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Tobi Lutke has defamed anti-genocide activists and has called for more police action against them.
Tobi Lutke is CEO of Shopify
BUSINESS/CORPORATE
Jews Say No To Genocide response:
Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify, just posted this deeply troubling tweet about the recent pro-Palestine protest at the Eaton Centre in Toronto. We were at this protest. Tobi wasn’t. Let’s talk about how his reckless comments perpetuate harmful lies.
Tobi: comparing advocates for Palestinian liberation to “flat earthers” is not just absurd—it’s a deliberate attempt to trivialize a human rights movement fighting against genocide, apartheid, and occupation. This false equivalency is insulting and harmful.
We were there. This protest wasn’t about “targeting a Jewish-owned business,” a lie you endorsed in your misinformed quote tweet. It was about demanding an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Canada’s complicity, and accountability for war crimes.
You weighed in without knowing the facts, spreading misinformation about peaceful protestors who are advocating for Palestinian lives. Your tweet amplifies harmful lies, fuelling smears against activists standing for justice.
Palestinians and their allies are protesting real atrocities. The under-reported death toll in Gaza likely surpasses 500,000 Palestinians to date. Entire families, including children, have been wiped out. Your tweet erases their humanity.
You claim cities need “safety and decency” but fail to acknowledge that Palestinian supporters are protesting for safety and decency. Safety from Israeli bombs. Decency in the face of Canada’s complicity in this genocide.
What’s indecent is how this country treats pro-Palestinian activists. Peaceful protests are met with smear campaigns, misinformation, police brutality and groundless arrests. And now, you’re joining that effort by mischaracterizing their cause.
Let’s talk about your “law and order” rhetoric. Who benefits from it? Historically, this language has been used to justify suppressing marginalized communities, dissenters, and movements for justice. It’s code for silencing voices you find inconvenient.
You’re also validating unfounded claims about these protests “targeting” Jewish businesses. This is a common tactic used to discredit Palestine advocates and falsely conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Your platform amplifies these harmful lies.
You’re worried about “slipping standards”? Start with your own. As a leader of a major company, your words carry weight. Spreading misinformation and demonizing activists isn’t leadership—it’s reckless.
Instead of scapegoating activists fighting for justice, why not address the root causes of the protests? Canada’s unwavering support for Israel despite its war crimes? The billions of taxpayer dollars funding this violence?
Tobi, your tweet wasn’t just ignorant—it was dangerous. You’ve taken sides by attacking peaceful protestors and aiding efforts to suppress dissent. This is not the leadership Toronto—or the world—needs.
It is not surprising that you would be concerned about the power of economic boycotts. Your personal interest in protecting your and others' financial interests comes at the cost of our Charter protected rights to protest.
History is littered with people like you, people who support the perpetrators of horrendous crimes against humanity as long as they maintain (or increase) profits.
Palestinian liberation is inevitable. And voices like yours, detached from facts and rooted in harmful biases, will not stop it. Educate yourself before you weigh in.
Background on the action at the Eaton Centre, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2SPGdhHErE
Smearing protestors and inciting violence:
The reprehensible act of smearing and inciting violence against pro-Palestinian protesters – even indirectly – represents dangerous attempts to silence advocacy for human rights and suppress criticism of the oppressive policies enacted against the Palestinian people. These unconscionable tactics seek to delegitimize and demonize those standing in solidarity with the struggles against occupation, apartheid, and the denial of self-determination.
By characterizing these demonstrations as violent hate-marches not only serves as an attempt to smear demonstrators in the eyes of the general public but also gaslight them into questioning their own actions. When combined with the false narrative around how these spaces are “unsafe” for Jewish individuals, played up only by inflammatory and incendiary terms like “no go zones” to further divide the movement and block meaningful mass organising between the different pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide and anti-Zionist movements.
This provides a smokescreen to justify forcibly disrupting and violating the fundamental civil liberties of peaceful protestors and conflates lawful expressions of dissent with threats to public order, falsely portraying those decrying injustice as provocateurs and aggressors in need of subjugation by state forces.
This defamatory rhetoric has routinely been deployed by authoritarian regimes throughout history to discredit challengers to their unjust systems of domination and marginalization. By cynically equating criticism of state misconduct with impending chaos, the powerful can recast efforts to hold them accountable as threats to societal stability requiring violent suppression. These divisive strategies are no different to the age-old tactics employed by colonial regimes who label the colonized as terrorists for taking up arms in their quest for liberation.
Those who peddle such dangerous rhetoric against Palestinian activists engage in an obstruction of truth and an assault on the sacrosanct rights of free speech, free assembly and freedom of conscience. They provide ethical and rhetorical cover for the repression of noble grassroots movements born of moral outrage in the face of subjugation and apartheid policies.
This results in the violent suppression of voices by police regimes, a reality we’re already seeing unfold before our very eyes across the global north. While it’s predominantly only extremist individuals committing acts of violence against their peers who are choosing to protest against the active genocide, it’s a worrying trend that should be
Any claims of such demonstrations being “inconvenient” or “not winning any hearts” only demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the core tenets of protests, civil disobedience and the philosophy behind demonstrations. Protests, in their very nature, are intended to disrupt and cause inconvenience, because at the end of the day, they’re a community’s desperate efforts to get their peers to listen, pay attention and take direct action.
By instead ignoring these calls to action and discussing how the protests affect you personally, you not only undermine the wider collective’s efforts but shift focus away from the core goal of saving lives and ensuring equality for all.Defenders of the indefensible find themselves resorting to such duplicitous vilification because they cannot counteract substantive criticism of the injustices and human rights violations they enable through truthful argument and moral reasoning. Smears and incitements become their only available tactics to obfuscate and deflect righteous condemnation.
Those genuinely committed to democratic values and universal human rights must firmly resist such ignoble efforts to denigrate and endanger pro-Palestinian demonstrators. In reality, portraying pro-Palestinian solidarity as an incitement of violence is, in itself, an incitement against the nonviolent civil resistors who represent the continued march toward universal freedom, dignity, and adherence to international law. This vilification of protestors is merely a desperate attempt to preserve an outmoded ethnonationalist order through the weaponization of misinformation and undemocratic physical force.
Tell us why Tobi Lutke (Lütki) should be removed by emailing us at [email protected]
