"With respect to the “Flour Massacre” 1.5 weeks ago, is Gutfreund aware that he is repeating hearsay and that there is significant evidence that Israel is the one who shot at Palestinians queuing to get aid? I would ask CP24 to cite the footage that Gutfreund refers to. Gutfreund cannot make flippant claims, saying “there is plenty of footage” and “it is believed” when he is a journalist."
March 11, 2024
To:
Jamie Gutfreund, Reporter/Anchor, CP24
Chris Fox, Managing Digital Producer, CP24
David Fraser, Military Analyst, CTV News
Dear Jamie Gutfreund, Chris Fox, and David Fraser,
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East to express concern regarding a news segment: “Canada restores funding for UN aid agency in Gaza,” with guest CTV News military analyst, retired Major General David Fraser, published on March 9.
It is deeply concerning that a lot of unproven claims were made in this news segment, and that no evidence was provided by CTV News or CP24 to corroborate these claims.
Host Jamie Gutfreund and guest CTV News military analyst retired Major General David Fraser made a lot of unfounded claims during this news segment, as quoted below:
- “Especially in light of the report that several UNRWA staff participated in the rape, murder, and kidnapping of Israeli citizens”
- “Committing rape, murder, and kidnapping”
- “There is plenty of footage out there of Hamas terrorists essentially hijacking a lot of these trailers, there’s been scenes of Palestinians rushing to a lot of these tractor trailers and have been shot at by Hamas, and there’s a lot of claims that they just don’t get the aid.”
- “Abu Marzak is worth $3 billion, Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh are each worth about $4 billion.”
- “It is believed that these terrorists have essentially earned their wealth by lining their pockets and siphoning the money that is sent to the Palestinians and to UNRWA.”
- “How does the country reconcile handing over millions of dollars to a terrorist organization to UNRWA essential ends up in the hands of a terrorist organization and after 20 years they really haven’t shown much improvement to build a society and offer social services, build hospitals, mosques, residential homes.”
- General David Fraser said: “Hamas are getting rich off the backs of their own people, Hamas have used their own people as shields, Hamas does not care about the Palestinians at all.”
- General David Fraser said: “Egypt wants to protect their own citizens that they open up the floodgates and allow all those people, including Hamas terrorists, to get back into their own country,”
Two months after the allegations about UNRWA staff allegedly participating in Hamas’s October 7 attacks, no evidence of its allegations has been publicly released by Israel. There are also reports that Israelis used torture to obtain confessions from UNRWA employees about alleged ties to Hamas. The “alleged” nature of Israel’s accusations should have been keenly highlighted in this segment.
With respect to the “Flour Massacre” 1.5 weeks ago, is Gutfreund aware that he is repeating hearsay and that there is significant evidence that Israel is the one who shot at Palestinians queuing to get aid? I would ask CP24 to cite the footage that Gutfreund refers to. Gutfreund cannot make flippant claims, saying “there is plenty of footage” and “it is believed” when he is a journalist.
Fraser makes the claims that Hamas “used their own people as shield.” However, apart from Israeli allegations, there is no proof of such claims by third-party human rights organizations like Amnesty International. I would ask CTV News to provide third-party evidence for this allegation, or specify that these are uncorroborated claims by Israel.
I would also like to point out that it is not accurate for Gutfreund to say that “after 20 years [Hamas] really haven’t shown much improvement to build a society and offer social services, build hospitals, mosques, residential homes” or for Fraser to say that “Hamas does not care about the Palestinians at all,” when it’s precisely the contrary. Good journalism would have mentioned that Hamas only governed certain aspects of Gaza while under Israeli occupation and that the organization historically provided social services. Even better journalism would have asked a Palestinian from Gaza how they felt about life under Hamas in Gaza.
Also, what is CP24’s source for the information on the net worth of Abu Marzak, Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh? Normally, in a situation like this, the news source would preface such allegations with, “According to…” If this information was obtained from Israeli government sources, it should be presented as “alleged” evidence.
The fact that Gutfreund and Fraser were allowed to make these allegations on air and blithely repeat pro-Israel talking points is a profound journalistic failure on their and CP24’s part.
I, therefore, ask for an on-air correction by CP24 to specify that many of the assertions made during the broadcast are unproven allegations.
Second, it is concerning that Gutfreund and Fraser repeatedly used the term terrorists to refer to Hamas.
Although “terrorism” has many interpretations, the United Nations defines it as criminal acts against civilians with the purpose to “intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act.” Given that Hamas targeted military personnel and infrastructure on Oct. 7, only a portion of their attacks can be broadly classified as “terrorism.” For context, the United Nations General Assembly does not have Hamas listed as a terrorist organization. Canada, on the other hand, does. If Canada’s attribution is the reason why you’ve made a broad-brush generalization of Hamas as a terrorist entity, then that needs to be made clear in your news segment. Otherwise, your vocabulary insinuates a moral judgment, which is inappropriate in a news segment.
I, therefore, ask for an on-air correction by CP24 to specify where the “terrorists” label repeatedly used to qualify Hamas comes from.
I hope CP24 will make these on-air corrections and respect basic journalistic obligations when reporting on Palestine in the future.
Sincerely,
Fatima Haidar
Media Analyst, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East