Shurat HaDin (SH), an Israeli lawfare organization, is attempting to “shut down” The Maple.
On January 25, SH tweeted that it has “issued urgent legal notices to Stripe, Apple Pay, and all major credit card networks demanding they cut off services” to The Maple.
SH has boasted that its mission is “bankrupting terrorism one lawsuit at a time.” Its activities have included suing UNRWA, a $1 billion lawsuit against Al Jazeera in 2025 and legal challenges against some people and groups who support BDS.
An Israeli media outlet covering the SH campaign reported that the organization has also written to the Toronto Police chief, the Ontario Provincial Police commissioner and Ontario’s attorney general calling for a criminal investigation into The Maple’s journalism and ultimately for “authorities to shut down the site.”
Snippets of this article were sent out in a January 26 newsletter from SH along with donation requests.
On February 4, The Canadian Jewish News reported: “[Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, SH’s founder] hopes that if authorities take a serious look at [The Maple’s] legal status, that could ‘serve as an alert, as a red flag for others’ to caution against similar projects.” She added, “Even opening an investigation brings attention to the website owners, and to others to take a step back and perhaps not to participate. And this is what we [SH] want.”
The Maple has not been contacted by any payment processor or law enforcement agency, nor have we received any formal legal threats of any sort, from anyone.
In 2024, SH tweeted that it “led a Mossad operation against terror money.” In a video clip included with the tweet, Darshan-Leitner told an interviewer: “We were approached by the Israeli Mossad [...] and they said, ‘Let’s collaborate.’ They will give us evidence, they will give us some information, and we’ll expand our activity. [...] We couldn’t do it as private lawyers anymore. We established [SH], Israel Law Center, to lead this fight.”
In 2017, Reuters published an article about SH titled, “Fighting Israel’s foes in U.S. courts, lawyer had help from Mossad.” The article notes that Darshan-Leitner was invited to Mossad headquarters for a consultation, and after that had “regular briefings” with the Israeli intelligence agency, which is responsible for assassinations around the world. Reuters added, “In the closest that the secretive Mossad can come to a public endorsement, its former director provided praise for [a book by Darshan-Leitner] on its cover.”
A 2007 cable from the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv published by WikiLeaks also included claims of SH’s ties with the Israeli state. The cable states: “Leitner said that in many of her cases she receives evidence from GOI [government of Israel] officials, and added that in its early years [SH] took direction from the GOI on which cases to pursue. ‘The National Security Council (NSC) legal office saw the use of civil courts as a way to do things that they are not authorized to do,’ claimed Leitner.”
SH’s website currently features an endorsement from former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, who states that he views the organization as “a true strategic asset to the very security to [sic] the state of Israel.”
The Maple has published a wide range of reporting and analysis articles concerning Israel-Palestine since we were founded as a publication, including breaking stories on Canadian arms sales to Israel, extensive media criticism, investigations into the Israel lobby, and detailed looks at the repression pro-Palestine voices face in the country.
SH’s campaign against The Maple is the latest incident in a nearly year-long effort by pro-Israel forces within Canada and abroad to shut us down and imprison me. The campaign was sparked by my reporting on Canadians who join the Israeli military.
This reporting has included the publication of Find IDF Soldiers, a database consisting of the names and stories of more than 200 Canadians who have joined the Israeli military, the largest such effort of its kind. The database was published in order to help readers learn “more about who Canadians that have joined the Israeli military are, why they made the choice they did, who or what influenced them to do so, what they did while in the military, and how they may feel about it.”
The reporting has also included the publication of GTA to IDF. That database notes that the vast majority of people on the Find IDF Soldiers website were “born and raised in Canada and immigrated to Israel later, sometimes with the express intent of joining its military,” and that, “Some of them have stated that at least part of the reason they did so was because of their experiences at institutions in Canada.” As such, GTA to IDF was created to help readers learn “more about these institutions in the Greater Toronto Area, specifically what they’ve had to say about Israel and its military.”
Davide Mastracci
Both databases are based entirely on public information that was made public by the soldiers and institutions in question. They do not doxx anyone, make any accusations of criminal behaviour or call for any sort of action to be taken against the soldiers and institutions they mention. They also explicitly state that they weren’t created to encourage any sort of harassment, but rather for research and journalistic purposes.
These projects have received global praise, including from some who attended the institutions in question. They have also been viciously targeted, including by those who support the Israeli government and what dozens of organizations have labelled as its “genocide” in Gaza.
These detractors have included Israeli government officials and institutions, such as a Knesset member, Israel’s consul-general in Montreal, and its Canadian embassy.
In a recent Canadian Jewish News podcast that included discussion of Find IDF Soldiers, the father of one of the soldiers in the database told the publication: “I also feel that the Israeli government, who I’m meeting with next month, should take responsibility here and accountability as well. And I have met recently in Israel with several members at different task forces within the Israeli government who are now very well aware of this site. And I believe that they’re launching their own investigation.”
The interview was published a day before we first became aware of SH’s campaign.
In June 2025, we published an article based on the results of an FOI request finding that in March the RCMP had briefly investigated Find IDF Soldiers based on a complaint made through a public, online form. The agency found that the website was “non-criminal.”
We have filed FOI requests with several other Canadian law enforcement agencies and government departments at all levels, and have yet to receive anything confirming the existence of any other investigation, whether ongoing or closed.
We have also not been contacted by any law enforcement agency or payment processor, or received a single formal legal complaint from any of the soldiers and institutions featured in the two databases.
We stand by our reporting, reject the baseless allegations made against us and will continue our work regardless of these attempts by Israeli organizations to determine what journalists in Canada can and can’t do.
The Maple was founded as a 100 per cent reader-funded publication in part to ensure editorial freedom and resist attempts like this to shut us down. Given our funding model, the only two threats to our existence are readers deciding to stop supporting us and payment processors preventing them from doing so.
To help ensure that doesn’t happen, consider making a one-time donation to The Maple to let Israelis know that Canadians get to determine what their media looks like, not them.
