"While it is true for you to write, as you do in this story, that “Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel claimed the lives of roughly 1,400 people,” the omission of the more than three-times-larger Palestinian fatality count is unjustifiable."
October 23, 2023
To:
Nathaniel Dove, Digital Broadcast Journalist, Global News
Rebecca Joseph, Digital Managing Editor, Global News
Dear Nathaniel Dove and Rebecca Joseph,
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME, cjpme.org) to insist on correction of your October 22 report, “‘We’re at a very critical time’: former FBI negotiator on freeing hostages from Hamas.”
Your story unjustifiably mentions deaths on only one side of the ongoing conflict.
This morning, the United Nations raised an alarm that Israel has this month killed more than 5,000 Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, and that – amid an illegal Israeli siege blocking food, water, and medicine supplies – the killing shows no sign of stopping.
Therefore, while it is true for you to write, as you do in this story, that “Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel claimed the lives of roughly 1,400 people,” the omission of the more than three-times-larger Palestinian fatality count is unjustifiable.
Reference to the Palestinian fatality count simply must be added to this story.
Moreover, reference to those illegally held by parties to this dispute should not be racially, ethnically, religiously, or nationally exclusive. Before October 7, as you can read in the Israeli press, “Israel held close to 5,000 Palestinian prisoners,” including about two hundred children: “To these were added more than 1,000 Palestinians that Israel abducted in the West Bank only over the last two weeks.”
To refer to Israeli deaths and not to Palestinian deaths, and to the Israelis in illegal captivity and not to the Palestinians in illegal captivity, is imbalanced. Please immediately add a full reference to Palestinian fatalities, and ideally to the Palestinian prisoners, too.
Feel free to contact me at 438-380-5410 if you would like to discuss this further.
Sincerely,
Dan Freeman-Maloy
PhD, University of Exeter
Postdoc, Canada Research Chair in Québec and Canadian Studies
Director of Strategic Operations
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East/
Canadiens pour la Justice et la Paix au Moyen-Orient