Israel - Most Important Place in the World, for CBC

On May 5, CBC.ca/World had 20 headlines and three of them were solely about Israel. Israel makes up about 0.01% of the world's population, but according to CBC it warrants 15% of the news coverage. Talk about unbalanced!!!

Here are the three headlines, with some accompanying text:

First one:

Israeli government ministers accuse army general of 'cheapening' the Holocaust during speech

Maj-Gen. Yair Golan's remarks perceived as comparing Israel to Nazi Germany

But this year, emotions have been heightened and divisions deepened by a debate among Israelis over whether a soldier was justified in shooting and killing a Palestinian assailant who was wounded and lying on the ground, in an incident in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron in March

 

Notice this internal squabble inside Israel is somehow a world-shattering news headline.

Notice the language in the paragraph taken from the text: First the victim is described as an "assailant". Actually he was not the one on the site that was wielding the knife, so he did not assail anyone. The other Palestinian that was killed had had the knife. Notice CBC uses the words "shooting and killing", rather than "murdering" when video evidence clearly demonstrates that it was an act of cold-blooded murder of an unconscious person. Also how about the use of the word "incident" to describe this horrible crime. It was not an "incident" - an incident is when you scratch your car; it was a criminal act; a travesty; a disaster for the victim and his family.

Second one:

After launching airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza, Israel discovers new cross-border tunnel

Fighting in recent days has been among the most serious violence between Gaza and Israel since 2014 war

Gaza's health ministry reported a woman was killed in Israeli shelling that came in response to mortar fire by militants Thursday night. The fighting in recent days has been among some of the most serious violence between Gaza and Israel since a 50-day summer war in 2014.

 

The Hamas operative captured in April after crossing into Israel was identified as 29-year-old Mahmoud Atuna. The military said he detailed "Hamas' construction methods, and how Hamas utilized private homes and public institutions to hide the tunnels."

 

Earlier in the day, the military said it had hit "terrorist infrastructure sites" belonging to Hamas. The Gaza Health Ministry said three children and a 65-year-old Palestinian suffered light-to-moderate injuries in an airstrike that hit a metal workshop in Gaza City.

The workshop's owner, Hassan Hassanin, said his well-digging truck — which he described as the only one in Gaza that can reach a depth of 37 metres — was hit.

The latest escalation comes amid a months-long wave of violence that has seen near-daily attacks by Palestinians, mostly stabbings, which have killed 28 Israelis and two Americans. Some 193 Palestinians have been killed, most said by Israel to have been attackers. The rest were killed in clashes with Israeli forces.

 

Notice the entire tenor of this article focusses on the aggressiveness of the Palestinians. Its tone clearly exonerates Israel as a victim defending itself from Palestinian aggression. Nowhere does it clarify the fact that Palestinians are an occupied and abused people who are resisting Israel. Even the last paragraph above repeats the disgusting litany from Israel that there is "a wave of violence" from Palestinians when the reality is that Israel is constantly killing Palestinians whether they act violently or not all during this same period.

And how about the use of the phrase "clashes with Israeli forces" in the last line above? As often as not these so-called "clashes" were the cold-blooded execution of Palestinians. Is it a "clash" when one side, armed to the teeth, shoots on the flimsiest excuse a Palestinian? How is that a "clash"? A "clash" implies a minor incident with some degree of symmetry, when in fact that the situation on the ground is so asymmetrical as to constitute criminal behaviour. Most of the Palestinians that were killed did not have to die; they could easily have been disarmed and imprisoned. Many of them were killed just on the basis of a suspicion before there was even an active threat. These were not "clashes", unless this is a euphemism for "murder".

Some additional comments on the above paragraphs: CBC calls the massacres in Gaza of the summer of 2014 a "war". It was far too lopsided to be called a war. It was more like a massacre of virtually defenceless people - you do not call that a war.

CBC repeats Israeli military claims that the captured Palestinian revealed that Hamas uses private residences and public institutions to hide their tunnels. Does CBC not even suspect that this Palestinian informant was tortured, and perhaps was forced to say these things to end the torture. It is a real possibility that this claim, made repeatedly and seldom verified that Hamas uses private homes in its resistance efforts, is just a repeat of Israeli propaganda put into the mouth of a tortured Palestinian. Why is CBC so willing to repeat it?

Perhaps CBC might have mentioned how desperate Gaza is for water and well-digging equipment, and commented on the war crime nature of destroying the only civilian well digging apparatus in Gaza. This looks a lot like collective punishment and war criminal behaviour.

Third one:

Israel marks annual Holocaust remembrance day

In spite of the already overload of Israel news today CBC still thought this meaningless article needed to be included. The Holocaust was a horrible crime, but it was over 70 years ago, and it is already over-discussed in the media. This harping on the memory of the Holocaust is used by Israeli propagandists, CBC included, to cover up, or even justify Israeli human rights abuses. So the memory of the Holocaust has been sullied by its constant use to justify abuses by Israelis against Palestinians (who incidentally had nothing to do with the Holocaust).

Also CBC never thought it important to report on the commemoration of NAKBA DAY, or Palestinian LAND Day, both events of great importance to Palestinians which get virtually no media coverage at all. Everyone knows the word "Holocaust", but thanks to the collusion of CBC and other media, almost no one knows about the NAKBA- the Arab word for "catastrophe". This is in spite of the fact that the Holocaust is "old news" and the Nakba is currently ongoing. CBC has a strange notion of what is news-worthy indeed.