"While the Associated Press and CBC’s unwillingness to publish the word “Palestine” in its reporting has always been a form of anti-Palestinian racism, this tendency has become especially offensive and outdated as 143 countries have supported UN resolution to provide new rights and privileges to Palestine, and countries like Norway, Ireland, and Spain have formally recognized the state."
May 23, 2024
To:
Darren Major, Journalist, CBC News
Nancy Waugh, Managing Editor, CBC News
Dear Darren Major,
I’d like to draw attention to a paragraph in one of your most recent articles titled “ICC’s decision to seek warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders is ‘troubling,’ Trudeau says,” published on May 21 on CBC News.
At the beginning of your article, you write the following:
On Monday, the ICC’s top prosecutor, Karim Khan, sought warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of committing multiple offences since Israel declared war on Hamas in response to the Oct. 7 attacks.
Khan also applied for warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri (also known as Mohammed Deif), the commander-in-chief of Hamas’s military wing, and Ismail Kaniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau, for crimes committed in Israel and Gaza.
In ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan’s applications for arrest warrants, he writes that all of the individuals you’ve listed above bear criminal responsibility for “war crimes and crimes against humanity.” Why you’ve written that PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are being accused of “offences” while Hamas leaders of “crimes,” is a mystery. Please use the same language for both, or at least more similar language.
The language from Khan’s statement that you’ve decided to either adopt or omit from your reporting is, overall, quite puzzling. You write that Khan applied warrants for Hamas leaders for crimes “committed in Israel and Gaza,” while the ICC’s statement reads “crimes…committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip). Instead of writing “Israel and Gaza,” you should write “Israel and Palestine” to be more accurate. Khan clearly states that Netanyahu and Gallant bear criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity on the territory of the State of Palestine, yet you omit the territorial component of the ICC statement when describing arrest warrants for Israel’s leaders. This demonstrates an obvious double standard and must be rectified immediately. Please add that Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the territory of the State of Palestine to maximize accuracy.
Palestine has long existed both as a political and geographic concept — “Palestine” is not a modern invention. Refusing to use the word “Palestine” suggests a racist denial of Palestinians’ very existence, homeland, culture, history, and heritage. According to the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association, refusing to use the word "Palestine" is a form of anti-Palestinian racism because it erases Palestinians and their narratives, denies the Nakba, and refuses to acknowledge Palestinians as indigenous people with a collective identity. While the Associated Press and CBC’s unwillingness to publish the word “Palestine” in its reporting has always been a form of anti-Palestinian racism, this tendency has become especially offensive and outdated as 143 countries have supported UN resolution to provide new rights and privileges to Palestine, and countries like Norway, Ireland, and Spain have formally recognized the state.
I hope you will consider making these recommended edits as it is a matter of maintaining minimum standards of journalistic accuracy.
Sincerely,
Rose Mardikian,
Media Analyst, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East