An Israeli-owned restaurant chain closed its final branch in Belgium and declared bankruptcy last week following a campaign of harassment and boycotts, local media reported.
Owners Tom Sas and Lori Dardikman declined to provide details on the closure of the Bokertov chain’s final branch in Antwerp, the Made-In news site reported. The couple did not respond to a request for comment from JNS before publication.
However, the couple recently said their business, which marketed itself as an Israeli restaurant, had been financially impacted by targeted harassment from anti-Israel activists.
“We’ve been targeted for two years and labeled ‘Zionist killers.’ They want to destroy us, and it’s almost working,” Sas told the Gazet van Antwerpen newspaper in October, following the closure of the Ghent branch of his now-bankrupt chain.
The couple had considered changing the restaurant’s theme, with Sas saying, “The Tel Aviv theme in the current climate is very difficult.”
In that interview, Sas said anti-Israel activists repeatedly spray-painted the chain’s branches, staged protests and sent hundreds of hate-filled emails to its addresses.
Online, anti-Israel activists celebrated the closure, including Motasem Dalloul, whose account—with over 200,000 followers—says he is based in Gaza. Last month, he posted a 2013 image of a helicopter firing flares in Afghanistan, falsely labeling it, “Israeli occupation helicopter is opening fire east of Gaza City now.”
“Israel’s Bokertov restaurant chain, known for stealing Palestinian dishes, shut down and declared bankruptcy in Belgium after successful boycott campaigns,” Dalloul wrote on Monday.
