Media Malfeasance and Israel

 

When did impartiality take precedence over truth? What is the role of journalists when the world is turning upside down? When there is an active genocide taking place and Israel has killed more than 150 journalists with impunity? Is it to hold a microphone to two different narratives and stand in the middle like a bewildered gnome and shrug your shoulders? That's not journalism. But that is what we are seeing more and more. Impartiality is being weaponised and truth is being sacrificed. 

Where is Belle Donati? That is the matter that we deal with in this episode of From The Desk

Challenging the Media’s “Palestine Exception”

 

This episode is a conversation with Jason Toney, Director of Media Advocacy at CJPME about Canada's Media Ethics and our Media Accountability Project. We talk about the Canadian media's ethics, standards, biases, and erasure of Palestinian content. We speak about the impact CJPME had on media and the challenges we face.

Israeli journalists join the live-streamed genocide

 

A mainstream Israeli journalist recently blew up a house in Lebanon as part of a news report while embedded with the military. The broadcast shows how mainstream genocidal activity has become in Israeli society.

The level of militant lust for revenge in Israeli society is uncharted these days. The latest example came on Friday, when Israeli Channel 12 journalist Danny Kushmaro released a 27-minute report on Israel’s destruction in southern Lebanon. The title of the presentation was “This is not the Third Lebanon War, it is the last one.” 

Channel 12 is the most-watched commercial channel, it’s considered centrist and mainstream. In the report, Kushmaro is embedded with Golani infantry soldiers riding into a village in southern Lebanon, called Ayta Al-Sha’b. The village is almost entirely razed to the ground, but there are still some buildings left. Kushmaro’s report is replete with vitriol, where he repeatedly refers to “these evil people”, whom he chides for “hating Israel”. 

At the end of the story, Kushmaro is offered the task of pressing a button to denonate a building. “A moment before we leave, we have one mission left,” Kushmaro narrates. The officer is seen telling him of a house nearby, where he claims that “there is direct line of sight to Dovev and Meron – from here they shoot.” Kushmaro presses the button and the house explodes, serving as the climax of the whole report. Kushmaro signs off with a close-up where he says “Don’t mess with the Jews.”  (more...)

Israeli journalists join the live-streamed genocide

Revealed: the Israeli Spies Writing America’s News

 

One year after Oct. 7 attacks, Netanyahu is on a winning streak.” So reads the title of a recent Axios article describing the Israeli prime minister riding on an unbeatable wave of triumphs. These stunning military “successes,” its author Barak Ravid notes, include the bombing of Yemen, the assassinations of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and the pager attack against Lebanon.

The same author recently went viral for an article that claimed that Israeli attacks against Hezbollah are “not intended to lead to war but are an attempt to reach ‘de-escalation through escalation.'” Users on social media mocked Ravid for this bizarre, Orwellian reasoning. But what almost everybody missed is that Barak Ravid is an Israeli spy – or at least he was until recently. Ravid is a former analyst with Israeli spying agency Unit 8200, and as recently as last year, was still a reservist with the Israeli Defense Forces group.

Unit 8200 is Israel’s largest and perhaps most controversial spying organization. It has been responsible for many high-profile espionage and terror operations, including the recent pager attack that injured thousands of Lebanese civilians. As this investigation will reveal, Ravid is far from the only Israeli ex-spook working at top U.S. media outlets, working hard to manufacture Western support for his country’s actions.

Ravid has quickly become one of the most influential individuals in the Capitol Hill press corps. In April, he won the prestigious White House Press Correspondents’ Award “for overall excellence in White House coverage”—one of the highest awards in American journalism. Judges were impressed by what they described as his “deep, almost intimate levels of sourcing in the U.S. and abroad” and picked out six articles as exemplary pieces of journalism.

Most of these stories consisted of simply printing anonymous White House or Israeli government sources, making them look good, and distancing President Biden from the horrors of the Israeli attack on Palestine. As such, there was functionally no difference between these and White House press releases. For example, one story the judges picked out was titled “Scoop: Biden tells Bibi 3-day fighting pause could help secure release of some hostages,” and presented the 46th President of the United States as a dedicated humanitarian hellbent on reducing suffering. Another described how “frustrated” Biden was becoming with Netanyahu and the Israeli government.  (more...)

Revealed: the Israeli Spies Writing America’s News

this is amazing. Barak Ravid, who is considered by the Western media class to be the greatest most objective neutral "journalist" on the ongoing Gaza genocide even though he served in Israeli military intelligence and constantly launders Israeli propaganda, is now openly… pic.twitter.com/lYldfmVqaC

— ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) September 6, 2024

I resigned from Canada’s largest broadcasting corporation over its complicity in Israel’s genocide

 

I resigned from CBC after voicing my concerns over their coverage of Palestine. I have since seen how the CBC's policy on impartiality helped manufacture consent for genocide.

Words can empower, arm, and evoke sentiments that stimulate new ideas, worldviews, and policies. Being the only Muslim in the newsroom, I feared the language the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was using to talk about Palestinians and resistance could ignite similar emotions that justified the U.S. invasion of Iraq and mass killings of innocent civilians in 2001. 

Days after October 7, 2023, I sat across from a CBC executive who appeared uneasy yet curious about my concerns over CBC’s coverage of Hamas’ attack on Israel. I was appalled by CBC’s lack of historical context between Israel and Palestine and the language used to defend Israel’s massacre of Palestinians.

The executive appeared empathetic but then quoted CBC’s stance on impartiality and the importance of “balanced coverage”. But, I argued, when crimes against humanity are being committed, there is no such thing as both sides to a story. There is only the truth.

After sharing my concerns with the executive, I was strategically dismissed from daily pitch meetings for a few weeks. But as the war amplified and I returned to my seat at the table, I continuously brought up to my peers and editors that labeling genocide as the “Israel-Hamas war” falsely portrays that both Palestinians and Israelis are on even-playing fields. This narrative ignores that for 76 years, Palestinians have been forcibly ousted from their homes, confined to the barbed wires of the Gaza Strip, and have been under constant surveillance of Israeli settlers.  (more...)

I resigned from Canada’s largest broadcasting corporation over its complicity in Israel’s genocide

Reporting On Samidoun Ignores Plight Of Palestinian Detainees

 

Palestinians detained by Israel have faced inhumane conditions, including rape and torture, with many dying in prison.

Yesterday, both Canada and the United States designated Samidoun as a terrorist entity.  

Samidoun, also known as the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, had been under fire from the Israel lobby and its allies among elected officials for years, but pressure ramped up after Oct. 7, 2023, as the group organized protests against Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Both governments allege that Samidoun has “close links” with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been listed as a designated terrorist entity in Canada and the U.S. since 2003 and 2001, respectively.

Earlier today, Samidoun released a statement denying that they have any “material or organizational ties to entities listed on the terrorist lists of the United States, Canada or the European Union,” and arguing that they are being “targeted because of our political and vocal support for the Palestinian prisoners movement and the Palestinian people’s right to resistance.”

Samidoun’s designation as a terrorist entity received a great deal of media coverage, most of it simply repackaging the press releases issued by the two governments. These news articles missed quite a bit, but something in particular stuck out to me.

I reviewed original reporting from the Canadian Press, CBC News, Global News, The Globe and Mail, the National Post, Reuters, the Toronto Sun, and the Vancouver Sun, and found that none of them offered any background into the issue Samidoun was founded in 2011 to address: the plight of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

This is an egregious omission that is especially indefensible given the detailed reports released in the past few months on the inhumane conditions Palestinians face in Israeli jails from B'Tselem, the United Nations Human Rights Office and the United Nations’ International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.

Given that the mainstream media unanimously ignored these credible investigations in their articles on Samidoun — which says it aids Palestinian prisoners by raising awareness and organizing campaigns for political change — I want to offer a brief overview of what the reports found. I encourage you to then read them in full.  (more...)

Reporting On Samidoun Ignores Plight Of Palestinian Detainees

Felling the corporate media beast

 

Toward a new media landscape

In 2020, CBC Radio One host Duncan McCue publicly apologized for referring to Palestine as “Palestine” while interviewing Joe Sacco about his book Paying the Land. Later, CBC retroactively erased any mention of Palestine from that interview, with executive producer Raj Ahluwalia stating “There was no pressure from anyone [to do so].”

Since the beginning of the escalated genocide in Gaza, traditional media has responded the same way it responded to the so-called “war on terror”: parroting Western foreign policy, encouraging paranoia and fearmongering about the looming threat of so-called Islamic terrorism, and manufacturing consent for unwinnable wars in the Third World. 

In October 2023, CTV, the National Post, Toronto Sun, and Toronto Star replicated, with little to no challenge, the quickly debunked claims that Hamas beheaded 40 babies and perpetrated “mass rape.” 

While Palestinians in Gaza are being slaughtered, orphaned, maimed, and displaced by Canada-funded weapons, corporate media and Canadian politicians insist that the hundreds of thousands protesting the genocide are violent anti-Semites.  (more...)

Felling the corporate media beast

Media Lies About October 7 Helped Create Support For Genocide

 

Canadian media outlets spread the lie that Hamas beheaded babies, and most have failed to correct their errors.

Today is the first anniversary of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, a Hamas-led cross-border assault that marked a new stage in Palestinian resistance. 

In the hours and days after the operation commenced, sensationalist stories spread about actions Hamas fighters allegedly committed. Perhaps the most shocking of these was that members of the group had decapitated and/or burned alive up to 40 Israeli babies.

Those critical of Israel immediately doubted the claim for a variety of reasons. As it became increasingly clear that the story was a hoax, those who had initially believed it protested that it didn’t exactly matter if the babies were beheaded or burned alive, because they had been killed anyways (though this would also end up being proven false, with one baby, not 40, included among lists of those killed that day). 

Yet many on both sides agreed on something: Wasn’t the Hamas operation deadly enough on its own without adding such a sensational claim?

More critical observers, however, accurately predicted that whatever brutality Israel had planned needed something particularly egregious to help justify it. The supposed murder of babies in such a gruesome way served exactly that purpose, and played a key role in helping to drum up support for what has turned into a genocide in Gaza.  (more...)

Media Lies About October 7 Helped Create Support For Genocide

Related:

Global News and Postmedia Refuse to Correct Oct. 7 Falsehoods

The German Left’s complicity in the Palestinian genocide

 

While the German left passionately supports many international causes but remains conspicuously silent on the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, conveniently overlooking its own complicity in Germany’s military-industrial ties to Israel.

This is not just an abstract critique. As someone deeply embedded in these spaces, it is impossible to ignore the glaring contradictions within Germany’s so-called progressive movement. What once appeared as a beacon of international solidarity and human rights has become a façade—a hollow theater of selective outrage and performative activism. The ongoing genocide in Palestine, as bombs reduce Gaza to rubble and kill innocent people, is met with shocking silence. The German Left, which claims to stand for the oppressed, is nowhere to be found. Where are the protests? Where are the statements of outrage? They only appear when it’s geopolitically convenient, while the bodies of Palestinians continue to pile up, apparently too inconvenient for their agenda.

To provide context on whom I am critiquing within the German leftist scene: In Germany, the current cabinet is dominated by the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green Party, both of which claim to be center-left. These parties, however, are vocally pro-Israel and, by extension, pro-Zionist. Their government continues to arm Israel, fueling the ongoing genocide of Palestinians—Germany is the second-largest arms supplier to Israel. By default, these parties, along with their student wings occupying university governments across the country, support the apartheid state and settler colonialism. From the top government structures to the grassroots student bodies, this system is complicit in sustaining genocide.

What’s particularly galling is that these same political forces promote “refugee welcome” campaigns and peace initiatives, presenting themselves as humanitarians while actively backing apartheid and ethnic cleansing. The contradiction is blatant, yet somehow, it goes unnoticed or unchallenged in their rhetoric. The most troubling aspect of this is the silence of the broader left. There are hundreds of leftist activist groups in Germany—anti-fascists, anti-fascist feminists, anarcho-syndicalists, and other radical or progressive left groups that fight for refugee rights or social injustice—who are supposedly fighting against these power structures. Yet, after October 7, 2023, when Israeli violence against Palestinians escalated even further, these groups fell silent. It is worth mentioning that in Germany, the radical left faction ‘Anti-Deutsch’ (Anti-German), whose position is to oppose German nationalism and criticize the mainstream political culture of Germany, is also pro-Zionist.  (more...)

The German Left’s complicity in the Palestinian genocide

Dana Bash only shows empathy when talking to IDF soldier

 

A tidal wave of tears

Genocidal Media, Genocidal Endorsements

 

International human rights lawyer and former senior United Nations Official Craig Mokhiber explains why Western media can (and should) be held legally accountable for its role in the Gaza genocide. .... 

Craig Mokhiber is an international human rights lawyer and former senior United Nations Official. He left the UN in October of 2023, penning a widely read letter that warned of genocide in Gaza, criticized the international response and called for a new approach to Palestine and Israel based on equality, human rights and international law.

Related:

Western media can be held legally accountable for its role in the Gaza genocide

Dr.Thea Weisdorf @UnityHealthTO-actions+(non)apology

 

Update🧵Dr.Thea Weisdorf @UnityHealthTO-actions+(non)apology

Refresher:Early June,she went to @occupyuoft encampment,wrapped in #israel flag+confronted pro-Palestinian @UofT students:

"I hope you guys never need health care from U of T. That's all I can say"

1/ @HA4Palestine pic.twitter.com/qZP2oTFSTt

— Ben Thomson 🇵🇸 (@BenNephrology) July 11, 2024

more:

Dr.Thea Weisdorf @UnityHealthTO-actions+(non)apology

Palestinian Journalist CALLS OUT Mainstream Media Silence On Palestinian Genocide

 

Journalists Laila Al-Arian and Kavitha Chekuru explain the media silence and bias when it comes to Israel's genocide in Palestine.

Katie talks to Laila Al-Arian, the Emmy award-winning executive producer about the media’s smearing of her parents. 

Laila Al-Arian is a Washington DC-based investigative journalist and the executive producer of Fault Lines, a current affairs and documentary program on Al Jazeera English. For her work, she has been honored with two News and Documentary Emmys, a Peabody Award and George Polk award. She is the co-author of “Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians.”

Kavitha Chekuru is a journalist and former producer with “Fault Lines,” Al Jazeera English’s award-winning news documentary show. Her reporting focused on human rights and security has been recognized with the George Polk award, the Overseas Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, and five News and Documentary Emmy nominations.

Western pharma tested drugs on newborns in Ukraine after 2014 coup

 

Russia claims it has found evidence that Western pharmaceutical companies carried out drug trials on Ukrainians after the 2014 coup, with even newborns said to have been involved. RT's Steve Sweeney reports.

Related:

RT tours secretive former Ukrainian medical research lab

What happens when you turn a psychopath into a therapist?

 

It was supposed to be "easy time."

Back in 1978, Margaret was a teenaged troublemaker living in southwestern Ontario who had been charged with general mischief and stealing a car. After her arrest, her lawyer laid out her options.

"'You can go to jail for two years — or do easy time at the psychiatric hospital in St. Thomas,' which was closer to my family," she said.

Margaret picked the "easy time."

And so began the nine months she remembers as the hardest of her life. She found herself locked up with women who were mentally ill, treated not by therapists but by men who were mentally ill and who'd been convicted of rape. They are painful memories she had locked away until contacted recently by CBC's The Fifth Estate.  (more...)

What happens when you turn a psychopath into a therapist?