"Over the course of your four-minute segment, Jerusalem and the Holy sites are strictly described as being within Israel. This is a serious factual error. Both Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital city, and East Jerusalem (which includes the Old City) is considered occupied Palestinian territory under international law."
March 2, 2023
To:
Anne-Marie Mediwake, Anchor, CTV Your Morning
Jennifer MacLean, Executive Producer, CTV Your Morning
Michelle Crespi, Executive Producer, CTV Your Morning
Loren Christie, Travel Contributor, CTV Your Morning
Dear Ms. Mediwake, Ms. MacLean, Mr. Christie, and Ms. Crespi,
I’m writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME, https://www.cjpme.org) to demand an on-air correction regarding factually inaccurate and misleading comments made during your March 1 segment (begins at 1:54:05) on travel to Jerusalem.
Over the course of your four-minute segment, Jerusalem and the Holy sites are strictly described as being within Israel. This is a serious factual error. Both Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital city, and East Jerusalem (which includes the Old City) is considered occupied Palestinian territory under international law. This is not an opinion but a matter of a settled consensus at the international level, as confirmed by the United Nations Security Council, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention. Similarly, the Canadian government does not recognize Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem but considers the territory to be occupied.
If a viewer was to follow the advice of the report, they would not know that they would, in fact, be travelling to the occupied Palestinian territories as well as territory which is recognized internationally as within Israel proper.
Many of the locations mentioned during the segment – i.e. Jaffa Gate, Tower of David – are in occupied East Jerusalem. Others, like the Machane Yehuda market, are within Western Jerusalem. The inability to recognize this distinction leads to misleading travel advice: for example, while it is true that many locations in West Jerusalem are closed during Shabbat, this is not true for most of Palestinian East Jerusalem. This is a direct result of false and misleading remarks made by the host and the guest.
Further, the city’s culture is described strictly in relation to its Jewish customs, which is also misleading. Almost forty percent of the city’s inhabitants are Palestinians under Israeli occupation, who are both Muslim and Christian, and the city contains many important holy sites for all three religions. Again, an ordinary viewer without background contextual knowledge would inevitably be highly misled by your reporting into thinking that all the sites under discussion are located within Israel. I insist that these errors require corrections.
I expect an on-air correction to be made to remedy this situation by clarifying that East Jerusalem (including the Old City) is Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory according to international law, and that the city is home to Israeli Jews as well as Palestinian Muslims and Christians.
Please contact me if you would like to discuss this matter further at 438-380-5410.
Respectfully,
Jason Toney
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East
Director of Media Advocacy