The appeal of a political slogan like "Free Palestine" is that it requires nothing of you: no explanation of what it means, no advocacy for a particular political solution, just the warm rush of righteous indignation. Who among these shop owners are considering the actual means necessary to attain such a lofty goal? My guess is few if any. Consider this: if it's possible for a person to advocate Black Lives Matter without necessarily thinking that All Cops Are Bastards, then it's possible that one could put up a Free Palestine sign without intending it to deride Jews. When you live in a country as peaceful and prosperous as Canada, you can easily forget how complicated and cruel the world can be, fooling yourself that solutions can come from comforting platitudes.
Maybe normies piling into a community normalizes it and stops the slogans from meaning the thing the activists started out meaning. Music is dead these days thanks to streaming and the 2000s era major record label consumption of punk/emo/metal/hip-hop, so normies need something new to ruin! Give them political causes I'm not thrilled about!
Every time I see a "Free Palestine" sign I have the same urge to ask a bunch of follow up questions (and yes, start to feel like a complete crazy person, in the way you describe). If I *knew* these people weren't cool with Israel existing it'd be one thing, but constantly wondering do they/don't they is weirdly more annoying.
YES. It’s the ambiguity! If I were someone who was in fact far-right on these matters and found every permutation of Free Palestine objectionable then I could just be mad at it. But I don’t know what’s being said, nor perhaps do those saying it.
Maybe offering these same places an anti-antisemitism poster or a two-state solution poster and seeing how many post them side-by-side would make things clearer.
when they say "free Palestine" it's like saying "From the river to the sea Palestine will be free." And yes it means Jewish genocide or a judenrein Land of Israel. I wrote this years ago:
I understand your frustration and disappointment with your community. I understand the sense of betrayal - and yes, that group has no peace on the agenda.
You have a great family and home and career and people behind you. I assume you have talked with your husband about your feelings and thoughts. I believe eventually they will remove the sign, and you'll get through this.
Whenever I see “Free Palestine!” or “Free Gaza” scrawled somewhere, I’m tempted to write just underneath it “…with the purchase of one Two State Solution” :-)
I’ve tried to think what the clarion call to support Israel in these neighborhoods would look like: “Bring The Hostages Home” is about it, otherwise it’s some form of Hamas bashing, which is accurate (and thank you VP Harris for making that point so directly tonight), but not a “freedom” inspiring message.
So we’re left with the facts on the ground, which is that Israel is a grown-up country that can make its own decisions about what it thinks it needs to do to defend itself, and a few posters won’t change that. But that’s cold comfort to those of us who thought we were among allies in this regard (and maddening that any alternative is even spoken, much less one that doesn’t put half of our population at even greater risk).
It appears that someone, could be one or two people, went shop to shop asking the owners to put the sign up. Something that often happens during election campaigns; you'll almost exclusively see Gord Perks and NDP/Butila signs in that area (that's municipal and provincial; federal MP is a Liberal and the Justice Minister so probably not super grassroots active in the constituency). Now, the NDP has a few very ardent activist groups in Parkdale-High Park, and I expect this comes from one of those groups. Is there are Roncesvalles Business Association or something? Could have come from a meeting of that kind. Another Story, as I'm sure you've noticed, is very ideological and right-on, so some of the activism is spilling from there and their book/social justice events. Original owner of AS was a very pro-Palestinian lefty Jewish lady, Sheila Koffman, who was well regarded in the neighbourhood.
I've met a person the other night at a garden party who lives in Riverdale and whose neighbour complained to their mutual landlord about their own Free Palestine sign on the common-space lawn. This is progressive WASPs (Americans, as it happens!) with no connection in the region, but they know a friend of a friend who's Palestinian etc. and were very upset that the neighbour wasn't on board with their politics. I reminded her that same will happen during the election, with various people putting up various signs on common lawns and landlord reasserting his/her right to remove them all. Windows, on the other hand, you can put anything in. She said she'd put a massive sign in the window. It was touching to me that she was shocked and offended that someone else had different politics to hers.
This will be cold comfort, I'm sure, but at least those messages are printed on paper. In my Oakland, California, neighborhood the ubiquitous FREE PALESTINE is almost always scrawled in spray paint across a bus bench, public building, or even a designated historical landmark. As a friend of mine said with a sigh, it's a crazy-ass time to be a Jew.
Oh we have so very much of this as well and have for nearly a year at this point! Flyers on every lamppost and graffiti on all possible surfaces, some with generic messages others more violent ones towards “Zionists.” The genteel printed shop signs are a relatively new addition.
I'm so used to the pablum statement stickers and signs from the Vegandale era of Parkdale and Roncesvalles, or just dating people in Toronto during the 2010s so it's surprising that it took this long for every store to get colonized by stickers for this particular fad.
We're planning on moving back to the neighbourhood and I'm kind of looking forward to the quaint, effort-free luxury beliefs of people with no skin in the game and too much time on their hands.
The appeal of a political slogan like "Free Palestine" is that it requires nothing of you: no explanation of what it means, no advocacy for a particular political solution, just the warm rush of righteous indignation. Who among these shop owners are considering the actual means necessary to attain such a lofty goal? My guess is few if any. Consider this: if it's possible for a person to advocate Black Lives Matter without necessarily thinking that All Cops Are Bastards, then it's possible that one could put up a Free Palestine sign without intending it to deride Jews. When you live in a country as peaceful and prosperous as Canada, you can easily forget how complicated and cruel the world can be, fooling yourself that solutions can come from comforting platitudes.
Maybe normies piling into a community normalizes it and stops the slogans from meaning the thing the activists started out meaning. Music is dead these days thanks to streaming and the 2000s era major record label consumption of punk/emo/metal/hip-hop, so normies need something new to ruin! Give them political causes I'm not thrilled about!
Every time I see a "Free Palestine" sign I have the same urge to ask a bunch of follow up questions (and yes, start to feel like a complete crazy person, in the way you describe). If I *knew* these people weren't cool with Israel existing it'd be one thing, but constantly wondering do they/don't they is weirdly more annoying.
YES. It’s the ambiguity! If I were someone who was in fact far-right on these matters and found every permutation of Free Palestine objectionable then I could just be mad at it. But I don’t know what’s being said, nor perhaps do those saying it.
Oh for sure most of them don’t have any idea what’s being suggested. Hell, the ppl who made the signs might not even know.
Maybe offering these same places an anti-antisemitism poster or a two-state solution poster and seeing how many post them side-by-side would make things clearer.
when they say "free Palestine" it's like saying "From the river to the sea Palestine will be free." And yes it means Jewish genocide or a judenrein Land of Israel. I wrote this years ago:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/from-the-river-to-the-sea/
I understand your frustration and disappointment with your community. I understand the sense of betrayal - and yes, that group has no peace on the agenda.
You have a great family and home and career and people behind you. I assume you have talked with your husband about your feelings and thoughts. I believe eventually they will remove the sign, and you'll get through this.
Whenever I see “Free Palestine!” or “Free Gaza” scrawled somewhere, I’m tempted to write just underneath it “…with the purchase of one Two State Solution” :-)
I’ve tried to think what the clarion call to support Israel in these neighborhoods would look like: “Bring The Hostages Home” is about it, otherwise it’s some form of Hamas bashing, which is accurate (and thank you VP Harris for making that point so directly tonight), but not a “freedom” inspiring message.
So we’re left with the facts on the ground, which is that Israel is a grown-up country that can make its own decisions about what it thinks it needs to do to defend itself, and a few posters won’t change that. But that’s cold comfort to those of us who thought we were among allies in this regard (and maddening that any alternative is even spoken, much less one that doesn’t put half of our population at even greater risk).
It appears that someone, could be one or two people, went shop to shop asking the owners to put the sign up. Something that often happens during election campaigns; you'll almost exclusively see Gord Perks and NDP/Butila signs in that area (that's municipal and provincial; federal MP is a Liberal and the Justice Minister so probably not super grassroots active in the constituency). Now, the NDP has a few very ardent activist groups in Parkdale-High Park, and I expect this comes from one of those groups. Is there are Roncesvalles Business Association or something? Could have come from a meeting of that kind. Another Story, as I'm sure you've noticed, is very ideological and right-on, so some of the activism is spilling from there and their book/social justice events. Original owner of AS was a very pro-Palestinian lefty Jewish lady, Sheila Koffman, who was well regarded in the neighbourhood.
I've met a person the other night at a garden party who lives in Riverdale and whose neighbour complained to their mutual landlord about their own Free Palestine sign on the common-space lawn. This is progressive WASPs (Americans, as it happens!) with no connection in the region, but they know a friend of a friend who's Palestinian etc. and were very upset that the neighbour wasn't on board with their politics. I reminded her that same will happen during the election, with various people putting up various signs on common lawns and landlord reasserting his/her right to remove them all. Windows, on the other hand, you can put anything in. She said she'd put a massive sign in the window. It was touching to me that she was shocked and offended that someone else had different politics to hers.
This will be cold comfort, I'm sure, but at least those messages are printed on paper. In my Oakland, California, neighborhood the ubiquitous FREE PALESTINE is almost always scrawled in spray paint across a bus bench, public building, or even a designated historical landmark. As a friend of mine said with a sigh, it's a crazy-ass time to be a Jew.
Oh we have so very much of this as well and have for nearly a year at this point! Flyers on every lamppost and graffiti on all possible surfaces, some with generic messages others more violent ones towards “Zionists.” The genteel printed shop signs are a relatively new addition.
We don't have any of that mess out here in Llano, Texas. Try that in a small town...
I guess this trend is the newer hipper variant of the Nicene Creed trend from a few years ago: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1006924092/in-this-house-we-believe-lawn-sign
But I think we'd all get along better if strangers in public would follow Johnny Cash's advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz9zXgMzvJM
I prefer this sign, personally
https://www.etsy.com/listing/942103050/yard-sign-bold-in-this-house-we-believe?
I'm so used to the pablum statement stickers and signs from the Vegandale era of Parkdale and Roncesvalles, or just dating people in Toronto during the 2010s so it's surprising that it took this long for every store to get colonized by stickers for this particular fad.
We're planning on moving back to the neighbourhood and I'm kind of looking forward to the quaint, effort-free luxury beliefs of people with no skin in the game and too much time on their hands.
I get the "am I a lunatic?" vibe though.