Students Supporting Israel, Toronto Metropolitan University

"I had organized a private Students Supporting Israel [SSI] event featuring speakers from the Israel Defense Forces. We planned this as an opportunity for open conversation, a chance for students to ask questions and hear first-hand perspectives. It was not a rally or a protest. It was a dialogue, the very kind that universities claim to champion."

"Yet Toronto Metropolitan University had denied our request to host the event on campus three times, citing vague safety concerns. This was in stark contrast to Students for Justice in Palestine [SJP], which continues to host events freely and publicly on campus."

"Out of an abundance of caution, we rented a private room off campus and invited only a few trusted attendees. We thought we had created a safe space. We were wrong."

"Shortly before the event began, a group of SJP-affiliated protesters discovered our location. This masked group stormed the building, chanting 'Free Palestine', 'IDF off our campus' and 'Shame, shame IDF', 'Shame, shame SSI'."

Liat Schwartz, head, SSI group at TMU  

Toronto Metropolitan University campus in downtown Toronto.Kenneth Armstrong/TorontoToday

  

The surprised and shocked members of the Students Support Israel group at TMU, did their best to keep the intruders out of the event, to keep the door secured. One of the masked protesters, a drill bit in hand, used it to smash the glass of the door, and shattered it. Police were called while students continued to attempt to barricade themselves from the masked group shouting invectives. The group of students associated with Students for Justice in Palestine were threatening and violent, at an event that precluded their attendance.

 

This November 5 event shattered the sense of personal security of the Jewish TMU students gathered to attend an information-sharing session in the privacy of a rented venue. The attacking group, all of them masked, all holding iphones and taking videos of the ensuing chaos they had created, sought to intimidate and to deliver the message that they had a right to do whatever they felt, while those they attacked had no right to be there, to be engaged in their own private event.

 

Honest Reporting Canada critique

 

The featured guest speaker for the evening, an American-Israeli reservist was prepared to discuss his personal experiences as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces reserves, while mentioning his background as the nephew of an Israeli man who had been kidnapped and then murdered by the Palestinian terrorist  group Hamas. Instead of an informational session he was faced with an unexpected situation of violent confrontation, hostile threats and a situation that was speedily escalating. He calmly said something to the effect of 'everybody out' and ushered several of the protesters out of the door they had  smashed.

 

When the police arrived they took control of the situation, and faced with a group of violent agitators decided to arrest five who appeared to balk at following police orders to cease and desist. They were charged with illegal entry to a private venue, and a level of criminal activity. The police also were interested in identifying who among them had destroyed the entrance door to the  venue. And eventually they did, charging a sixth person. A 26-year-old charged with assault, forcible entry and two counts of mischief under $5,000.  

 

Anti-Israel activists disrupting a pro-Israel student event at Toronto Metropolitan University, November 5, 2025. (Video screenshot/X)

 

As for the firm but gentle assistance given by the IDF reservist in defenestrating the intruders, many of whom took videos of the kindly act, the Students for Justice in Palestine group lost no time in circulating one of the videos with the caption that an IDF soldier was guilty of 'brutalizing' their (masked and violent) members at an event they had no business being involved with. 

  

 

 

"What TMU must confront now is not just a question of security but of principle. Will the university enforce its own policies fairly? Will it protect all students equally? Ore will it continue to allow intimidation to masquerade as activism?"

"Because when a university denies one group the right to assemble or speak while enabling another to disrupt and destroy, it is no longer neutral, it is complicit."

Liat Schwarts, president, Students Supporting Israel, at Toronto Metropolitan University