"Fragmentation of Palestinian land, dispossession of land and property, segregation and control of Palestinian movement and placement, and deprivation of their economic & social rights, according to Amnesty International, have sustained the apartheid system and maintained a Jewish demographic majority in Palestine. Zionist militias violently massacaring 15,000 Palestinians, forcibly expelling over 700,000, and destroying 500 Palestinian towns echoes the belief that one’s country, people, religion or race is inherently superior to the group being attacked, to use your language."
May 30, 2024
To:
Barry Winfield, Journalist, The Review-Mirror
Editor, The Review-Mirror
Dear Barry Winfield
I am writing to express concern about one of your most recent articles titled “The Future of the ‘Two-State’ Goal in the Middle East,” published on May 30, 2024. Most concerningly, it seems that racist prejudgments, and not facts, may have guided the research and writing of this article. There are several factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations that violate basic journalistic standards and must be edited immediately.
You wrote the following:
Reading history closely will reveal that wars are invariably initiated by radical organizations with expansionist goals and an exclusionary culture; countries and peoples ruled by a dictator or absolute ruler; and/or religion. The basis of all three categories is the implacable belief that one’s country, people, religion or race is inherently superior to the group being attacked. This underlying conviction justifies advocating and employing a type of atrocity or violence that civilized countries reject.
I had to read this paragraph twice to realize that you intended to target Palestine with your words. Based on my own “reading of history,” the “expansionist goals” and “exclusionary culture” to which you refer seems to be more appropriately linked to the state of Israel. Afterall, the state is built on the premise of a Jewish majority and exclusivity. Fragmentation of Palestinian land, dispossession of land and property, segregation and control of Palestinian movement and placement, and deprivation of their economic & social rights, according to Amnesty International, have sustained the apartheid system and maintained a Jewish demographic majority in Palestine. Zionist militias violently massacaring 15,000 Palestinians, forcibly expelling over 700,000, and destroying 500 Palestinian towns echoes the belief that one’s country, people, religion or race is inherently superior to the group being attacked, to use your language.
You refer to the Hamas 1988 Charter to defend your point that its goal is the destruction of the state of Israel and all the Jews living there. In 2017, Hamas drafted an updated charter. The point of updating a charter is for the current one to be considered as a more accurate depiction of their ideology than the one developed almost more than 30 years ago. I point you to these two excerpts in particular:
16. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion Hamas does not wage a struggle against theJews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
17. Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage.
In future reporting, it would be helpful for you to refer readers to your sources for bold claims like the following:
- “Gaza’s children’s schoolbooks, found by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), teach them how to kill Israeli children with knives, guns, and explosives.” I will refer you to the following source that debunks recent claims that textbooks distributed throughout Palestine incite terrorism.
- “The UN has finally confirmed that 190 UNWRA workers joined the Hamas fighters on 7 October.” This is a blatant lie. The UN concluded theexact opposite in the Colonna report. After Israel accused 12 UNRWA staff of participating on the Oct. 7 attacks, the cases were all either closed or suspended due to a lack of evidence from Israel. To be clear, Israel asserted that 190 UNRWA workers joined Hamas on October 7 but these allegations have never been proven or accepted by the UN.
- “It is no consolation to the Palestinian populace that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) tries to fight as “humane” a battle as possible with advance warnings to all building occupants to leave within a designated time.” Reporters on the ground have found no evidence of the use of human, particularly since Israel’s recent military invasion of Gaza/ Amnesty International released a detailed report also refuting Israel’s falsehoods.
Thank you for removing these factual inaccuracies and editing the article more broadly to avoid relaying anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic stereotypes. Please reach out should you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Rose Mardikian
Media Analyst, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East