Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Miscellaneous Thoughts

A) CBC actually has a reporter of Palestinian origin, Naylah Ayad. Today she is reporting on the coming referendum in Scotland. Here is someone who is able to see through the Zionist narrative and present a Palestinian perspective, which other CBC reporters seem totally incapable of doing. Why is she reporting on Scotland?

B) CBC is proud that they show their objectivity by not calling all Hamas fighters, "terrorists". CBC would not, of course, use the words "freedom fighters", but compromises by calling them "militants." This is fine as far as it goes, but look how often CBC quotes Israeli sources using the words "terrorists" to describe their enemy. Is CBC being disingenuous here - refraining from saying it themselves, but making sure the propaganda message gets across by frequently quoting Israelis using the word "terrorist."?

Here is an example, but there are dozens of them in earlier weeks, from August 26th:

In an email message to The Associated Press, military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the strikes were "a direct result to Hamas' decision to situate their terrorist infrastructure within the civilian sphere including schools, hospitals and highrise buildings."


Retired Israeli air force brigadier general Shlomo Brom, now a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said he was doubtful that the highrise structures had been targeted solely because of their middle-class makeups.


"I have no doubt that these buildings were hit primarily because they contained offices or other facilities that belonged to Hamas," he said.



CBC does not bother to clarify that Hamas is the elected government of Palestine, and has been active in providing social services to the suffering citizens of the territory, and that the "infrastructure" the Israelis are attacking is the infrastructure of the Gaza Government. Nice touch, CBC, to let an Israeli describe it as "terrorist infrastructure." That makes it OK to destroy the government infrastructure of the territory, doesn't it?

CBC - More Zionist than Zionists

Desmond Tutu, a Nobel laureate and international personality, made an impassioned plea to Israel to be held accountable for its crimes in Palestine and supported the BDS movement. This plea has been repeated in many world media, including in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz:

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.610687

But CBC would not publish it. Instead CBC published an article by the moron Jon Voight in which he accused critics of Israel's massacre in Gaza as being anti-Semitic, an absolutely absurd charge.

How could CBC consider the statements by the non-entity, movie actor Jon Voight more relevant and worthy of publication than the words of Desmond Tutu? Indeed, how can this be explained?

Even Israeli media are willing to give the other side a voice, but not CBC.

Monday, August 25, 2014

CBC Israeli Propaganda Mouthpiece

On August 25th, more crap:

Israel-Gaza conflict: PM Netanyahu warns Gaza residents after apartment destroyed

Netanyahu's tough talk signals bolder strikes against Hamas




Why does CBC use the word "bolder"? There is nothing bold or bolder about Israeli strikes. They are as cowardly as it is possible to be. They are bombing literally defenseless people. How can CBC use the word "bolder"? CBC should describe them as more "barbaric", or more "cowardly", or more "inhumane", but "bolder"? Ridiculous.


It is sickening. Do the reporters at CBC speak English or only Hebrew?

Hamas "Demands"

CBC always has lots of room to quote Israelis, especially when they justify their massacre in Gaza, but why has CBC not bothered to report on what it calls Hamas' "demands"? The following is by Gideon Levy of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz:

Read the list of demands and judge honestly whether there is one unjust demand among them: withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces troops and allowing farmers to work their land up to the fence; release of all prisoners from the Gilad Shalit swap who have been rearrested; an end to the siege and opening of the crossings; opening of a port and airport under UN management; expansion of the fishing zone; international supervision of the Rafah crossing; an Israeli pledge to a 10-year cease-fire and closure of Gaza's air space to Israeli aircraft; permits to Gaza residents to visit Jerusalem and pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque; and an Israeli pledge not to interfere in internal Palestinian politics such as the unity government; opening Gaza's industrial zone.

These "demands" are simply the demand for a normal, decent life. By not reporting them,CBC can continue the Israeli propaganda stance that Hamas is an unreasonable enemy whose demands must not be tolerated. Is the word "demand" real appropriate to describe an appeal to be given a decent life and have one's human rights respected. Do we really need to "demand" human rights or are they supposed to be granted without being demanded?

But CBC clearly stated the Israeli demand - that Hamas must disarm. This is the unreasonable demand, because Israel has made not commitment to stop its campaign of creeping ethnic cleansing against Palestinians. Israel is saying that Hamas must disarm, but Israel can continue kill Palestinians with impunity. The West Bank is effectively disarmed and the Israeli killing, house demolitions, and checkpoints and humiliation have never stopped there. Israel is demanding the same IMPUNITY in Gaza. How reasonable is that?

Also it is interesting to note here that Israeli newspapers, like Ha'aretz, give a more balanced reporting on the Israel/Palestine conflict than does CBC. There is something very strange about the fact that CBC cannot even meet an Israeli standard of impartiality, and must be so imbalanced toward the Zionist perspective.


All the Israeli Propaganda Fit to Print

Here is the headline on August 24:


Renewed Israeli airstrikes signal escalation in fight with Hamas


This is perfect Israeli propaganda. CBC says Israel, the country, is fighting Hamas, the political party.

The reality is that Israel the country is not fighting a political party, it is fighting an occupied territory - the occupied country of Palestine.

Israel wants to pretend they are fighting a political entity, but they are killing Palestinians who voted, democratically, for the Hamas political party.

Why does CBC let Israel write their headlines for them?

If the entity being fought in Gaza is just a political party, then for balance (something alien to CBC on this issue) they should write that Likud, the elected Israel government, is fighting Hamas.

Repeating Lies

This is CBC on August 25th (comments are embedded in italics):


A new round of Israeli airstrikes and tank fire pounded Gaza on Monday as officials in the coastal strip said two more Palestinian civilians died from the violence.

----- Here again in the Related Links is that LYING headline. CBC must repeat it over and over in good propaganda fashion to properly serve its Zionist masters. Hamas NEVER "admitted" to setting of the Gaza war. That would be absurd. The fighting began as an escalation of violence that was heavily skewed to Israel doing violence against Palestinians over periods of months, and years and decades. THAT PERPETUAL ISRAELI VIOLENCE IS WHAT set off the fighting, not the fact that the Israelis took a major hit for a change with the 3 teenagers. When CBC says Hamas admits setting off the war, it is a bald-faced LIE.


There has so far been no end in sight for the war, which has already killed more than 2,100 Palestinians since the fighting erupted on July 8. On the Israeli side, 68 people have been killed, all but four of them soldiers.

The Israeli military said it carried out 16 airstrikes on Gaza early Monday, targeting a mosque it said was used to store weapons and another it said militants used as a meeting point.


Gaza police said one of the Israeli strikes hit the home of Omar al-Bursh, a Hamas justice ministry official, who was not harmed in the attack. Another airstrike severely damaged the departure lounge at Gaza's border crossing with Egypt, police said.The military also said that Palestinian militants from the densely populated strip fired 10 rockets into Israel on Monday, all of which landed in open areas.


-----CBC might have pointed out here that Israel is targeting non-violent government officials as a part of their ethnic cleansing campaign.



A 42-year-old woman died from tank fire in the north of the Palestinian territory, while a 22-year-old man died from his wounds on Monday after being hit in an airstrike in Gaza City shortly before midnight, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said.

The latest exchanges came a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the Israeli military campaign in Gaza could go into September.

Since the fighting began, Israel has launched some 5,000 airstrikes at Gaza, while Gaza militants have fired close to 4,000 rockets and mortars, according to the Israeli military.


-----Here CBC goes again, pretending the Hamas rockets are balanced by Israeli strikes. These numbers are meaningless at best, but more likely misleading because comparing Hamas rockets to Israel's advanced weaponry is like comparing sling shots to grenades. If CBC wanted to provide meaningful statistics it would publish over and over again that Israel has killed 500 children versus one killed by Hamas. Israel has injured 10,000 people compared to a dozen in Israel. These would be meaningful statistics.



Abduction by Hamas

The Gaza war stems from the abduction and killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank by Hamas operatives in June, which triggered a massive Israeli arrest campaign in the West Bank, followed by an increase in rocket fire from Gaza. In an apparent revenge attack, a Palestinian youth was seized and slain in early July.


-----Here again the LIE in a sub-heading and in the text. Yes, over and over does the propaganda job. CBC should get a bonus payment from Israel.



Israel first launched an air campaign July 8, then sent in ground troops nine days later. It says it is targeting sites linked to militants, including rocket launchers, command centres and weapons depots. The UN says about 75 per cent of the Palestinians killed have been civilians.

Several rounds of indirect talks in Cairo between Israel and a Palestinian delegation that included Hamas have collapsed, along with temporary ceasefires that accompanied them.

Speaking to his Cabinet Sunday, Netanyahu said the public must show patience. "I said on the first day of the operation that it could take time and we are prepared that this campaign might continue even after the start of the school year," he said.

While the Israeli public has widely supported the campaign to halt rocket attacks out of Gaza, the government has come under criticism for its inability to stop the fire and anger has risen, especially following the death of 4-year-old boy who was killed in a Palestinian mortar attack Friday.


So Israelis are being asked for patience because one child was killed, and CBC thinks this is worth reporting. But why does CBC not address the issue of the 500 Palestinian children that have been killed? Why doesn't CBC try to explain the phenomenal "patience" of the Palestinians who have seen 500 of their children killed? The REAL NEWS is WHY do the Palestinians keep fighting when the odds are so severely stacked against them!!!

Is CBC's lopsided reporting because of one of these reasons?
1) CBC is racist and thinks Palestinians are not as human as Israelis, so they do not mourn their children as much?
2) Is CBC avoiding having to report how brutal and cruel the 67 year occupation of Gaza by Israel has been, and that the Palestinians are willing to fight, even against such terrible odds, because the alternative to not resisting is submitting to the creeping ethnic cleansing that Israel has been carrying out against Palestinians for all these years. Just like in the Warsaw Ghetto, perhaps the Gaza people have decided an honourable death is better than the "living death" the Israelis have subjected them to. 

CBC would never want to speculate like this because it would make CBC's beloved Israeli occupier look bad, and that would be anti-Semitic, wouldn't it?

Friday, August 22, 2014

Missing Statistics?

CBC is reporting on the renewed fighting after the ceasefire talks ended.

It gives details of two Israelis that were slightly injured by Hamas rockets, and reports on a few of the killings of Palestinians by Israeli bombs.

However I understand from friends in Palestine, that up to 100 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire ended.

So where is this statistic: 100 killed by Israel versus 2 slightly injured by Hamas?

Are details about injuries to Israelis more relevant to CBC's readers than deaths of Palestinians? Probably, yes to all those who share CBC's racist perspective but not to most Canadians.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Who Started It?

On August 21st, CBC is still doing Israeli propaganda work for them, suggesting very strongly, including in the headline, that the Palestinians started the recent round of extreme violence:

Hamas admits kidnapping 3 young Israeli men, setting off Gaza war

Killing of 3 boys in June provoked spiral of violence that led to war in Gaza



What CBC, like Israeli propaganda, always fails to point out is that the killing of the three Israelis was part of a cycle of continual violence that was only unusual in that, instead of Israelis killing Palestinians, which is routine, in this case the Israelis were victims. From an objective perspective, this killing of Israelis was not so special, because it followed on a whole series of Israeli killings of Palestinians, and was immediately followed by more Israeli killing of Palestinians. It is only special if you look at it with a biased, Israeli perspective which says: Killing Israelis is horrible and unacceptable and must be punished, but killing Palestinians is routine and acceptable. Fine for Israeli racists, but why does CBC adopt this lopsided perspective?

Also, did Hamas actually say they "admit setting off Gaza war"? I doubt it. This headline is probably a lie. Actually the article even quotes the Hamas statement that the killings were provoked by Israeli arrests:

"This was an operation from your brothers in Qassam undertaken to aid their brothers on hunger strike in (Israeli) prisons," 

And the sub-headline is also a lie - the spiral of violence was well underway with about a dozen Israeli killings of Palestinians from January to June 2014, including TWO unarmed teenagers in May. The killing of the Israelis provoked only Israel, while according to CBC, we are  to believe that the killing of Palestinians does not provoke anything.

Also did Hamas really admit to organizing and ordering the kidnapping and killing of the 3 Israelis? The wording quoted by CBC does not say this. It simply says that the action was in keeping with the spirit of their fight against Israel:

"There was much speculation about this operation, some said it was a conspiracy," Saleh al-Arouri told delegates at the International Union of Islamic Scholars in Istanbul on Wednesday, according to a recording of the meeting posted online by organizers.

"The popular will was exercised throughout our occupied land, and culminated in the heroic operation by the Qassam Brigades in imprisoning the three settlers in Hebron," he said, referring to Hamas's armed wing.


When Israeli youths burned to death an innocent Arab teenager in Jerusalem, this was also in keeping with the rhetoric for revenge coming from Netanyahu and other even more extreme Israel leaders, so it may not be very different from what happened with the Israeli teenagers.


Wednesday, August 20, 2014

And the CBC Misinformation Continues

On August 19th, CBC published the article below. There are several problems in this report as with all CBC reports on the issue.

Palestinian militants fired dozens of rockets an Israel responded with a series of airstrikes that killed at least three people Tuesday as Egyptian peace talks fell apart.


The burst of violence, which erupted in the hours before a temporary truce was set to expire, left the Egyptian mediation efforts in tatters and raised the likelihood of a new round of fighting in a war that has already claimed more than 2,000 lives, most of them Palestinian.


--- "Most of them"??? Is that really the right term? How about "the overwhelming majority of them"? Wouldn't that be a lot more accurate? After all, Israel killed 500 Palestinian civilians for every Israeli civilian killed - 500 to 1. Do you call that "most"? 


The fighting broke out when Gaza militants fired several rockets into Israel Tuesday afternoon. Israel quickly withdrew its delegation from the Cairo cease-fire talks and resumed its campaign of airstrikes, and fighting continued into the night.


Three people — two women and a 2-year-old girl — were killed in an airstrike on a house in Gaza City on Tuesday evening, Palestinian medical official Ashraf al-Kidra said. The target of the airstrike wasn't immediately known.

However, in Cairo, Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas leader, said the dead included the wife and a child of Mohammed Deif, the Islamic militant group's elusive military chief, who has escaped numerous Israeli assassination attempts in the past. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas leaders in Gaza.

The fatalities were the first since a temporary truce was reached last Wednesday.


----This is not really very accurate. CBC tends to ignore or discount the deaths of Palestinians, so here again they are ignoring the several killings by Israeli soldiers of Palestinians in the West Bank during the ceasefire with Gaza. How racist is that? How can CBC continue to play up Israeli suffering and completely ignore what Israel is doing to Palestinians?



Twenty-one people were wounded in a separate airstrike that hit a building that houses offices of Hamas's Al Aqsa TV station, al-Kidra said.

Israeli officials reported at least 50 rockets were fired late Tuesday, setting off air raid sirens throughout southern Israel and as far away as the cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. There were no reports of injuries, though a piece of a rocket that was intercepted near Tel Aviv fell on a busy road.

Israel's civil defense authority, the Home Front Command, ordered authorities to reopen public bomb shelters within 80 kilometres of Gaza.

Ceasefire talks end poorly

In Cairo, Palestinian negotiators declared the ceasefire talks over, and said they would leave Egypt on Wednesday.


"We told the Egyptians we are ready to return to the talks once they find the proper atmosphere," he said, adding that the Palestinians had submitted a final cease-fire proposal.
Azzam al-Ahmad, leader of the delegation, blamed Israel for the failure, but held out hope that the talks could be resumed.

"It's clear the Israelis are not interested in the cease-fire. We did not hear from them. We were willing to, but we did not hear from them," he said.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the blame lay with Hamas. "When Hamas broke the cease-fire and fired rockets into Israel, they also violated the premise of the talks, which were based on an unconditional and total cease-fire," he said.

He would not say whether Israel would resume ceasefire talks.

Egyptian security officials said Egypt was still pressing the two sides to agree on a ceasefire. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The breakdown marked a bitter ending to nearly a week of Egyptian-led diplomacy meant to end the heaviest fighting between Israel and Hamas since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007.


----Is "elections" a dirty word for CBC? Hamas won an election in 2007. They did not "seize control".

----Also note how CBC describes the fight as "between Israel and Hamas". The fight is between Israel and PALESTINE, not Hamas. Hamas is the elected government of Palestine. Hamas represents Palestinians in the same way Israeli LIKUD party represents Israelis. CBC could call it a fight between Likud and Hamas if they want, but it is false and misleading to claim that Israel, the country, is fighting only Hamas, the political party. This is exactly the kind of misinformation Israel promotes, but why is CBC echoing it?



Gaza blockade still sticking point


Israel has claimed the number of militants killed was much higher, and it blames Hamas for causing civilian casualties by staging attacks from residential areas. Sixty-four Israeli soldiers, two Israeli civilians and a guest worker have also been killed.More than 2,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed, according to Palestinian and UN officials, and tens of thousands of people are homeless.


----Why does CBC keep repeating this Israeli propaganda? The Palestinians had no place to hide from the Israeli bombardment, and ISRAEL IS TO BLAME FOR ALL THE KILLINGS THEY COMMITTED. Why does CBC repeat this propaganda coming directly from the killers?


Hamas is seeking an end to a seven-year Israeli-Egyptian blockade that has ravaged Gaza's economy, while Israel wants guarantees that Hamas will disarm.


----A little context would be useful here. The so-called "demand" from Hamas is to end the blockade which makes their lives miserable. Is it correct to call such a basic human right as some kind of "demand"? 

----Also why should Hamas disarm when Israel is continuing to steal land from Palestinians every day of the year, and making their lives miserable? Essentially Israel is "demanding" that the Palestinians must render themselves totally defenseless, while Israel will continue to attack them, expropriate them, and even kill them with impunity, as they have done for over 65 years.


In nearly a week of indirect talks, Egypt appears to have made little headway in resolving the differences. Late Monday, it secured a 24-hour extension to a temporary truce to allow more time for a last-ditch attempt to reach a longer-term deal.

An Egyptian compromise proposal calls for easing the blockade, but not lifting it altogether and opening the territory's air and seaports as Hamas has demanded.


---Again, just allowing the community of Gaza to live some kind of decent, normal life is described as a "demand."




Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Complaint to CBC Ombudsman

Today I sent the following formal complaint to the CBC Ombudsman. I hope they give it fair consideration and an honest reply, and that maybe in future CBC will do better.

For regular readers of this blog, there is a lot of stuff repeated here.

August 13, 2014

 

Dear Ombudsman,

 

I would like to complain about the CBC.ca coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict over the period May to August 2014.

 

I believe this CBC online reporting has been:

            1) Racist

            2) Imbalanced, and biased towards Israel

            3) Misleading to the point of misinforming and deceiving the Canadian public

 

I have been monitoring CBC.ca and have made frequent postings on my blog over this four-month time period (www.weaponizedwords.com). With this letter I will summarize the evidence contained in my blog that I believe fully supports the charges outlined above.

 

But before beginning, let me also say how important this issue is. The foreign State of Israel has a two-pronged defence policy (this has been publicly stated by leading Israeli politicians);

a)      Israel must have the strongest military in the region;

b)      Israel must control the North American media messages to ensure the continuation of the financial, military, and diplomatic support of the West.

These two prongs are of equal importance to Israel, so it immediately becomes clear that if CBC is biased in support of Israel, then CBC is acting as a vehicle of the Israeli defence policy. Recent events in Gaza have shown how brutal Israel can be, especially in the indiscriminate killing of children. If CBC is supporting Israel's narratives, and echoing Israeli propaganda and misinformation without balancing this with counter-narratives and corrective information, then CBC is complicit in the mass murder of children. And if CBC is complicit, then we Canadian taxpayers are also complicit.

 

I am Jewish and a Canadian taxpayer and I absolutely demand that CBC stop supporting the criminal, immoral and despicable actions of this foreign state of Israel.

 

A) First Complaint – Racism:

 

Throughout this 4-month period CBC.ca has paid disproportionate attention to the concerns, suffering and deaths of Israelis compared to the same issues involving Palestinians. Since Canada is neither a Jewish nor a Muslim country, but has about an equal number of citizens of both ethnic origins, there is no obvious reason why the lives of Israeli Jews should be presented as more valuable than the lives of Palestinians. The evidence:

 

1) Massive coverage was given to the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in June, and their subsequent deaths. The coverage included numerous photos, details of their lives, and photos of their families as well. Also the concern of all Israelis was highlighted in a headline and lamented in an article.


However just one month before, in May 2014, two unarmed Palestinian teenagers were shot dead by Israeli snipers, execution-style in the West Bank near Ramallah. CBC hardly thought this worth reporting, and certainly did not publish their photos, the photos of their families, and report the concern of the West Bank citizens to the killing of two of their own. Profound concern over Israeli teenagers and indifference to Palestinian teenagers is a clear sign of racist reporting.

 

2)      CBC reported weakly on Israel's so-called "manhunt" for the abductors of the 3 Israeli teenagers. While loudly lamenting in its reporting the issue of the Israeli youths, CBC barely mentioned the fact that up to NINE Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers in the "manhunt". One of the killed was a teenager. Again how else can you explain this lack of interest in the Palestinian deaths compared to the concern for the Israelis? It is also a fact that about 400 Palestinians were imprisoned on spurious grounds, and over a thousand homes were broken into by Israeli soldiers. This caused a great deal of suffering to Palestinians, which CBC did not feel was worthy of reporting.

 

3)      The Israeli Government blamed the kidnapping on Hamas, but offered no  evidence. CBC repeated the Israeli claim a dozen times, and sometimes even without attribution to the Israeli sources, wrote simply "they were believed to be kidnapped by Hamas." But when Israeli extremists burned to death a Jerusalem Arab youth in a reprisal attack, CBC never once suggested that this killing was orchestrated by one of the extremist Jewish organizations. It is racist thinking to easily blame one group (Hamas) for a vicious attack, but not blame the equally vicious Jewish extremist groups for an attack. In fact, in both cases the murders were probably done by crazed individuals, in a vigilante action, but it is significant that CBC could endorse the Israeli view, but not even suggest a similar explanation to the Jewish crime. This is based on a racist view of Arabs, and a too-sanguine, but equally racist inspired view, of Jews as being better.

 

4)      CBC always explains the Israeli attack on Gaza as a "response" to Arab violence, but never really tries to explain why Hamas is attacking Israel. This fits a racist mindset in which there is no need to explain the actions of inferior people – they act viciously simply because it is in their inferior natures to act viciously.

 

5)      Four Gazan children were blown to smithereens as they were playing soccer on a Gaza beach. This received a little bit of CBC coverage, but no headline, and nothing compared to the coverage of the three kidnapped teenagers. Just do a mind experiment here – if four Jewish children had been killed while playing soccer on a beach, would CBC report it in such a cavalier fashion? Not likely. Racists view the death of the children of what they view as sub-humans, like the Gazan children, as of little importance, while the deaths of Jewish children would be horrifying.

 

6) On July 19th CBC published this: Palestinians reported intensified airstrikes  and shelling as the death toll from Israel's ground offensive rose to at least 342 Palestinians, including many civilians. Five Israelis — three soldiers and two civilians — have also been killed since the fighting began more than 10 days ago, and dozens of Israelis have been injured as Gaza rockets continue to rain down on Israeli cities.

 

The horrendous death toll of Palestinians is given just a nod, while the emphasis is on the suffering of the Israelis. It mentions the dozens of Israelis injured by the rockets, but DOES NOT EVEN BOTHER to mention the THOUSANDS of Gaza people injured by the Israeli bombings.

 

How can injuring dozens be more relevant than injuring thousands? How can the latter be not even worth mentioning?

 

7) July 28: CBC published this: Shortly after midnight Monday, the council issued its strongest statement yet on the now-21-day conflict that has already killed 1,030 Palestinians and 43 Israeli soldiers — along with two Israeli civilians and a Thai worker in Israel who died in rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza.

Why the details about Israel and just a number (1,030) for the Palestinians?


8) CBC gave several headlines, and published details of the one Israeli soldier that was believed to have been captured by Hamas. They described him sympathetically and in great detail, including quotes from his family and family pictures. But in the Israeli bombardments of Rafah that followed this capture, 150 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians and many children. CBC only reported this as a one-liner. How is it not racist to value the life of one Jewish soldier (a member of a mass-murdering army of occupation) over the lives of hundreds of the Arab victims of Israeli soldiers just like him?

 

9) On August 5th, CBC again published the photos of the three Israeli teenagers killed in June. By this point Israel had killed almost 2,000 Gazans, yet CBC still is focused on these three. CBC did not publish the photo and name of the Jerusalem Arab boy that was burned to death by Israelis.

 

10) On August 10th, there is a tweet embedded in an article which says that a 7-year old West Bank child was killed by Israeli settlers. CBC thought this deserved no article and no headline. A seven year old child killed by heavily-armed Israeli settlers, mostly violent extremists, and this deserves only a tweet?

 

As will be outlined later in this complaint, CBC has decided to present the Israel/Palestine conflict from the Israeli perspective. The Israeli perspective is racist, so CBC's reporting has become inevitably racist. Israel is a settler-colonial state, well within the tradition of European colonialism in Africa, Asia and the Americas, and this type of colonialism requires a racist mindset to justify the killing and dispossession of the indigenous people. CBC can only escape from its racist reporting if it escapes from the Israeli perspective and takes a more balanced view.

 

2) Second Complaint – Imbalance

 

A)    Too Much Balance Creates Misunderstanding

 

Journalists are expected to take a balanced approach to complex issues, but if there is absolutely no balance in the situation being reported on, this so-called "balanced" reporting, becomes false and misleading. No journalist would insist on taking a balanced approach to reporting on the Holocaust, treating the Nazis with the same sympathy as their Jewish victims. The Israel – Gaza situation is just as off balance as that. There is absolutely no comparison in the amount of power, the amount of injustice, the amount of suffering and the amount of injuries and dying between the Israeli and Palestinian side. CBC's treatment often tries to pretend there is some kind of symmetry where there is none, as in the following examples:

 

11) CBC lists in a sub-headline that Hamas fired 160 rockets and Israel made 150 "attacks", but nowhere makes clear that the Hamas rockets are totally ineffectual, they cannot be directed accurately and when they strike the ground they cause only slight damage, while the Israeli attacks are massive bombs that are targeted and highly effective at killing. There is no equivalency here, and ignoring the fact is ignoring the main point of the story.

 

12)  CBC really went out on a limb in distorting the relative strengths of Israel and Gaza, in a lengthy article detailing all the weaponry held by the resistance fighters in Gaza:

 

Even after launching by Hamas of more than 2,000 rockets already, the Israelis estimate that thousands more remain from an original supply of 6,000 in the hands of Hamas itself and another 4,000 in the hands of the hardline militia, Islamic Jihad.

Those include the heavy M-302 rocket with a range of 160 kilometres, enough to hit most of Israel, the official said, adding that it had captured and destroyed many of those before the recent conflict erupted.

Many other rockets, he added, were destroyed by the Israeli Iron Dome missile defence system. But he said smaller missiles, despite having smaller payloads, were harder to hit because of their size and limited time in the air. These include the M-75, with a range of 75 kilometres, the Grad, which reaches 45 kilometres, and the homemade Qassam rocket, with a range of just 17 kilometres.


Imagine if CBC also did an article on the weaponry being used by Israel against the people of Gaza. Imagine the pages and pages of text required to list all the sophisticated guns, bombs, airplanes, tanks, etc. Imagine if the firepower of Israel were actually compared to the firepower of Gaza. It would be like comparing grenades to firecrackers.


 13)   Hyping the so-called Hamas threat, CBC saw fit to quote the ludicrous claims of an Israeli military attaché in Ottawa in a screaming headline:

Hamas arsenal suggests 'apocalyptic' scenario: Israeli official

West 'cannot tolerate' advanced capabilities discovered in Gaza, Israeli official says

 

Hamas is a tiny little resistance movement facing one of the world's most powerful militaries, but CBC saw fit to quote and even highlight this asinine claim that Hamas threatens the Western world?

 

14)   On July 30th CBC had this headline:

 

ISRAEL, HAMAS BOTH COMMITTING WAR CRIMES, SAYS UN OFFICIAL

 

So CBC suggests they are equally guilty of war crimes. But certainly Israel's guilt is a thousand times greater. Hamas rockets cannot be targeted, and they have very little destructive power. They are the only weapon available to this virtually defenceless community in Gaza. Israel has a thousand options, but has chosen to use aerial bombardment of crowded civilian areas, and thus guarantee the maximum number of civilian and children's deaths. CBC never once quotes the actual statistics: Hamas killed 3 Israeli civilians, the Israelis killed over 1,500. The ratio is 500 to one. Hamas killed ZERO Israeli children, Israeli killed about 400 Gaza children, so the score is 400 to ZERO. Are these ratios not more significant than suggesting there was some kind of equivalence in war crime guilt?


Suppose CBC were reporting on a fist fight between a 250 pound soldier and a ten year old child. Suppose each of them kicked below the belt. Would the CBC headline be, BOTH MAN AND CHILD ARE FIGHTING DIRTY. No, that would sound absurd. There is no need for the man to fight dirty - he can win with hardly any effort, but the child probably will lose no matter what he does. Is the dirty fighting by the man EQUAL to the dirty fighting of the child? Not in a million years. The man is guilty and is despicable. The child can be forgiven, as he had no other option. By the same reckoning, Israel must be seen as vastly more guilty, and CBC should say so somewhere.

 

B)      Simple Lop-sided unbalanced reporting examples:


15)  July 1st article:   The article mentions that thousands of Israelis have been killed over the past decades, but does not mention the fact that quadruple that number of Palestinians have been killed by Israelis. How can they mention one statistic and not the other? 

 

16)  In reporting the killing of the Palestinian boy in Jerusalem, CBC emphasized the angry reaction of the Palestinians, with their crowds of demonstrating and stone-throwing people. In effect, they downplayed the killing itself and focused on the anger of the Palestinians. 

 

But CBC failed entirely to describe the actions of the Jewish mobs in Jerusalem that rampaged thought the streets pulling Arab merchants out of their shops and Arabs out of their cars, and beating them up. The Jewish mobs chanted "death to Arabs" and must have terrified the Palestinian residents of their shared city.

 

17) Gaza is Hell on earth. No one would want to live under the conditions there during this period under brutal attack by Israel.

 

But CBC, which wrote lengthy details about how Israelis are suffering under the Palestinian toy rockets, has seen fit to downplay the true suffering of the people of Gaza with a headline that said; "life goes on as normal", and in the article the point was made that the price of tomatoes has not increased.

 

18). In very biased fashion, CBC has reported on the displays of open revulsion by thousands of people around the world at Israel's barbaric attack on Gaza, and tried to misrepresent it. Instead of noting the decency of these protesters and their cause and the fact that 99% of them were peaceful, CBC emphasized the violence of a few incidents that occurred. 

 

Gaza conflict sparks massive global protests, some violent

Tempers flare at demonstrations and police fire tear gas during clashes with protesters

This headline was accompanied with a picture of violent Parisian youth.

 

There is NO WAY that this photo is an appropriate portrayal of the fact that so many people are so offended by Israel barbarism that they have come out of their comfort zone and taken to the streets to demonstrate. How can you portray the 99% by the 1%, and be considered balanced?

 

19)A group of Spanish movie stars published a letter condemning Israel's mass murder of Palestinian children. CBC did not publish it, but it chose to publish an article reporting on actor Jon Voight's response to the Spanish letter, in which he is quoted:

"I am heartsick that people like Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem could incite anti-Semitism all over the world and are oblivious to the damage they have caused."


Voight's charge of anti-semitism is absurd. It does not deserve to be quoted or repeated.

 

It is absolutely absurd and disgusting to accuse people of racism for criticizing Israel's barbaric massacre in Gaza. Would CBC publish a statement that accused critics of Nazi Germany as being anti-German or anti-White?? No, that would be absurd, ridiculous. Not worthy of repeating unless accompanied by journalistic scorn.


Voight is using Zionism's BIG LIE technique. His claim that criticizing Israel is racist does not just stretch the truth or fudge the truth, IT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THE TRUTH. People who stand up for the rights of Palestinians are exactly the opposite of racists. They see all humans as deserving respect and rights, and even though Palestinians are of a different, race, religion and nationality to them, they stand up for them. This is exactly the opposite of racism. 

But on the other hand, Zionism is an ideology, like all colonial ideologies, that is firmly based on the racist view that one group of people should have more rights than another - Jews should have more rights than Arabs. 
Voight, and the Zionists, are the racists and they accuse the non-racists of racism. This charge fits well in the Alice-in-Wonderland, upside down world of Zionism, but why does CBC publish this nonsense without pointing out how absurd it is?

 

C)      Selective Use and Non-use of Relevant Context

 

20)   Virtually every time that CBC describes the Israeli attack on Gaza, it adds the phrase "in response to Hamas rockets". This is a bit of context. But in most cases when it describes Hamas's action in sending rockets to Israel, it omits any context.

 

There is good reason to believe that Israel had other motives in butchering 2,000 people in Gaza, and it was not JUST to respond to Hamas rockets, but CBC ignores all other possible motivations and just provides the Israeli propaganda explanation, over and over again. Hamas also has strong motives for attacking Israel, and they deserved being repeated at least as as often as the Israeli claims were.

 

CBC often quoted the imbalanced claim from Israelis, and our own Canadian leaders, that "Israel has a right to defend itself." But nowhere does CBC ever suggest that Palestinians have a right to defend themselves from Israeli atrocities such as the murderous, brutal "manhunt" in the West Bank in June.

 

CBC failed to properly report the Israeli abuses in June, focusing more on hand-ringing about the three Israelis, and practically ignoring the Palestinians killed in the so-called "manhunt" in the West Bank. BUT at least CBC could have published these facts more clearly and prominently as part of an explanation of the motivation for the Hamas rockets. 


So CBC is twice guilty; first for under reporting Israeli abuses; and then again for not given these abuses the recognition they deserve in explaining the rockets.


           *********


CBC frequently quotes Israelis without providing any context to these quotes. Without the relevant context, these quotes seem reasonable, when in fact they are not at all reasonable. For example:

 

21)   CBC has this quote from an Israeli:

"We have to take care of our own first," an Israeli friend tells me. "What would you do?"

 

In isolation, it seems to make a legitimate appeal. What would you do in the same situation as the Israelis with Hamas rockets flying?


But why does CBC not describe the massive injustice being done to Palestinians, not only now while Israel massacres their children, but for the last 67 years, when Israel has chased them away from their land, blockaded them, made their lives miserable, deprived them of their rights, killed them with impunity, etc, etc, etc,. Then ask the question" WHAT WOULD YOU DO?


Why doesn't CBC ask this question to Canadians? What would you do if you were treated by a foreign power the way that Palestinians are treated by Israel? Would you do nothing? Or would you try to resist?

When the Israeli asks the question "What would you do?", CBC should add some context. "What would you do if you were an abuser and the abused person fought back?" You have two choices - you can increase the abuse, or you can stop the abuse. CBC does not make any attempt at all to explain that the Israeli decision is to INCREASE the abuse. This is not self-defence. This is pure and simply increased abuse.

 

22) August 5: An article cavalierly writes about Israel deciding whether to destroy the homes of the Arab suspects in the killing of the three Israelis. Why does CBC not point out that the homes of the Israeli extremists that killed the Arab teenager will not be destroyed?


This would have been a perfect opportunity for CBC to show the discrimination in Israeli society, with a double standard, and always treating Palestinians as an oppressed or second class people.

 

23)  CBC quoted Netanyahu when he said he will make every effort to find the killer of the Palestinian teenager.

 

Why did CBC not make a simple comparison with what Netanyahu did in the search for the three Israeli teenagers to what he will do in this case? Will he kill 10 Israeli extremists in the search? Will he imprison 400 Israeli extremists? Will he kick down the doors of 1,000 homes of Israeli extremists? Of course, not. This bit of context would explain a lot.

 

24) Netanyahu and other Israelis are frequently quoted saying they simply want a return to "peace and quiet".  This sounds reasonable enough, until you realize that their definition of "peace and quiet" is a return to the status quo were Israelis live in peace while Palestinians are routinely killed, abused, dispossessed and humiliated. By repeating these disingenuous comments from Israelis without providing a little context is totally misleading.

 

25)  CBC frequently quotes Israelis saying they are avoiding civilian casualties. This is so obviously a lie, as is shown by the reality on the ground, why does CBC keep quoting this without pointing out the reality?

 

26)  Disproportionate Number of Quotes from Israelis

 

If someone adds up the number of words attributed to Israelis over the past four months, you will find they vastly outnumber the words from other sources. Since belligerents in war seldom tell the truth, and Israel clearly has a strong motivation to make propaganda, this reliance on the words of Israelis itself is wildly off balance.

 

 

Third Complaint – Misleading/Deceiving Writing

 

1)      Misuse of English language. Examples:

 

27)   Hamas has denied responsibility for the kidnapping. But look at the language CBC uses to report this:


CBC wrote that Hamas "stopped short of accepting responsibility." No they did not stop short! They DENIED responsibility. There is a world of difference in this wording. Also, there was a sub-headline:  "Hamas deflects responsibility" - No Hamas denied it.


28)  August 3: Hamas has said it will not stop fighting until Israel and Egypt lift their blockade of Gaza, imposed after the Islamic militant group overran the territory in 2007.


Hamas won a legitimate election in 2007. How in the name of Heaven can that be described as an "over run"? At another point CBC writes:

 

Hamas has demanded the lifting of an Israeli and Egyptian border blockade imposed on Gaza in 2007 when the Islamic militant group seized power, as well as the release of Palestinians rounded up in the West Bank in June following the killing of three Israeli teenagers.

 

29)   CBC refers to "terror sites" being targeted by Israel. 'Terrorism' is a badly misused word and has essentially been rendered meaningless. It only has propaganda value and should not be used by CBC.

 

There is also this: Israeli media reported that a gunman on a motorcycle shot and seriously wounded an Israeli soldier. Police searched for the shooter in east Jerusalem.

"We believe there is a great likelihood this was a terrorist attack," Piranti said.

 

How can the attack on a soldier in the middle of a violent conflict like the murderous assault by Israeli soldiers on the people of Gaza be called a terrorist attack? Terrorism must always be an attack on civilians, never on soldiers. It cannot be called terrorism if the target is a soldier. Why does CBC present this stupid quote from yet another Israeli without comment? Does CBC really believe attacking Israeli soldiers is terrorism even while Israeli soldiers are mass murdering others?

 

30) The destruction of civilian infrastructure is normally classified as collective punishment and is considered a war crime. Instead of using these words, CBC calls the civilian infrastructure "symbols of Hamas power", in a complete twisting of legitimate meaning:

 

Gaza conflict: Israel hits symbols of Hamas rule, cripples power plant

Since when are electric power plants "symbols of rule" for a government or a community? They are not SYMBOLS. They are the life blood of a community. Destroying these electric power plants is an act of collective punishment. It is definitely a crime under international law.


CBC should be putting the criminal, immoral nature of these attacks into the headline, not prettying them up by calling them symbolic acts.


31)   CBC almost never uses the active voice to describe Israel's killing. It uses weak wording, like referring to Gaza's "dead", or uses the passive voice, saying a certain number "were killed". CBC is so careful not to express the reality of the cold-blooded killing going on.

 

Here is another example, although there are many more, in an article on August 5th:

Gaza officials say the war has killed 1,865 Palestinians, most of them civilians. 

Not Israel has killed, but "the war" has killed. This is a kind of fuzzy wording to protect the killers.

 

 

            2. Misuse of Headlines

 

Journalists know that headlines play a special role. They are read by more people, and they tend to be better remembered, so CBC's headlines over the past four months are revealing. They almost invariably play up Israeli viewpoints and suffering and play down the suffering of Palestinians. As noted above, CBC headlines give disproportionate attention to the deaths of the Israeli teenagers and missing Israeli soldiers, to threats from Hamas, to equating the power of Hamas and Israel, etc.

 

32) Here is a particularly disgusting juxtaposition of headline and sub-headline. Almost the only CBC headline which openly accused Israel of wrongdoing had to be softened with another disingenuous Netanyahu quote:

 

Gaza conflict: Israeli fire hits compound housing UN school, killing 15

'We started this operation to return peace and quiet to Israel, and we shall return it' — Netanyahu

 

The act of bombing the school is horrific. It deserves to stand alone as an example of Israeli war crimes. But CBC must "balance" it with an inane and misleading quote from a war criminal.

 

33)  Also it is relevant to see the way CBC inserts headlines from previous articles into newer articles, ostensibly to provide useful background. They are called "Related articles".

 

In the July 30 article on Israel/Hamas war crimes, CBC added the following so-called related links:

·                     ANALYSIS | Israeli attitudes seem to back Netanyahu

·                     Hamas to blame after shelling of UN school in Gaza: Stephen Harper

·                     'We have to take care of our own first': Israelis overwhelmingly support war in Gaza

·                     WATCH | We are 'not craving' war, Israeli fighter pilot says

 

All of these related articles seem to condone Israel's behaviour in some fashion:

1) Israel's killings have strong support from the Israeli public. Of course, this does not suggest the possibility that the Israeli public is overwhelmingly colonialist, militaristic, fascist and racist.


2) Stephen Harper's "blame the victim" stance shames all Canadians, but it is supposed to explain the situation? Of course, when the Canadian Prime Minister says something, regardless how disgusting it is, the CBC should report it, BUT does it belong in a headline? and is it appropriate to keep repeating it as a one-liner in every subsequent article? This is how propaganda works. Tell a lie, and then repeat it often, and it becomes common knowledge.

 

3) "We have to take care of our own" - without a suggestion that if the Israeli stopped abusing the Palestinians they would be able to "take care of their own" without killing the children of others.


4) So Israeli pilots are not craving war. So what, they are still murdering civilians and children on a massive scale. What does it matter what they crave?

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

The same issue can be seen in a variety of ways, but journalists should see beyond their personal interests and biases, and truly try to report both sides of the story.

 

Supporters of Israel have constructed a narrative which describes Israel as peace-loving country surrounded by hostile neighbours. It does not recognize any justification for the hostility of the Palestinians, and tends to suggest they are just inferior, uncivilized people or anti-Semites. CBC seems to have adopted this narrative without reservation. This explains its shocking sympathy to the Israeli soldier that was captured, and indifference to the killing of Palestinians in Rafah that followed his capture. It is the view of CBC that Israeli soldiers are the "good guys" even as they commit mass murder, and Palestinians bring all their own suffering on themselves because of their bad actions.

 

Personally I think the Israeli narrative bears virtually no relation to reality, but of course, I might be wrong. However there is another narrative that CBC should be giving at least equal time.

 

That is that Israel is a settler-colonial state. Jewish settlers who had virtually no genetic connection to the land, have driven the indigenous people off the land, and are conducting a slow-motion campaign of ethnic cleansing, which involves a tremendous amount of abuse, injustice and killing. Israel does not recognize its own borders; because it is constantly expanding by stealing more Palestinian land. It is not peace-loving, because it can only achieve its objective of capturing all of historic Palestine, by continuing warfare against the remaining Palestinians.

 

In this narrative, Palestinians are the victims, not the Israelis. In this narrative, Palestinians have the right of self-defence, not the Israelis. In this narrative, Palestinian teenagers are the heroes when killed fighting Israeli soldiers, not the Jewish teenagers hitchhiking on occupied land to their extremist Jewish settlement. In this narrative, Israelis are the terrorists, not Hamas. In this narrative, Israel is not responding to Hamas rocket fire when it bombs Gaza, it is furthering its campaign of ethnic cleansing, In this narrative Israelis are not defending themselves, but actually trying to stir up more violence from the Palestinians so that they can steal more land. (You do not defend yourself from people by killing their children. You just make more enemies that way).

 

Nowhere in CBC's reporting do I see any hint of the counter-narrative to the Zionist narrative. Any reasonable examination of the Zionist narrative reveals that it is refuted by logic and denied by the facts, so it is reasonable to expect CBC to see the holes in it, and question it, and even provide some hints of the reasonable counter-narrative outlined above. More than anything else, this is proof that CBC's reporting is imbalanced.

 

I formally complain against CBC's reporting on Israel/Palestine, especially over the last four months, claiming that it is racist, imbalanced and misleading.

 

I would appreciate an explanation for each of the 33 points that I raised above.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Terry Greenberg