Opinion

Toronto leaders silent on JDL attacks on pro-Palestinian restaurant

Why the official silence about Toronto’s most powerful extreme right-wing group? Because we live in a political culture where Palestinians lives don’t matter.

Recently an individual with the Jewish Defense League (JDL) was filmed defacing the storefront of the Foodbenders sandwich shop in Toronto in broad daylight. Nothing has happened to the perpetrator but the restaurant has faced negative consequences.

On Sunday JDL thugs held a rally in front of Foodbenders, which has “I Love Gaza” painted on its window. During their hate fest they scrubbed a Palestinian Lives Matter marking from the sidewalk and, similar to what Jewish supremacist settlers do to Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank, someone painted the symbol on the Israeli flag onto the restaurant window. Alongside painting Stars of David on her storefront, Foodbenders’ s owner Kimberly Hawkins has faced a bevy of online abuse. Hawkins has been called a “dirty Palestinian whore” and told “Palestine sucks I will burn your business down” and “I hope your family gets trapped inside the restaurant when it burns.”

The Foodbenders storefront before the JDL attack. (Photo: Twitter)
The Foodbenders storefront before the JDL attack. (Photo: Twitter)

Hawkins has faced these attacks since an Instagram post of hers began circulating last week that stated, “Open Now – 8 PM for non-racist shoppers #Bloordale #Bloorstreet, #Toronto, #Open, #ftp #FreePalestine and #ZionistsNotWelcome.” The police seem to have ignored the whole affair, perhaps because a few weeks earlier Foodbenders was embroiled in a controversy over a sign that read “No Justice, No Peace, F*ck the Police!”

The anti-Palestinian lobby pounced on the #ZionistsNotWelcome hashtag and demanded food delivery services boycott the store. Submitting to the pressure, Uber Eats, Ritual, and DoorDash have cancelled their contract with the restaurant. (While “for non-racist shoppers” and “#ZionistsNotWelcome” are entirely legitimate statements, they are near impossible to enforce and it is questionable to block someone with racist views from purchasing a sandwich, as Hawkins immediately explained.)

The media has all but ignored the JDL’s hate, as have the groups and individuals who claim to monitor the far right in Canada, even at a moment where other similar incidents are receiving widespread condemnation. When individuals have covered or painted over Black Lives Matter symbols the incidents have been widely reported and interpreted as racist. A couple in Contra Costa, California, were charged with a hate crime for painting over a Black Lives Matter marking on the street, and the case received international attention. The Foodbenders case has been ignored.

Over the past decade JDL Toronto has built itself up by aggressively harassing Palestinian solidarity activists. Facebook has banned JDL Canada’s account, classifying it a “dangerous organization”. In 2011 the RCMP launched an investigation against a number of JDL members who were thought to be plotting to bomb Palestine House in Mississauga, and in 2017 JDL Toronto members organized a mob that attacked protesters at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington DC. In the worst incident, a 55-year-old Palestinian-American teacher was punched, kicked and hit with flagpoles. Bruised across his body, Kamal Nayfeh needed 18 stitches around his eye.

In November JDL supporters attacked peaceful pro-Palestinian activists protesting a presentation by Israeli military reservists at York University. One of the victims was reportedly knocked unconscious.

In the US the FBI labeled the JDL a “right-wing terrorist group” in 2001 after its members were convicted in a series of acts of terror, including the killing of the regional director of the American Arab Anti-discrimination Committee and a plot to assassinate a congressman. A member of the JDL’s sister organization in Israel killed 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers in the Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre 20 years ago.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, B’nai B’rith, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and a slew of other politicians have all condemned Foodbenders. Simultaneously, they have ignored the JDL’s racism, further emboldening Toronto’s most powerful far right organization. It seems, for them, Palestinian lives do not matter.

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The photos look like some kind of perverse Kristallnacht

Looks like the anti Palestinian/Arab movement is getting uglier and bolder in Canada, because the leaders in Toronto condone this terrible behavior by keeping mute. They are on track to become just like the US, they have been able to get Trudeau and other leaders to do their bidding. The Israeli lobbies must be quite busy over there too, trying to stuff politicians into their pockets. They were successful here, so why not over there?

If a Palestinian/Arab did the same ugly racist act, the zionist talking heads, and heads of their numerous pro Israeli groups, would be clutching their pearls and whining about anti-semitism, and then they would appeal for funds to “fight anti-semitism”. A winning tactic.