September 10, 2002

Outside Netanyahu's speech I attended the pro-Israeli demonstration outside of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appearance in Toronto at the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts. About several hundred people helped show support for Netanyahu’s right to speak out. Most of the people were teens who alternated between singing Jewish songs and chanting pro-Israel slogans. A similar number of Palestinian supporters demonstrated against Netanyahu’s right to free speech. A lot of Toronto police including officers on foot, mounted police and what appeared to be undercover police prevented any repeat of the violence in Montreal that prevented Netanyahu from speaking yesterday. In a nice touch, several times during the night the pro-Israel supporters thanked the police for being there and protecting them. When I arrived at 7pm there were a large number of people waiting to get into the Arts Centre and the 7:30 PM talk reportedly start a half-hour late. I did not see how Netanyahu entered the Centre where he talked to about 1,600 people according to this CTV News story. 11:26:41 PM

The list of Jewish Nobel Prize winners is certainly awe-inspiring. Mona Baker and her gang for academic bigots certainly have a lot of people to boycott. 12:40:48 AM