WATCH: Police Bring Coffee to Anti-Israel Protesters ‘Blockading’ Toronto Jewish Suburb

Police in Toronto, Canada, were filmed Saturday bringing coffee to anti-Israel protesters who blocked a road in a predominantly Jewish residential neighborhood.

The protest took place on the Avenue Road Bridge of Highway 401, closing a major access point to Armour Heights. Police shut down the junction.

The supportive attitude of police shocked critics who noted that the demonstrators appeared to be trying to intimidate Canadian Jews on the Jewish Sabbath.

It was also sharp contrast to the behavior of police during truckers’ protests two years ago, when protesters were arrested and their supporters’ bank accounts were often frozen.

“They’re blockading a Jewish neighborhood, and it’s not the Hamas thugs that’ll stop you — it’s the cops,” noted Rebel News editor Ezra Levant.

Toronto, like other cities in North America, has been hit by anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests that have shut down major local roads.

On Saturday, for example, a group of protesters in Seattle, Washington, shut down Interstate 5 — a major coastal highway — in the center of the city.

There, too, police decided against taking action. The Seattle Times reported:

A blockade of cars and protesters standing on the freeway, joined by hundreds more people gathered on nearby overpasses, halted northbound lanes of I-5 between Interstate 90 and Mercer Street, causing a 6-mile backup.

Organizers and attendees said they were protesting to draw attention to the increasingly dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to decry American support for Israel’s military campaign. Some held a banner that called on Washington Sen. Patty Murray, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, to support a cease-fire.

…

As demonstrators blocked freeway traffic Saturday, Seattle police and the Washington State Patrol descended onto I-5, but they did not move in to physically disperse the group or make arrests.

However, the Toronto protest specifically appears to have targeted the Jewish community — and saw a unique level of support for the demonstrators by members of law enforcement.

A Jewish-owned grocery store in Toronto was set on fire last week in an apparent antisemitic attack.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Photo: file