Victoria Marches for Palestine, Take Fifty-Seven

155 Palestine supporters rallied at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in Victoria, for the fifty-seventh weekend in a row, to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and accountability for Israel’s war crimes.

Today’s iteration was routine, even as the organisers and participants struggled to counter the nihilistic normalisation of Israel’s atrocities in the region, culminating with the shocking reelection of Donald Trump as president of the United States and the threat of Pierre Poilievre following suit as Prime Minister of Canada next year. The movement could indeed use fresh developments and battles on new fronts.

Well, a new front is indeed forming, as a coalition of advocates led by the Legal Centre for Palestine announced a lawsuit against the federal government for failure to uphold its obligations under the Genocide Convention and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The plaintiffs are making a novel argument under Article 7 of the latter, claiming the Canadian government discriminated against them by denying the evacuation of their relatives to Canada under special measures for the extended families of Gaza residents on spurious grounds.

The marchers once again walked across town attempting to win over bystanders, but the atmosphere among the crowd was as morose as the weather. There were multiple hostile incidents to sour the mood even further, starting of course with the regular pack of Zionists under the lead of Stephen Weatherbe and his newfound friends among addicted freedom convoyers and election denialists, but extending to some boorish individuals met along the way, whose petulance nowadays reaches mind-boggling levels of inanity. That being said, one validly pointed out police officers such as the ones chaperoning the march trained with the very Israel Defence Forces (IDF) we were denouncing.

Those looking for something different than the usual formula may be pleased to learn there will be another march next Saturday at 9am, organised by Independent Jewish Voices Victoria and led by Coast Salish Matriarch Grandma Losah. The march is to start at the Johnson Street Bridge on Wharf Street and end at the Esquimalt office of Lockheed Martin, as part of a national day of action against parts suppliers to the F-35 fighter jet, known to be instrumental in bombing Gaza to oblivion and part of the complaint raised by the Legal Centre for Palestine against the Canadian government.