"While your article is generally sympathetic to the Palestinian civilians picking up the pieces after a brutal Israeli invasion, your failure to mention Israel’s occupation and contextualize the Jenin invasion in the context of Israel’s occupation is telling, and ultimately prejudiced against Palestinians."
September 9, 2024
To:
Margaret Evans, Foreign correspondent, CBC The National
Nancy Waugh, Managing Editor, CBC News
Dear Ms. Evans, Ms. Waugh,
I am writing on to express disappointment in Ms. Evans’ article titled: “Residents of Jenin struggle once again to pick up the pieces after Israeli troops depart” published on Sept. 8, 2024.
While Ms. Evans is obviously a senior, seasoned and competent journalist, I feel like her story reflects an unconscious bias – but a serious bias nonetheless.
First, the article’s oft-repeated premise that this “incursion” was the “most destructive in recent memory” doesn’t really hold up. Your article states that Israel says that 14 Palestinian militants were “eliminated” with no mention of the injured. The Israeli invasion of the Jenin refugee camp in July, 2023 left 12 dead and 100 injured. Rather than describing this as a surprisingly devastating one-off, you should have described it as part of an ongoing and brutal Israeli regime of oppression. Of course, the July, 2023 invasion of Jenin by Israel is just one of many in recent years – hardly stretching “recent memory” as the article’s teaser suggests. Please rework the story with a more telling framing.
On a related point, the word “occupation” is mentioned in the article only once, in a quote of Mustapha Barghouti, one of your Palestinian interviewees. While your article is generally sympathetic to the Palestinian civilians picking up the pieces after a brutal Israeli invasion, your failure to mention Israel’s occupation and contextualize the Jenin invasion in the context of Israel’s occupation is telling, and ultimately prejudiced against Palestinians. Clearly, for the Palestinians – like Barghouti – it is central. With this omission, you fail CBC’s readers.
Someone new to the context might rightly question what Israeli soldiers are doing in a Palestinian city, and why they are there. They also might wonder how long this has been going on. They also might wonder whether Israel has the legal right to do these things. If you had mentioned the occupation, it would have given you the opportunity to mention the recent ICJ decision which declared that Israel’s military occupation has all appearances of being “permanent” and therefore illegal.
I understand that you may just be following CBC precedent on some of these items, but CBC precedent is not necessarily unbiased or objective. A the late Middle East journalist Robert Fisk said many times, “Reporters should be neutral and unbiased on the side of those who suffer.” Please reconsider seriously how you report such stories – you are not helping the Canadian public to fully grasp these issues.
Sincerely,
Thomas Woodley, MPA, President, CJPME