Activists with Independent Jewish Voices, a group of anti-Israel Jews, have taken over the entrance to the Confederation Building in Ottawa, where many MPs from various parties have their offices.
The group showed up around 9 a.m. Tuesday to demand a two-way arms embargo against Israel and to call for a ceasefire between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.
Hamas still refuses to release the hostages it has held in captivity since the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre in Israel, which killed an estimated 1,200 and took hundreds more captive.
Parliamentary Protection Services officers began removing activists within the hour.
Footage shared by IJV shows several of the demonstrators being removed from the building by Parliamentary security while singing Jewish religious songs. The organization said over one hundred Jewish-Canadians joined the demonstration.
According to the IJV’s Instagram page, police had arrested 14 demonstrators by 9:45 a.m.
“The Parliamentary Protective Service (PPS) is aware of the situation which took place earlier this morning at the Confederation Building,” a spokesperson for the security unit told True North. “As such, PPS has significantly adjusted its security posture on Parliament Hill and within the Parliamentary Precinct, and is ready to intervene as required.”
The group boasted that NDP MPs Heather McPherson and Matthew Green joined the protest, expressing their support for the movement and reportedly calling for an arms embargo.
Speakers at the event ranged from secular or non-religious Jews to religious Jews against Israel. Rabbi David Mivasair was one of the key speakers, making a religious argument against Israel in its war against Hamas, invoking Jewish teachings on justice and peace.
“Everyone knows what Israel is doing. Everyone sees it. There’s not one single member of parliament that doesn’t know,” Mivasair said. “If they read the Torah, they would know you don’t give weapons to a country committing genocide.”
According to a May survey by York University, 91% of Canadian Jews are Zionists, meaning they believe Jews have a right to a homeland in Israel. Only 3% of Canadian-Jews surveyed said they were anti-Zionist.
During the sit-in, other speakers spoke of Canada as “Turtle Island.”
“Too many of the spiritual leaders in mainstream Jewish institutions are choosing a path of profound destruction and dehumanization, the annihilation of a land and people in the name of alleged Jewish safety. Shame,” one speaker said. “We are here to make another choice, to make it visibly and loudly.”
Since Oct. 7, the largest massacre of Jews since the holocaust, Israel has been attacked by Hamas, Hezbollah, sometimes Ansarallah or the Houthis in Yemen and twice now, the IRGC has directly launched hundreds of missiles at Israel’s iron dome. All of which are listed terrorist entities in Canada.
Hamas, the terrorist group that governs Gaza and the primary benefactor of the proposed arms embargo and ceasefire that IJV is advocating, has slaughtering Jews written into its guiding charter. It calls on the entire Arab world to “vanquish” its supposed “enemy,” the “Jews.”