Project Olive Branch Episode Sparks Outrage
- Rochelle Direnfeld
- Mar 16
- 6 min read
On March 10, episode 2 of a podcast entitled “Project Olive Branch” was posted to Police Constable Farhan Ali’s Toronto Police Service (TPS) endorsed Instagram account, with the handle, “officerfarhan”. PC Farhan Ali, along with PC Haroon Siddiqui are the designated TPS Muslim Community Liaison Officers.
The Project Olive Branch Podcast appears to have been made pursuant to recommendations by the TPS Muslim Community Liaison Officers to Chief Demkiw. The podcast was said to be directed towards combatting Islamophobia, in the aftermath of Hamas’s unprecedented slaughter and kidnapping of Israeli citizens and others on October 7, 2023. I take no issue with the stated goal.
The March 10 podcast however, as most of the GTA Jewish community and its allies now know, included comments by both officers that were not only insensitive and hurtful to the Jewish community but displayed a shocking lack of understanding of contemporary antisemitism by two officers who, given their roles and responsibilities, should have known better.
The offensive comments were as follows (I am paraphrasing):
1. An observation by PC Ali that it is Islamophobic for “someone” to call a “Palestinian” rally a “Hamas” rally when those protestors are there for an entirely different reason (i.e. not to support Hamas) and they are falsely labelled as supporting a terrorist designated entity.
It is undeniably true that the mere expression of “pro-Palestinian views” or views that subject Israel to the same type of criticism directed at other countries is neither antisemitic nor deserving of being labelled as pro-Hamas. However, PC Ali’s observation appears to maintain an unqualified assertion that none of the protestors we have seen and continue to see on Toronto streets are supportive of Hamas or other terrorist designated entities.
He ignores the tsunami of antisemitic hate speech and celebrations of Hamas’s terror activities that all too frequently have taken place on the streets of Toronto and elsewhere in Canada since October 7, 2023.
Some examples include: the glorification of Hamas and its former leader and architect of the October 7 massacre, Yaya Sinwar; the overt use of terrorist signs and symbols; the reenactment of the death of Sinwar in his chair; the display of the inverted red triangle; the flying of Hamas and other designated terrorist entities’ flags; calls for “death to all Zionists”; calling all Zionists, without distinction, “racist, genocidal or evil”; calls to “globalize the intifada, especially when coupled with “by any means necessary.”; chants that celebrate October 7; and entreaties to the Houthis to “make us proud”.
Rather than a blanket exculpatory declaration about all such protests, I would have expected PC Ali and PC Siddiqui to have appreciated the danger associated with such commentary. Are these officers even aware of what complaints are under investigation, or what charges are pending that might be related to protests?
It is the duty and responsibility of the Hate Crime Unit officers as well as the Hate Crime Working Group prosecutors to evaluate whether individual protests involve protected speech or hate speech. I was a member of the Hate Crime Working Group for almost six years. Unhelpful commentary (especially by members of the TPS) on incidents that may be or are the subject of an investigation do not assist in the pursuit of justice and casts doubt on the ability of those responsible for the investigation and prosecution of these very serious offences to fulfil their responsibilities in a balanced way.
2. An observation by PC Siddiqui that, “through social media, after October 7, 2023, a lot of people started learning about Islam.” And, as a result, there have been a lot of “reverts” to Islam. As a result of October 7, 2023, people are asking, “why is this religion so hated?”, so they are educating themselves about Islam and thereafter, reverting to Islam; “the amount of people reverting to Islam is unbelievable…”
It is beyond comprehension that PC Siddiqui would be oblivious to the hurtfulness of the above statements and that he would, in effect, boast that the pogrom of October 7, 2023; the worst massacre of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust somehow inspired people to convert to Islam. The Muslim and Jewish communities share a common humanity. Right-thinking people in both communities are hurting and are in pain. I would expect community liaison officers to be sensitive to these dynamics, rather than feed destructive narratives.
The circulation of this podcast represents a significant failure of the Toronto Police Service. Chief Demkiw has acknowledged the hurt and insensitivity to the Jewish community as a result and has publicly apologized. He has ordered the offending episode be removed from PC Ali’s Instagram account and he has suspended all social media of all TPS community liaison officers pending a thorough review of TPS procedures and content to ensure it “aligns with our commitment to respectful and inclusive engagement, while maintaining impartiality”.ⁱ
We at ALCCA have also spoken with the TPS and have been advised that the above review is already underway. We were also advised, despite the misleading content of episode 1, that neither PC Siddiqui nor PC Ali were involved in the development of the mandatory TPS Islamophobia training, “Foundations of Islam & Addressing Islamophobia” e-learning module. Instead, like all TPS training, it was developed by the in-house training team of the Learning Development & Standards section of the Toronto Police College.
This team is comprised of officers with academic expertise in adult education and in the development of training material. As with all TPS training, review and input is provided through community consultation followed by a final review and quality control process before any training is finalized. PC Siddiqui provided a brief course introduction, and the training includes a video of PC Ali speaking about the importance of trusted relationships between police and community in order to encourage reporting of hate crimes. Neither officer contributed to the curriculum.
I would hope that the review the TPS have undertaken will include a thorough review of the training module, “Foundations of Islam & Addressing Islamophobia” to ensure that it aligns with the TPS’s “commitment to respectful and inclusive engagement”. It is also important to note, that antisemitism training is also mandatory for all TPS officers.
The Jewish community and its allies are already wary about the TPS’s commitment to address antisemitism. I understand that the TPS received over a thousand emails/letters of complaint in connection with this podcast. As stated above, the TPS and Chief Demkiw have acknowledged their failure in circulating this podcast.
As a former prosecutor for over 32 years, I worked closely with the TPS. I want them to succeed. In my view, this requires that the Chief and the Toronto Police Service Board take robust steps to restore the community’s confidence in the TPS and its response to antisemitic activities. This includes a policy of zero tolerance for antisemitism and other forms of hatred as well as clear and decisive steps to reverse the normalization of hate in our city.
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Endnotes
i) Post to Toronto Police X account, March 11, 2025.
About the Author
Rochelle Direnfeld is ALCCA’s Senior Criminal Counsel and Chair of its Criminal Law Committee, bringing her extensive legal expertise to the fight against antisemitism.
Rochelle Direnfeld was called to the Ontario bar in 1990 and has served in the Ontario Public Service for over 32 years as an assistant crown attorney, deputy crown attorney, crown counsel, and finally as a deputy director for Toronto Crown Attorneys in the Criminal Law Division of the Ministry of the Attorney General. Rochelle retired from public service at the end of 2023. During her career, Rochelle prosecuted a wide variety of Criminal Code cases in the Ontario Court of Justice, Superior Court of Justice, and the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Rochelle focused a large part of her career on youth criminal justice, developing policy as well as training and lecturing crowns, the defence bar, the judiciary, and the police. Since 2018, Rochelle has been committed to battling hate motivated offences and has sat on the Attorney General’s Hate Crime Working Group, providing legal advice to crown counsel and police on hate crimes. In the aftermath of October 7, Rochelle returned to work with the Hate Crime Working Group at Crown Law Office - Criminal until November 2024.
Beyond her work with ALCCA, Rochelle also serves as vice-chair of the Board of Directors of BOOST Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, a wrap-around agency serving children and youth who have been victims of abuse, as well as their families.