Written by: Jack Dempster

The Canada Files has recently been forwarded an email from the Toronto District School Board’s Government, Public and Community Relations office to administrators which sought to link student activism in defense of Palestine to antisemitism.

TDSB communications included a link to an article by Warren Kinsella, published on October 28 in the Toronto Sun. The Sun article takes an explicitly Zionist point of view, arguing that “too many students at university, college and high school campuses…have promoted hatred,” specifially mentioning “hundreds of high school students [who] walked out of classes across the Toronto District School Board to wave Palestinian flags and attack the Jewish state.”

The article goes on to attack the TikTok phone app as “a sewer pipe for Jew-hatred…[which] needs to be banned in the West because it has been shown to be a tool used by the Chinese regime to destabilize democracy. It is a real and present danger” which influences “the minds of our youth…with toxic, hateful messaging – messages that are deeply and unabashedly anti-Semitic.”

TDSB students stand up for Palestine

Ever since the October 7th military operation in occupied Palestine, during which Hamas pulled off a stunning military operation against the Israeli regime, the world stage has been convulsed in geopolitical turmoil.

Disgusted by the Zionist counterattack on the besieged Gaza enclave, which has turned into an outright genocide, millions of workers and youth worldwide have demonstrated against the regime. Mass protests have swept the globe, in an anti-imperialist movement which brings to mind comparisons with the demonstrations against the Iraq War twenty years ago.

In contradiction, the world imperialist powers have lined up to support Israel’s so-called “right to defend itself,” which actually means Israel’s right to conduct a war of extermination on occupied Palestinian land.

Taking their cue from the politicians and military-industrial complex, the capitalist media has united in one voice to condemn the Palestinians for having the nerve to struggle against their own deaths and mutilations. This makes total sense for them. The capitalist media is a tool of big business, meant to form consciousness according to the ethics and dictates of the ruling class.

In this political climate, the Toronto District School Board has chosen to share messaging reflecting the political interests of Israel in its occupation of Palestine. This also makes total sense under capitalism, as schools are designed to train up new generations of workers as well as administrators and managers of capitalism. The schools therefore organically reflect the political and moral codes of the capitalist class which funds and runs them. In Canada, that means support to Israel.

TDSB has a sorry history of bowing to the Zionists. In 2021, Desmond Cole reported that “Anti-Palestinian racism thrives at the Toronto District School Board through a regime of silencing,” listing numerous examples, ranging from a student pressured to remove a keffiyeh to a black youth suspended for saying “Free Palestine.” Even back in 2010, the TDSB outright banned Israeli Apartheid Week from school properties.

Yet the youth are not mere automatons. They are capable of social struggle. Back in 2021, students at Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute walked out against incidents of anti-Palestinian discrimination and censorship. That year, Israel killed hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza, provoking a wave of protests worldwide.

On October 26, 2023, students at Toronto-area High Schools including Cedarbrae Collegiate Institute walked out of class, marching down Markham Road and shouting slogans in defense of the Palestinian cause. Students have been provoked into action in part by TDSB statements which have been found to weigh heavily in favour of Israel. There have also been concerns over anti-Palestinian discrimination.

This walkout provoked a denunciation from Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington, who sought to link the student walk-out to anti-Semitism while ratting out a unionized bus driver for supposedly honking. This points to the fact that the Zionist supporters see both the radical student youth as well as unionized labour as threats to their colonial project.

The youth, however, continue to stand up on the right side of history. On November 3, a rally was held outside of Nelson Mandela Park High School, producing bigoted anger from the Zionists. Meanwhile, in institutions of higher learning, walkouts and protests continue, such as ones planned for November 13, despite condemnations from Toronto politicians such as James Pasternak.

Consciousness is changing rapidly, and the youth especially are being radicalized through anti-imperialist struggle. The oppression of youth which is inherent under capitalism, combined with the Toronto region’s heavily mixed and immigrant-derived populations, means that anti-imperialist political causes can often find resonance in these layers of society. Students and champions of Palestine will continue to resist the TDSB’s inculcation of pro-Israel values, even as the capitalist media sneers and mocks them.

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Jack Dempster is a socialist trade unionist and writer based in Toronto, Ontario.

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