"Your headline contradicts both United Nations and Canadian government opinion on the status of Jerusalem. “Canada does not recognize Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem,” the Government of Canada explains."
August 23, 2023
To:
Josef Federman, News Director, Associated Press
Donovan Vincent, Public Editor, Toronto Star
Dear Josef Federman and Donovan Vincent,
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME, cjpme.org) to insist on correction of your August 22 article, “In Israel, Mayor Eric Adams of New York City Stays Neutral on Divisive Judicial Overhaul.”
Your headline contradicts both United Nations and Canadian government opinion on the status of Jerusalem. “Canada does not recognize Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem,” the Government of Canada explains. Therefore, to cover the presence of Mayor Adams in annexed East Jerusalem – as at “the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,” to quote the caption for your photograph – while calling this “Israel” involves a clear factual error, both by United Nations and by official Canadian government standards.
This article is incorrect on the law. The one phrase in it referring to occupation – “It was also unclear whether Adams would visit the occupied West Bank” – introduces a confused distinction. “Canada does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967,” the Government of Canada explains, naming these territories as “the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.” Note East Jerusalem.
In fact, as a matter of basic geography, there is no clear distinction between occupied (or illegally annexed) East Jerusalem and the West Bank. While the settler-power government in Israel emphasizes this point in order to include as many illegal settlements as possible in its claim to “Jerusalem,” anyone familiar with the map will recognize that a neat distinction between “East Jerusalem” and “West Bank” is nearly impossible.
We insist on a correction. The article as written is in clear contravention of the legal and geographic facts as spelled out by the United Nations and the Government of Canada.
Feel free to reach me at 438-380-5410 if you would like further substantiation that this is a basic matter of fact.
Sincerely,
Dan Freeman-Maloy