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.
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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
