KINSELLA: Online publication targets Jews and the Jewish state

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Meet Davide Mastraccii … Jew hunter?

Kind of seems that way. Mastracci is the opinion editor at something called The Maple, which publishes opinions with titles like these:

– “Israeli Products Should Have No Place In Canada”

– “Genocide By Starvation: Israel And Canada’s Shared Crime”

– “Are Canadian Jews Complicit In Israel’s Genocide In Gaza?”

– “Canadians Should Stand With Iran Against The U.S. And Israel”

And so on – you get the picture.

There are many more such articles on The Maple – federally-incorporated publication – all of which go after Jews and the Jewish state.

Along with his Israel-loathing Maple website, the Montreal-based writer is now a bounty hunter of sorts: he and his friends at The Maple essentially target Jews. Their new website is called “Find IDF Soldiers.” Its obvious goal: name and shame Canadians who allegedly served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

As of today’s date, 163 men and women are named on Mastracci’s website. It links to detailed biographies of those people, describing where they work and live, and even what they do in their spare time. In many cases, Mastracci and The Maple provide hyperlinks to information about those named.

We are not going to link to “Find IDF Soldiers,” however, because it may run afoul of Canadian law. In Canada – unlike in some American states, but like most democratic countries in the world – you cannot offer an incentive to track down individuals because someone thinks they have done something wrong.

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Bounty-hunting, in Canada, can lead to all sorts of legal trouble – charges for assault, battery, kidnapping and criminal harassment. The practice can attract civil liability, too, and result in lawsuits.

Mastracci and The Maple insist they aren’t bounty-hunting. They claim they aren’t doing anything wrong. They say they are only doing it because it “is of interest to the public.”

“This project exists because these soldiers and/or their family members willingly shared their status and other details about their lives with public sources,” they say on the site. “Yes, all of the soldiers on the list are at least partially Jewish, and we have not shied away from acknowledging this fact.”

The website targets Jews who have allegedly served in the IDF, and not any of the many Muslims who have served in it. Why? “(It’s) because Jews are the only ones able to immigrate to Israel as citizens due solely to their ethnoreligious background,” Mastracci and The Maple claim.

Mastracci’s own writing suggests the motivation isn’t nearly so benign. In 2022, he tweeted that Canada should “send weapons to Hamas.”

In 2023, he wrote, “I would 100% prefer living beside a Hamas-supporting Gazan to an average Israeli.”

In 2024, he tweeted that “Zionism has a stranglehold on (Canada’s) political system.”

And, a few weeks ago, he wrote, “I would rather live next to one of the ‘Ayatollah’s people’ than the average Israeli.”

NGO Monitor, an Israel-based group that opposes antisemitism, has reported recently on the “Find IDF Soldiers” website and said it “is one of the forms of legal warfare against Israel in Canada: pursuing individual Israeli soldiers … A central part of this effort is the ongoing collection and dissemination of names and personal information of Jewish Canadians who have served in the IDF.”

NGO Monitor describes The Maple as “an online platform that publishes viciously anti-Israel and antisemitic articles.”

NGO Monitor’s founder Gerald Steinberg says: “The individuals behind this campaign are clearly obsessed by Israel and Jews, while promoting the barbaric Hamas party line. By publishing personal details (including about some who are no longer alive), they are inviting attacks on and endangering the lives of hundreds of people and their families. No decent society should allow such heinous incitement to continue.”

For their part, Mastracci and The Maple aren’t talking. Repeated attempts to get their side of the story went unanswered.

Maybe we should hire a bounty hunter to find them.