle East), has liked and shared posts on social media which we see as defending Palestinian terrorism.
Incredibly, despite the highly problematic nature of the ‘Palestine’ in the Park, including the apparent involvement of the radical PYM group, as well as multiple instances appearing to completely erase Israel’s very existence, the event was not only permitted to take place, but faced no ostensible police action.
Public events that promote the denial of Israel’s existence cannot expect to escape examination simply because they are framed as cultural or community gatherings. But that is precisely what happened. Scandalously, the event received virtually no critical media coverage, where Montreal taxpayers could have been informed about a highly problematic event taking place under their noses.
Beyond the event organizers themselves, ‘Palestine’ in the Park was supported by a broader network of sponsors, partners, and vendors. Montrealers may wish to take note of the businesses that chose to associate themselves with the event and its messaging. Multiple sponsors were listed on the event’s website, including:
- La Station Cafe
- Watany
- Butterfly Krafts
- Zamalek
- Victory Training Center
- Amaken
- Project Laban
- Marche Castel
- The Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain–CSN (CCMM–CSN)
- Équipe Kendi
- Club de Boxe Universel
- Supermarché Mizan
- TriStar Gym
The food vendors listed were:
