On Wednesday, Nov. 5, an event titled “Combat on College” featuring two Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers was scheduled to happen at a hypnosis clinic located at Elm St. and Bay St. The business, which is unaffiliated with the event, had been rented out through an app by the Students Supporting Israel (SSI) group from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU).
This was at least the second time this year the group had brought IDF soldiers to speak in Toronto, the last time being in April.
Those who oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza have spoken out against these events, arguing that platforming IDF soldiers is completely unacceptable in the midst of a genocide and calling for Canada to investigate IDF soldiers here for war crimes and to ban them from entering the country.
However, much mainstream coverage used sensational language and omitted significant details, creating a narrative demonizing the pro-Palestine crowd. Here, we look in detail at what really happened.
How the disruption unfolded
On Nov. 5, several pro-Palestine groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine at Toronto Metropolitan University (SJP @ TMU), posted to Instagram calling on people to protest the event.
When people opposing the event arrived at the hypnosis clinic, they found the doors unlocked and no security blocking their entry, an SJP representative tells The Grind. The hours of operation of the clinic indicate that the business would be open at that time.
Those planning to attend the event to hear the IDF soldiers speak were arriving around the same time. One SSI member told the National Post that she was pushed to the ground outside the building while trying to get inside, though there is no video of this. She says she later experienced a stress seizure and went to hospital.
Five or six people opposing the event were able to get into the hypnosis clinic, wearing keffiyehs and masks. They chanted pro-Palestine messages and called the IDF soldiers “baby killers.”
Over 1,000 babies (under one year old) in Gaza have been killed by Israel since Oct. 7, 2023.
According to video and statements from SJP, one of the IDF soldiers, Jonathan Karten, told the disrupters, “You’re being fucking brainwashed” and “It’s not a genocide! I was there!” The other soldier, Chanoch Eli Berman, Chief Operating Officer of tech company BuzzztechUSA, can be heard on video calling them “sharmutas,” the Arabic word for “whore.”
A video posted by SSI shows Karten, event attendees and organizers in an interior room of the clinic which was set up for the talk with at least two people protesting the event.
Karten had locked these people inside the event space, which also prevented others from entering, according to SJP and corroborated by the videos.
At some point in the video, a tall individual appears to break the glass of the locked door, either from inside or outside the room.
SSI claimed one of the protesters broke the window using a drill bit, which was found in the clinic afterwards, and Karten said they “broke through the glass door and charged at us,” adding that “one came at me with a drill bit.”
As pointed out by Toronto journalist Samira Mohyeddin, one of Karten’s supporters posted an Instagram story on Nov. 7 or 8, saying Karten broke the window, which Karten then reposted, further confusing the narrative.
After the window was broken, Karten is seen in the video lunging towards the person by the busted door, pushing them through while there is broken glass still attached to the sides.
In a video posted by SSI, one of the SSI organizers appears to be yelling at Karten “Jonathan, stop!” while also telling the protesters to leave and instructing someone to call 911.
Much was made by SSI and others about how Karten was cut in the arm, in some instances insinuating his arm was cut by the protesters. But there is no indication from any of the videos that he was attacked, only that he likely cut his arm on the broken glass of the doorway as he went back and forth through it on his own.
On Sunday, Nov. 9, Karten’s story about the broken glass changed again. In a video posted by Karten and the international SSI movement, he says “eventually the terrorists managed to push through the glass, shattering the door” that he had used to lock the students inside. Karten goes on to say that “fearing for the safety of the people inside, I jumped through to stop any additional violence.”
It is at this point that Karten gets violent.
Karten grabs and throws people into stairway
After going back into the event room, another video shows Karten telling someone: “Now I’m going to physically remove them from the premises.”
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He then turns around and shoves two women over some furniture and then out through the broken doorway into the lobby of the clinic. While this is happening, a student is yelling at him: “You locked them in the room, you’re not allowed to touch them! You’re not allowed to touch them! Assault!”
Once in the clinic lobby, Karten grabs the five people, one by one, and throws them through the doorway of the clinic into a stairway. Cries of “No!” and “Oh, my God!” can be heard from the students.
SJP says several people were seriously injured in the process and had to be treated by medical professionals.
After throwing people out, the video shows Karten instructing event organizers and others in the clinic to barricade the door. Protesters then chant and bang on the reinforced window.
Toronto police arrived soon after. SJP tells The Grind in a statement, “We told [the police] five people had just been assaulted, and they didn’t respond beyond telling us ‘You’re not welcome in this building anymore.’ We started exiting the building to de-escalate the situation when they started pushing us down the stairs.”
A third video shows police pushing people away from the entrance of the building, with Karten trying to direct police.
It was at that point, as the police began to use their batons, that the crowd decided to leave the area to de-escalate the situation, SJP tells The Grind. Many of them walked several blocks and then downstairs into the College TTC subway station.
“A dozen cops followed us into the station, and the trains stopped running,” according to SJP. “Toronto police started pushing people towards the gates and shoving people against the walls. When some of us asked for their badge numbers, they got more violent and at least a dozen more [officers] flooded in. They started arresting whoever was closest to them while people tried to get away.”
Toronto Police Services Chief Myron Demkiw mentioned the disruption the next day at a police board meeting, tying it to “rising incidents of hate, and in particular incidents of antisemitism,” without mentioning the event was protesting IDF soldiers.
Toronto police did not respond to The Grind’s request for comment.
Criminal charges for alleged event disrupters, not for Karten
Five of the protesters were charged with crimes, including forcible entry, unlawful assembly, obstruction of a peace officer, and assault of a peace officer. The charges have not been heard in court.
The additional video of Karten throwing people out of the clinic has led some to call for his arrest as well. Karten has not been charged, and may no longer be in the country.
When someone grabs and throws other people to the ground, the police have the discretion to lay charges, such as assault. In the Canadian Criminal Code, a defence against those charges is to claim self defence, such as when there is a violent trespasser. But to use that defence, only the minimal reasonable force can be used.
The determination around whether physical force is reasonable comes down to whether “force is being used against them or another person or that a threat of force is being made against them or another person.”
No one was seen trying to attack Karten in the videos. In every instance, protesters are seen standing around, sometimes chanting. Karten has claimed he was assaulted.
Karten was also not the property owner and it does not appear he was acting on the instruction of the owner of the hypnosis clinic to remove trespassers.
Neither Karten, Berman nor SSI responded to The Grind’s requests for comment for this story.
Who is IDF soldier Jonathan Karten?
Karten has served on and off in the IDF for about 10 years, according to his Instagram posts, and on LinkedIn he lists New York City as his home. He posted several times in IDF uniform during Israel’s genocide in Gaza, often posing with a machine gun.
He often speaks about how his uncle was killed by Hamas in the 1990s.
Karten made waves in 2019 for filing a complaint against Columbia University, with support from the pro-Israel Lawfare Project, claiming he was discriminated against while he was a student. In one example of alleged discrimination, he says a professor yelled at him on campus to say that Karten was a member of Mossad, the Israeli spy agency.
Karten is currently listed as a partner of Awz Ventures, the Canada-based military tech company closely tied to the Israeli military, and which also lists former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a partner.
Media coverage
Following the incident, social media posts and articles quickly emerged, many suggesting the event was targeted just because Israelis or Jews were gathering speaking, burying the fact that IDF soldiers were speaking. Here are a few of the headlines from national and international outlets.
Toronto Sun: 5 charged after pro-Israel student event at TMU attacked by masked mob
Toronto Star: Five people arrested after protesters reportedly force their way into TMU off-campus event
National Post: Jewish TMU student says Toronto event disrupted by anti-Israel protesters was a nightmare
The Ben Mulroney Show on Global News Radio: Olivia Chow must take responsibility for attack on Jewish students at Toronto university
Canadian Jewish News: Five arrested after violent attack at TMU event featuring Israeli soldiers
Fox News: Violent mob attacks pro-Israel gathering in Toronto days after mayor’s ‘genocide in Gaza’ remarks
Jerusalem Post: Anti-Israel activists storm Toronto student event with IDF veterans, one wounded
Times of Israel: Pro-Israel event at Toronto university ‘stormed’ by activists
After those articles had come out and additional video was released on Nov. 7, some local outlets covered the fact of Karten throwing people through the doorway:
Toronto Today: Activists raise concern after video shows former Israeli soldier shoving, pushing student protesters
CP24: New video from protest shows Israeli soldier assaulting students
This is not the first time pro-Palestine activists in Toronto have been framed initially as dangerous and then new details have significantly changed the story. In 2024, politicians at all levels vilified a protest that briefly stopped outside Mount Sinai Hospital as hateful. In 2021, Toronto Mayor John Tory and Ontario Premier Doug Ford denounced the pro-Palestine side’s involvement in a street scuffle before additional video came out showing that someone on the pro-Israel side had slashed at Palestine supporters with a knife. In both cases, the pro-Palestine side was demonized and no apologies were offered from senior politicians after new information emerged.
SJP, for their part, posted on Instagram after the recent arrests to say they will not be deterred by “attempts to criminalize those opposing genocide.”
CORRECTION, Nov. 11, 1:25 pm: The originally version of the article stated that the person who may have broken the window was inside the event room. It is unclear from the video whether they were inside or outside the room before the window broke.
CORRECTION, Nov. 18, 12:18 pm: The event name for the IDF soldier’s talk originally contained a small error and has been updated.
