MONTREAL — Pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protesters stood on either side of a line of Montreal police officers and hurled insults at one another Wednesday, blocks away from events taking place at the World Social Forum 2016.
Roughly 10 members of the Jewish Defence League, mostly from Toronto, tried to march to a venue hosting an anti-Israel event and were confronted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
About 10 police officers stood between the two camps as both sides yelled through megaphones.
"Stop murdering Jews!" one man yelled at the group of roughly 40 activists.
"Viva viva Palestina!" they chanted in response.
World Social Forum is an annual conference that is being held in North America for the first time. It brings together left-leaning activists and other international civil society organizations.
Topics of discussion this year include "alternatives facing the capitalist crisis," "workers against neoliberalism," and the "struggle for justice and demilitarization," according to the event's website.
Organizers expected about 15,000 people to attend the conference, which started Tuesday and runs until the weekend.
The event sparked controversy before it began after Jewish groups denounced the large number of events focusing on Israel and promoting the international movement to boycott Israeli products.
Also controversial was an offensive cartoon depicting a Jew with a stereotypical crooked nose on the conference's official website, which was advertising a forum event on how radical Islamic fundamentalism is a Jewish and American plot.
The head of the Jewish Defence League in Canada, Meir Weinstein, said "the conference is riddled with anti-Israel activists and anti-Semitism. It's been condemned by major Jewish organizations and we're here to picket it."
Dan Freeman-Maloy, standing on the pro-Palestinian side, called the Jewish group a "small fascist organization."
"For decades every major international forum deals with the crimes that Israel has committed because of their severity," he said. "Here and across the world there is outrage at the Israeli effort to destroy Palestine."
