An image of Foodbenders, located in Toronto, Ontario. (Image Credit: Spring Magazine/Google Images)

Written by: Stephen Ellis

Content Warning: this article references foul / threatening language used by supporters of Israel.

There are moments in a person’s life which stand out more than others. Assisting Kim Hawkins, owner of Foodbenders, against the mendacious, vindictive, and violent agents of the Israeli state certainly qualifies. This is an insider’s look at an organized smear campaign designed to destroy the reputation and livelihood of a person who showed sympathy to the Palestinian people. As the lawyer for Foodbenders and an activist, I share this so we can better understand the forces lined up against the Palestine solidarity movement.

This article is about the activities of the Israel lobby. By the Israel lobby, I mean the handful of the usual activist organizations, as well their friends in the mainstream media and government. They are political actors who consistently and consciously act to protect the interests of the Israeli apartheid state, shielding it from critics and advancing its political, economic and diplomatic interests wherever and whenever possible.

Foodbenders draws Zionist ire

As you might remember, by the time Fall 2020 rolled around, the Israel lobby had already lost its collective mind about Foodbenders. Found among thousands of other hashtags on its Instagram page was #zionistsnotwelcome.

The June 6, 2020 hashtag, posted at a time when Israel was threatening to annex large chunks of the Palestinian West Bank, prompted the usual cynical charges of “anti-Semitism” from the shrill, wind-up dolls of the Israel lobby.

This lobby, B’nai Brith Canada, The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal, and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), along with their cousins from the Jewish Defence League (JDL), led the charge alleging “anti-Semitism” “pro-terrorism” and “full-blown Jew hatred”. Meir Weinstein made Foodbenders his pet project, exhorting his JDL followers to “visit” the restaurant and shut it down “by any means necessary”.

On July 8, 2020, then-conservative MPP, Roman Baber openly called on the City to investigate Foodbenders for violating the anti-discrimination provisions of City bylaws. And on cue, politicians fell into the line set by Israeli apartheid apologists, and denounced Foodbenders. This included: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor John Tory.

The summer of 2020 saw Foodbenders regularly vandalized and Hawkins herself faced serious threats to her personal safety on an almost daily basis. Criminals sent her violent porn images, threatening her with rape and death. Messages like “BURN BITCH BURN;” “Muslim loving cunt” and “dirty Palestinian whore” were common.

The lobby also exhorted their constituencies to contact politicians, put pressure on the store’s food delivery partners, and petitioned the City of Toronto to revoke its business license.

Then, on July 10, 2020, far-right Toronto Sun columnist, Sue-Ann Levy, informed the world that someone named Elena Aschkenasi had filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO). On July 22, 2020, a full twelve days later, Foodbenders was officially notified of the complaint. Curiously, this would not be the first time the Israel lobby had an inside track on matters involving this prosecution.

Rumours of a municipal investigation began to swirl ; and like clockwork, City investigators began to investigate alleged “denials of service” at the store. Just like in July, Foodbenders learned about the municipal bylaw charges from the Israel lobby – this time from B’nai Brith. On November 5, 2020, a full week later, Foodbenders received the summons to appear in court. In a twisted way, it almost seemed apt that the Israel lobby itself, and not the provincial government, provided notice of the municipal charges, given its role in orchestrating the prosecution of Foodbenders.

The pretext

The first “denial of service” charge the City of Toronto brought against Foodbenders evaporated in the months before trial. It involved a woman named Bluma Heimlich who claimed she went to Foodbenders (the exact day she could not remember) and tried to order a coffee. When she advised she was from Israel, someone from the store yelled at her and told her to leave. Apparently, she felt strong enough about this “incident” to file a complaint with the City, but not to go to trial to defend her allegation. She ultimately withdrew her complaint.

In the second matter, the City of Toronto charge alleged the following scenario: On July 5, 2020, Dr. Gordon Arbess, a Jewish Torontonian, and his son, Josh Arbess, went to Foodbenders and were denied service on the basis of creed, namely, of his being a Zionist. From a legal standpoint, this would require a court to find two things, that:

(a) Arbess and his son were denied service on the basis of their being Zionists

(b) Zionism, as a political ideology, can be viewed as a “creed” for the purposes of the City bylaw.

This was a serious enough charge that, if found guilty, Hawkins could have lost her business license and faced a penalty of up to $50,000.00.

In his initial interview with the City of Toronto, Arbess claimed that after he told the cashier that he was both Jewish and a Zionist, he then asked if he and his son would be welcome to shop at Foodbenders. Arbess then told the investigator, “And the woman [cashier] indicated that we were not welcome, that we were aggressors and that there was only such thing as a one state solution and that did not involve Israel. So that was the start of our conversation.”

A very compelling story indeed. The only problem was that it was not true.

At trial, Arbess conceded that there was actually no outright statement denying him and his son service on that day, contradicting his earlier statement to City bylaw investigators. He did however testify that he inferred a denial of service to him and his son, from the cashier’s reported support for a one-state solution in historic Palestine.

Curiously, his son Josh Arbess, who was also actively present that day, did not provide a statement to investigators nor did he participate in the trial.

Arbess stated that following the “incident” he had followed the B’nai Brith “action plan,” coincidentally appearing online on the same day, and called 311 to send in his discrimination complaint to the City.

Coverage of Foodbenders’ latest “sin” against the local Jewish community was predictably wall to wall, and more feverishly so, in the Zionist press. Pro-Israel provocateurs like Sue-Ann Levy gleefully contemplated the City throwing the book at Hawkins. All told, Levy had obsessively written more than a dozen articles on Foodbenders. But in a world where fealty to apartheid Israel has all but taken the form of a legal requirement, the fact that there was no actual denial or service mattered very little in this cynical fairy tale.

On November 15, 2021, the City of Toronto, driven on by Canada’s Israel lobby, lost its case against Foodbenders. And then, silence. A notice of appeal was sent to me today, indicating that the City of Toronto has not given up on wanting to punish Hawkins.

Outcome and balance sheet

Months after this began, it is clear that the outcome of this trial mattered very little to the lobby. Like any good publicity stunt, the facts mattered very little. For the lobby, smearing Foodbenders was a win-win scenario. If they win the trumped-up case, so much the better. Should they lose, well, the damage had been done.

Lessons

The Israel lobby is influential, cynical, and dangerous. In their quest to defend apartheid Israel and shield it from all scrutiny, it will attempt to destroy anyone who stands up for Palestinians. Witness what happened in November 2019, when #gazaunderattack appeared on the Foodbenders store window. The lobby went into attack mode and never forgave Hawkins for acknowledging the oppression of Palestinians.

Remember the shameless assault on Javier Davila and Desmond Cole, the heartless attack on Lama Aggad, the Azarova scandal, the slander of high school students who support a Free Palestine or the University of Toronto students who took a stand on the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement. These are just examples from the past six months. The litany goes on, and on and on and on.

When you defend a criminal system, unscrupulous means are predictably employed. The mere suggestion that Palestinians ought to enjoy human rights like the rest of humanity will land you in their crosshairs, just as sure as day follows night.

In Palestine, resistance to apartheid may get you killed. In Canada, support for the Palestinian cause will get you fired, marginalized, harassed, or terrorized. The case of Professor David Miller clearly illustrates the price to be paid when standing up for Palestine. It is without doubt, a most virulent strain of McCarthyism. As experience has shown, it is a phenomenon endorsed by the political class at all levels. Zionism is a project with many nefarious dimensions; the attack on Palestine solidarity locally is just one piece of a very violent puzzle.

Impunity and resistance

With that sobering analysis out of the way, it should be said that this is only half of the story. Victims of Zionist repression also fight back. High school students at Marc Garneau Collegiate walked out of class to support anti-racist educator Javier Davila. Author and black activist, Desmond Cole, also showed important solidarity.

Both Dimitri Lascaris and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) filed lawsuits against B’nai Brith in response to their vile and unconscionable smears of “support for terrorism”.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) led a successful censure campaign against the University of Toronto following a tax judges’ blatant political interference in the hiring of a program director at its law school.

Finally, Hawkins stood her ground and gained an initial victory against the lobby when they tried to smear her, fine her, and take her business license away. I believe firmly that this victory will be cemented by the decision in relation to the appeal filed by the City of Toronto.

For decades, the Israel lobby in Canada has carried on the business of destroying lives with impunity. Those days are over. Pro-Palestine activists will not stand idly by while the lobby’s well-dressed thugs attempt to destroy them or their colleagues.

Over the past year and a half, the lobby has tried to destroy Kim Hawkins. They have failed. They have filed suit after suit after suit after suit. But she will persevere. She will persevere not just because she has courage, but because our community will not allow one of our own to fall. An injury to one is, as a matter of survival, an injury to all. If the past few years has shown us anything, it is that solidarity can defeat the lobby.

The City of Toronto’s bogus discrimination charges failed at the first attempt, but Hawkins now faces an appeal on the dismissal of these same charges, and three additional legal proceedings directly related to her act of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Two cases at the HRTO, a defamation case from a former IDF soldier and a lawsuit against the remnants of the extremist JDL.

Please consider sending her a donation to her legal fund so she can carry on this fight. This is not just her fight. It’s ours collectively. Solidarity can defeat Zionism both at home and abroad. Let’s carry this battle to the next level.

Please send any donation to palilegalfund@gmail.com

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Stephen Ellis is a Toronto lawyer with the newly-formed Legal Centre for Palestine. Anyone interested in helping in the legal fight against the Israeli Apartheid lobby are invited to visit lcpal.ca.

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