No, "S*icide Vests" Obviously Don't Look Like That
Only racism could make someone push something so incredulous
CW: Suicide, child abuse
Every once in a while, in critically covering the news industry, there comes a story that's so obviously wrong it baffles you completely. This happened, most notably on The Catch, with the right-wing meltdown over the new passport design. But we've got a new contender for most self-evidently bullshit narrative pushed by news media: the idea that someone wore something resembling a suicide vest during a pro-Palestine demonstration on Al-Quds day.
The idea that this piece of equipment looked like a "suicide vest" kicked off in earnest when deputy leader for the federal Conservatives, and vicious Zionist, Melissa Lantsman tweeted a picture of an attendee at a rally for Palestine in Toronto. The """"""""vest"""""""" in question is the banner image for this article. As many have pointed out, it's a belt intended to hold several smoke canisters, which were used in the demonstration.
Let's look through some examples of what an actual suicide vest looks like. Here's one, according to the US military.
Here is another example, from a Huffpost article about a 10-year-old girl who was intended to be used as a suicide bomber in 2014.
Some dishonest actors on X (formerly Twitter) have tried to point to similarities between the vest and this particular example of a suicide vest from Inert Products, LLC.
You'll note that his example is a drastically different assortment of wires, metal casing, size and weight compared to the clear belt-like holster of smoke canisters in the original photo. Any vest intended to resemble something like this would have, at the very least, wires connecting each tube.
That said, if you squint and imagine a terrorist, one could understand how someone could jump to that conclusion. But there lies the key to understanding how one could see this holster as an imitation suicide vets: They are imagining terrorists.
Taking that into account alongside these examples, you can clearly see that the belt holding smoke canisters is nowhere fucking close to looking like a suicide bomber vest. These examples took a half-second Google search to find. I refuse to accept that any honest actor truly believes that line.
But that didn't stop the pro-Israel voices in public discourse from running away with the topic. Opportunist Independent MP Kevin Vuong echoed Lantsman's claim, of course. But the moment it trickled into the news media sphere was when Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington felt the need to write a piece defending these outrageous claims. He did this in a way that feels like it was most suited to plausible deniability
In a carefully worded headline that reads "When protesters appear to wear suicide vests, it's a problem [emphasis added]," Warmington immediately opens with some George W. Bush era Islamophobia.
"It looked like something you might see a terrorist wear in a war zone in another part of the world."
No, it didn't.
Warmington then begins to concern troll about the supposed imagery of what "many thought" looked like a suicide vest. He then explains exactly what it is by referring to sources close to the protestor, a Hang Ten Belt for smoke canisters. He then sandwiches that actual, credible explanation with some unsourced claims that some thought it carried ammunition, before saying "whatever it was" had no place in Toronto.
No one has ever seriously thought the belt looked like it held ammo, and "whatever it was" is a hilariously inept way to wrap up this sentiment. We now have the name for the belt, Google and the good sense to directly connect two dots. Truthfully, Warmington must know the belt doesn't look like a suicide vest, or a holster for ammunition, which is why he couches the language in these weasel words.
There's really no use giving any oxygen to the rest of Warmington's article (except for the hilarious line of "It is important for people to remember police officers on the street, and their commanders, are human beings first"). The rest of it is a casserole of right-wing grievances assorted into one singular column in a desperate attempt to act as though pro-Palestine demonstrations are a hotbed of whatever the culture-warrior target de jour entails.
Importantly, this idea is also fundamentally racist. The man wearing the belt is brown and wears a keffiyeh while attending a rally for Palestine. The association of this man with a suicide bomb vest is disgustingly Islamophobic. Especially considering, as established, there are very few similarities between the smoke canister belt with any "suicide vest."
Desperation soaks through every claim by pro-Israel voices on this farce of an issue. This is a distraction tactic. On the day Lantsman made her disingenuous post, it was reported that Israel had killed at least 33,091 Palestinians in direct attacks as well as directly engineering a famine. Additionally, an Israeli investigation found their military "most likely" killed a hostage on Oct. 7. On Al-Quds day, the day of the protest, Al Jazeera published obtained video of Israeli forces killing a Palestinian man collecting aid in northern Gaza. A man with smoke canisters in Toronto provides an easy target to avoid talking about what these protests hope to draw attention to.
It's incredibly difficult to believe that anyone actually falls for this desperate framing. Indeed, it appears as though anyone who pushes this narrative doesn't seriously believe it to be true. But the fact that Toronto's right-wing paper feels the need to publish a column on it shows a desire to have the narrative accepted by their average reader.
In refusing to believe anyone genuinely believes this, I, apparently, have more faith in Toronto Sun readers than the outlet does.
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