"Failing to describe these actions by the Israeli military as “military raids” also obscures and takes away from the significance of Palestinian suffering due to these near-nightly operations."
July 26, 2023
To:
Dan Taylor, Managing Editor, CTV News
John Daniszewski, VP and Editor at Large for Standards, Associated Press
Josef Federman, News Director, Associated Press
Dear Mr. Taylor, Mr. Daniszewski,
I’m writing to you on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME, https://www.cjpme.org) with some concerns regarding a news report on the CTV News website titled “Palestinian man killed by Israeli troops during arrest raid.”
First, the use of the term “arrest raid” to describe a violent military attack on a refugee camp full of civilians in which a 23-year-old was extra-judicially murdered and another man arrested minimizes and downplays the brutality of the actions taken by the Israeli forces. “Arrest raid” should be replaced with “military raid,” “attack,” or simply “raid,” which are all far better ways to describe these actions.
The Associated Press had moved away from these characterizations for the last months, so I am surprised to see the qualifier “arrest” return. While there are countless examples of times when so-called “arrest raids” were misrepresented and were actually extrajudicial killings, the Washington Post’s reporting on a particular raid on Jenin in March of this year shows how unreliable Israeli military sources are in the aftermath of these attacks.
Failing to describe these actions by the Israeli military as “military raids” also obscures and takes away from the significance of Palestinian suffering due to these near-nightly operations.
As such, I insist that you adapt all future reporting to use “military raid” instead of “arrest raid.”
Sincerely,
Mohamed Khalaf
Director of Strategic Operations, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East