Downtown Kingston was flooded with protesters on Oct. 5 as a march for Palestine took over Princess St.
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights Queen’s (SPHR), a student-led organization advocating for Palestinian human rights, organized a protest at McBurney Park, where approximately 100 people gathered. After meeting at the park at 2 p.m., the group marched down to Princess St. and continued to Market Square, arriving around 3.p.m.
“As we are gathered here today, the Zionist entity continues to escalate its genocide with a carpet bombing of Lebanon for the past two weeks and the continued bombardment of Palestine,” a spokesperson said in their speech.
At McBurney Park, signs were handed out with various messages, some of which read, “Zionists are racist,” “Israel is a terrorist state,” and “QueensU your hands are bloody too,” referring to SPHR and Queen’s University Apartheid Divest’s (QUAD) call for the University to “immediately divest all economic and academic stakes in Israeli Apartheid.”
READ MORE: Pro-Palestine walkout demands Queen’s divest from companies and corporations connected to Israel
The streets were packed with protestors, with the charge being led by two banners reading “From Turtle Island to Palestine we want total liberation land back everywhere,” and “No one is free until we’re all free.”
During their march, the group made multiple stops, including one at McDonald’s at the corner of Clergy St. and Princess St., during which protestors chanted “McDonald’s you can’t hide, you make food for genocide.” Similarly, the protestors made another stop at Starbucks, where protestors referred to their products as “genocide coffee.”
These two boycotts aren’t unique to Kingston, with McDonalds facing criticism for its Israeli locations offering free and discounted meals to Israel Defense Forces (IDF) after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Starbucks is receiving similar treatment after they sued the Starbucks Workers United union for a now-deleted post on X highlighting the union’s support and “Solidarity with Palestine!”
Other chants were said throughout the walk, including “It is right to rebel, Israel burn in hell,” “Up, up, with liberation. Down, down, with occupation,” “Israel bombs, Canada pays, how many kids did you kill today,” and more.
The protestors faced some opposition, with one individual holding up the middle finger to the protest from a restaurant patio, and another waving a large Israeli flag as the protestors walked by.
After the march, protestors gathered behind City Hall in Market Square to listen to speeches from various individuals from SPHR and Queen’s.
Ariel Salzmann was introduced as the sole professor of Middle Eastern history at Queen’s and was one of the speakers at the event where she spoke about the need for action in the region.
“In order to support, we have to realize our fates are intertwined, that Gaza’s fate will be the fate of the world if we don’t do something now,” Salzmann said in her speech.
“From this day, no more apologies. We will never stop fighting, we will fight harder, we will scream louder, and we will make sure the world sees us, hears us, from [the] Patrick Deane’s of the world to Netanyahu’s lapdogs,” an unidentified spokesperson said.
During the speeches, one of the protestors asked for everyone to look up at an unfinished apartment building under construction at Ontario St and Queen St, pointing to a large Palestinian flag that was accompanied by green and red smoke flying at the top of the structure.
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Zedrick Serson
McDonald’s does not do business in occupied Palestine. The entity they’re actually mad at (their Israeli franchisee) no longer exists, having been bought out by corporate. Starbucks also does not do business in occupied Palestine; that boycott is transparently because they dared have a Jewish CEO. I pay $8/year to the Journal and they use it to platform Jew hatred. Shame on you.