Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Where is the Rebuttal?

A few days ago CBC presented an "interview" with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, in which he was allowed to spout the most absurd war-promoting, war-justifying propaganda. Some of his remarks were easy to remember and catchy, but totally without substance. For example, Netanyahu said "Hamas is ISIS. ISIS  is Hamas". This has as much truth in it as if someone said "Israel is ISIS. ISIS is Israel". Actually the latter is probably closer to the truth, because probably ISIS would not exist today if it were not for Israel.
 
Why did CBC give the leader of a state that has just butchered 500 children this opportunity to spout his nonsense?
 
At least CBC should have balanced this disgusting propaganda with some kind of rebuttal. Where is the rebuttal? Where is the balance?
 
Mohamud Abbas gave a speech at the United Nations after Netanyahu's "interview". CBC.ca did not report on it. It could have at least provided a bit of balance to Netanyahu's propaganda.
 
Why didn't CBC report on Abbas's speech? BBC did:
 
"Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received loud applause throughout his speech
 
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has accused Israel of carrying out a "war of genocide" in Gaza in his speech at the UN General Assembly.
 
Mr Abbas said Israeli "war crimes" in Gaza should be punished, but stopped short of saying he would take the issue to the International Criminal Court."
 
How can CBC justify printing the words of a leader being investigated for war crimes (Netanyahu), and not publish the words of his victim? Where is the balance?
 
I accused CBC of imbalanced reporting to the CBC Ombudsman over 6 weeks ago and still have not had a comment from them, but they are still at it.

My Dearest, i need your help,

 
My Dearest, i need your help,

Please permit me to introduce myself, I am Miss Edith Ibrahim Coulibaly 23 years old female from the Republic of Ivory Coast, West Africa, I'm the Daughter of Late Chief Sgt. Ibrahim Coulibaly, My late Father was a well known Ivory Coast military leader. He died on Thursday 28 April 2011 following a fight with the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast (FRCI).

You can read more about my father in the link below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/28/ivory-coast-renegade-warlord-ibrahim-coulibaly

I am constrained to contact you because of the maltreatment which I am receiving from my step mother. She planned to take away all my late father's treasury and properties from me since the unexpected death of my beloved Father because my mother died during child birth and I was left alone with my step mother to take care of me. Meanwhile I wanted to travel to Europe, but she hide away my traveling documents. Luckily she did not discover where I kept my father's File which contained important documents like will and deposit certificate of my Father's fund which bears my name as the next of kin to inherit the money in his bank account. Now I am presently staying in the Refugee Mission Camp in Burkina Faso. I am seeking for long term relationship and investment assistance. My father of blessed memory deposited the sum of US$ 11.5 Million in Bank Of Africa here in Burkina Faso with my name as the next of kin.

I have contacted the Bank to clear the deposit but the Branch Manager told me that my late father place an instruction on the deposited fund that I must present a foreign trustee who will help me in investment of the fund.

However, the manager advised me to provide a trustee who will stand on my behalf for the transfer of the fund. I wanted to inform my stepmother about this deposit but I am afraid that she will not offer me anything after the release of the money because she threaten to kill me.

Therefore, I decide to seek for your help in transferring the money into your bank account while I will relocate to your country and settle down with you. As you indicate your interest to help me I will give you the account number and the contact of the bank where my late beloved father deposited the money with my name as the next of kin. It is my intention to compensate you with 30% out of the total money after the transfer for your assistance and the balance shall be my investment in any profitable venture which you will recommend to me as I have no idea about foreign investment. Please all communications should be through this email address for confidential purposes,

Thanks in anticipation of your positive response.

Yours sincerely
Miss Edith Ibrahim Coulibaly.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

CBC recognizes Golan as Israeli

In its September 23rd article reporting on the Israeli downing of a Syrian warplane. CBC consistently and repeatedly referred to "Israeli airspace" when in fact the event occurred entirely over the occupied Syrian land of the Golan Heights. CBC even had the phrase "the Israeli side of the Golan". 
 
So much for accuracy in reporting when Israel's interests are being served, which is CBC's goal.

Netanyahu Interview

Although most of the TV interview was wimpy and it basically let Netanyahu spew his propaganda unimpeded, Solomon did ask ONE hard question. He mentioned the recent massive land grab in the West Bank, and noted the suggestion that it was likely to undermine Abbas and make peace more difficult.

Netanyahu spewed out a lot of obfuscation in his answer, but at least the question was asked, and for this CBC TV deserves some credit.

However this blog focusses on CBC.ca and it is noteworthy that this site quoted, echoed and repeated every single nonsense claim by Netanyahu without comment, and has never mentioned the issue of the recent land grab.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

CBC - Platform for Israeli Propaganda

On September 23rd, CBC proudly hosted an "EXCLUSIVE" interview with Netanyahu, and gave him an uninterrupted, uncritical platform for the most absurd Israeli propaganda.

Why does CBC give Netanyahu a platform to make these claims? :

"Their (Hamas and ISIS) individual differences are minuscule and unimportant. But the fact that they use the same tactics: murdering civilians, hiding behind civilians, using their own people as human shields, executing their own people.… This is the same warped system. We fought them, you fight them now. Let's fight them together."

Israel is daily committing crimes against Palestinians, and CBC wants us to ignore this, and join Israel in a fight against Israel's enemies. Why doesn't CBC ask the question somewhere - What if Israel stopped abusing, and killing Palestinians and stealing their land? Wouldn't that be better than just fighting them? And why in Heaven's name should Canadians want to chose the option of War, against the option of JUSTICE for Palestinians. CBC is publishing Netanyahu's weaponized words, and echoing them, and this is disgraceful.


There is a world of difference between ISIS and Hamas, and Netanyahu's claim that "Hamas is ISIS. ISIS is Hamas" is pure unadulterated bullshit.

THE FACT is that Israel is a HUGE PART of the problem. If Israel did not behave so disgracefully, ISIS would have much more difficulty in recruitment.

Israeli propaganda wants to claim that their fight is our fight and that is pure nonsense. Israel is carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Palestine, and Israel is antagonizing one billion Muslims around the world, AND THAT IS NOT CANADA'S WAY.

Before we deal with ISIS, we need to deal with Israel. Israel needs to be stopped from its abuse of Palestinians and ethnic cleansing. This would be a lot more effective in fighting ISIS than dropping bombs, like Israel has recently done in Gaza. Any other approach is war-loving, murderous, and ultimately will be unsuccessful.

IF CBC was not a war-mongering institution, it would be making these points rather than echoing misleading Israeli war mongering propaganda. Where is the balance at least????

CBC - Still At It

On September 22, over 5 weeks since I submitted my complaint to the CBC Ombudsman, I still have not had a reply, but CBC is still at it - mis-representing the Israel/Palestine conflict. Here is an article pubblished today: (My comments in italics below)

Israel says it has killed 2 men suspected of kidnap, murder of Israeli teens

Shin Bet, Israel's security service, identified Marwan Qawasmeh, left, and Amer Abu Aisheh as central suspects in the recent disappearance of three Israeli teenagers in June.










Israeli special forces stormed a West Bank hideout early on Tuesday and killed two Palestinians suspected in the June abduction and slaying of three Israeli teenagers, a gruesome attack that had triggered a chain of events that led to the war in Gaza this summer.


------CBC keeps insisting that nothing that went before the killing of the three teens was relevant. The fact that two Palestinian teenagers were killed in cold-blood just the month before was not relevant.

The deaths of the two suspects, identified by the Israeli military as well-known Hamas militants, ended one of the largest manhunts conducted by the Israeli security forces.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the development in an interview to air Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET with Evan Solomon, host of CBC News Network's Power & Politics.

"We said we'd find them. We did find them," Netanyahu said of the Hamas militants. "It's not a claim. We did indeed finally find the two terrorists who actually murdered these three teenagers."

He said the kidnapping, as well as the violent conflict with Hamas over the summer, shows "we have to understand it's either peace or Hamas."


------How often does CBC quote this war criminal, Netanyahu??? Where is a counter-balancing quote showing that it is EITHER JUSTICE OR WAR, or as said so often in pro-Palestinian demonstrations; NO JUSTICE NO PEACE. Why does CBC favour war-mongering quotes from war criminals????

Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship, were abducted on June 12 while hitchhiking home in the West Bank and killed soon afterward.

The teens' abduction and slaying prompted a large Israeli crackdown on the Islamic militant Hamas group and set off a chain of events that led to a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In an operation codenamed "Brother's Keeper," Israel dispatched thousands of troops across the West Bank in search of the youths, closed roads in the Hebron area and arrested hundreds of Hamas operatives throughout the territory.


-------CBC does not mention that thousands of innocent Palestinians were terrorized in this manhunt, and several were killed, nor that most of those arrested had nothing to do with the kidnapping and had been released from Israeli jails as part of a negotiated agreement, so Israel was reneging on the agreement. These are all relevant facts because they explain why Hamas was so angry and began sending more rockets into Israel. Ignoring these extremely relevant and important facts, as CBC so consistently does, is tantamount to deception and lying.

Israeli teenagers killed by Hamas

Israeli teens Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship, disappeared near the West Bank city of Hebron on June 12. Their bodies were found two weeks later. (Israel Defence Forces/Associated Press)


-----How often has CBC published the photos of these three? Compare that to the lack of details on the over 500 children killed by Israel in Gaza, and dozens of youths routinely killed in the West Bank.


The search ended July 1, when the bodies were found under a pile of rocks in a field north of the West Bank city of Hebron. Officials later said it was believed the three had been killed shortly after the abduction.

Israeli forces had been pursuing the suspects, Amer Abu Aisheh and Marwan Qawasmeh, since the abductions, said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman.

Lerner told reporters that there was a recent breakthrough in the search that led the Yamam, a special police counter- terrorism unit, to the hideout in an area of Hebron about a week ago.

Early on Tuesday, the Israeli special forces entered the ground floor of the two-story building and killed two Hamas operatives after coming under fire, Lerner said.

Lerner noted the two men had been identified as the suspects early in the search, their Hamas connections were well known, and Hamas has repeatedly tried to abduct Israeli civilians and soldiers. Another three members of one the Qawasmeh family were arrested, he said.


-----Really Hamas has repeatedly tried to abduct Israeli civilians? Then why does it happen so seldom? I doubt that this is true, but look at CBC beloved source, an Israeli official.

"We were determined in bringing the ruthless murderers of Gilad, Eyal and Naftali to justice," Lerner said. "Today's successful mission brings the long-term search to an end, and the perpetrators of the crime no longer pose a threat to Israeli civilians," he said.

Hamas praises militants as martyrs

Qawasmeh's mother Hanan described her son as "a hero" and said it was far better that he had been killed in battle rather than falling into the hands of Israeli forces.

"Thank God that he and the other man were martyred," she said.

In Qatar, Hussam Badran, a spokesman for top Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, praised the two militants on his Twitter account. "The martyrdom of Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisheh came after a long life full of jihad sacrifice and giving. This is the path of resistance, which we all are moving in," he said.

Hamas denied involvement for weeks after the teens were abducted. However, during the Israel-Hamas war, an exiled Hamas leader responsible for West Bank operations acknowledged his group had been responsible for the abduction and killing of the teenagers.


-----This is a LIE. He did not say his group was responsible for the killing; he said the killers were members of Hamas. They were most likely acting independently. The killers of the Palestinian boy in Jerusalem were members of an extremist Jewish settler group. These Jewish settlers are more racist, more fascist, more brutal than Hamas, but CBC has never once intimated that the killers in this case were not acting independently. And although CBC does not report this, it is very likely members of these extremist groups have praised the murderous actions of these three Israeli killers in the same way that Hamas does its so-called "martyrs". The mass murderer of praying Palestinians in a Hebron mosque many years ago (Baruch Goldstein) is virtually worshipped as a hero by the Hebron settlers. This is imbalance. CBC always bends over backwards to throw a negative light on Palestinians, but completely refrains from revealing the very obvious, and equally reprehensible, ugliness of Jewish extremism.

In the days leading up to the start of the Gaza war in early July, a Palestinian youth was also abducted and killed in east Jerusalem by Israeli extremists in an apparent revenge attack over the teens' slaying.

----OK, a brief mention, but where is his photograph? Where is the name and photograph of his killer. CBC did not report that it appears he had gasoline poured over him and was burned alive. Show us the picture of the brutal Israeli killer. What is his name? It is a Jewish name (Ben-David). Let us see this monster and know the evil that supports his brutality which is widespread in Israel. But that would be balanced, and thats the last thing CBC wants.


------------

It might also be noted that there have been significant events in Israel/Palestine over the last month that have gone completely unreported, because CBC thought them not worth reporting. Could it be because they reflected very badly on CBC's beloved Israel??? For example:
- Israel has confiscated 1,000 acres of Palestinian land; the biggest land grab in years, and is naming the area after the murdered teenagers. This is relevant to this issue and should have been reported as it clearly demonstrates that Israel is not interested in peace.
- Israel is moving Bedouin families off their land deep inside the West Bank with the intention of expanding the settlement blocks that effectively cut the west Bank into two parts. This will end the possibility of a viable Palestinian state.
- Israel has been responding with force to demonstrations by unarmed Palestinians in the West Bank, killing several of them. Here again the killing of 3 Israelis is world-shattering news, but the killing of Paqlestinians is not even worth mentioning
- the Israeli Supreme Court has decided that Jewish communities all over Israel can exclude non-Jews from living in them, simply because they are not Jewish. In Canada we did away with these kind of laws which discriminated AGAINST Jews 40 years ago, but in the Jewish State it is now officially kosher to discriminate against people based on their ethnicity or religion.
- the killers of the Palestinian youth have been found. Two of them are minors and their names are not published, but they are all members of an extremist Jewish settler group. Why is this not headline news?

Incidentally two years ago I worked in Palestine helping Christian farmers from Bet Jala and Bethlehem to harvest their olives in land now being confiscated from them by Israel. I know their pain, and am doubly pained to see CBC ignoring it completely, even though it is related to the recent Gaza conflict.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Justify the Unjustifiable

Decent people all over the world have been horrified by Israel's slaughter of innocents in Gaza. But indecent people, like the people at CBC, are busy trying to justify the slaughter. This article on September 12th is CBC's contribution to an Israeli campaign to try to get the world to ignore their crimes against humanity.


Hamas admits rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza neighbourhoods

Gaza's crowded urban landscape left little choice, Hamas says, adding Israel was heavy-handed



























Two weeks after the end of the Gaza war, there is growing evidence that Hamas militants used residential areas as cover for launching rockets at Israel, at least at times. Even Hamas now admits "mistakes" were made.

But Hamas says it had little choice in Gaza's crowded urban landscape, took safeguards to keep people away from the fighting, and that a heavy-handed Israeli response is to blame for the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

"Gaza, from Beit Hanoun in the north to Rafah in the south, is one uninterrupted urban chain that Israel has turned into a war zone," said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official in Gaza.

Increasingly, the discussion is not about whether the Hamas rockets were fired from civilian areas, but exactly how close they were to the actual buildings.

"The Israelis kept saying rockets were fired from schools or hospitals when in fact they were fired 200 or 300 metres  away. Still, there were some mistakes made and they were quickly dealt with," Hamad told The Associated Press, offering the first acknowledgment by a Hamas official that, in some cases, militants fired rockets from or near residential areas or civilian facilities

The questions lie at the heart of a brewing international legal confrontation: Did Hamas deliberately and systematically fire rockets at Israel from homes, hospitals and schools in the hope that Israel would be deterred from retaliating, as Israel claims? Or did Israel use force excessively, resulting in deaths among people not involved in combat operations?





Notice the first line of the article. It says evidence is mounting that Hamas used civilians "as cover". This claim by CBC is extreme. It should not have been made here. There may be evidence that Hamas operated near civilian centres, because Gaza is such a tiny over-crowded territory, but it is misleading to claim that Hamas was using civilians as "cover". This is the Israeli "human sheilds" claim in another form, which is highly questionable. CBC's wording here is TOO harsh, pointing in an unproven direction as if it is almost proven.

But when they talk about Israel, they do not want to be harsh. Look at their choice of words. Killing over 500 children is described as ":heavy-handed". How can mass murder of children be described as heavy handed"? How about "barbaric"? Or "criminal and inhumane"? Or "disgusting and brutal"? Or even "racist and ethnic cleansing"? Certainly Hamas had harsher words to describe the massacre of their children than "heavy handed". If CBC is so eager to let Hamas implicate itself in wrongdoing with its own words, then why not use Hamas words to describe Israeli wrong-doing?

Look at the use of headlines here. CBC knows the special ability of headlines to influence casual readers. Many people only read the headlines, and the messages stick. What is a "Gaza neighbourhood"? Gaza is so crowded that it is virtually impossible not to be in a Gaza neighbourhood all the time. CBC hopes its casual readers do not realize that, and so this headline will be very incriminating.

Why is the headline not something like this:

HAMAS CLAIMS TO HAVE KEPT ITS ROCKETS AWAY FROM CIVILIAN FACILITIES

CBC made a clear choice here to use as damning a headline as possible against Hamas in support of the Israeli claims.

Then the rest of the article cites at length all kinds of evidence from Israeli sources of Hamas wrong doing, and CBC is clearly trying to influence its readers to forgive Israel for its massacre. Why does CBC not wait for the results of the UN inquiry? Because Israel needs media help now to clean its image and CBC is eager to oblige.

Notice this sub-headline in the article:

Israel disputes Palestinian casualty figures




Notice how CBC gets Hamas to incriminate itself in the major headline, and lets Israel absolve itself of guilt in the sub-headline. Is this CBC's idea of balance?

Instead of quoting the phony Israeli claim that they did not kill so many civilians, why doesn't CBC publish the name and ages of the over 500 Gaza children killed by Israel? CBC was keen to publish the names of Israelis killed. Why not publish this list?

Friday, September 5, 2014

Upside Down Logic

On September 5th, CBC quoted a Canadian woman touring the occupied Golan Heights as follows:

Canadian Laurie Conn-Zuckerman, along with her husband and daughter, visited the lookout over the Syrian town of Quneitre earlier this week, she says, to see the threat posed to Israel every day.

"We live in a bit of a bubble in Toronto, and I think it's really important for everyone in the western world who cherishes our freedom to experience a little bit of what it's like to live every day in a country that you have to be on your toes all the time," she told me.

Conn-Zuckerman said she believes the threat from Islamist groups will only grow, adding that Canada should be doing more to stop the rise of these insurgents.

"I think if we had to send out troops in to fight for democracy, I would support that."


This statement fits nicely with the Israeli propaganda claim that somehow Israel is the FRONTLINE for Western democracy against Islamic extremism. Like much Zionist propaganda this is exactly the opposite of reality - the exact opposite of the trutrh. Not just a small lie, or a fudging of the truth, but a complete inversion of reality.

There is much evidence to believe that Israeli injustice to Palestinians, and humiliation of Arabs and Muslims, and occupation of the Muslim holy sites as was done by the Christian Crusaders, are amongst the MAIN CAUSES of Islamic extremism. If Israel behaved better, and less aggressively and brutally, there would be less extremism. Israel is a big part of the problem, not at all part of any solution.

In the interest of balance, CBC should not be publishing this garbage claim without at least outlining the opposite scenario. This woman is saying that war is the only answer and CBC is using weaponized words to echo and not refute her claim.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Not newsworthy???

Israel has announced that they will confiscate 1,000 acres of West Bank land, including the farms of many Palestinian farmers. This is the biggest land confiscation in 30 years. Netanyahu has said it is being done in memory of the three Israeli teenagers killed in June.
 
Acts like this by Israel make peace with the Palestinians impossible. This proves that Israel's goal is ethnic cleansing, and that Israel has no desire for a real peace.
 
This confiscation is RELEVANT to the recent escalation of fighting and Israeli killings of Palestinians in Gaza which got so much coverage.
 
If CBC wanted Canadians to understand how uninterested the Israeli Government is in peace, CBC would highlight this news, NOT IGNORE IT.