"I’m surprised this article is not an opinion piece as you have gone to great lengths to embrace the Israeli perspective and omit the Palestinian view. This of course denies any empathy for Palestinian suffering and attempts to shift it all to Israel as if they are the victims."
May 21, 2025
To:
Rob Roberts, National Post News.Editor-In-Chief
Brent Jolly, CAJ President
Fatima Syed, CAJ Vice President
John Fraser, NNC Executive Chair
Dear Mr. Roberts, Mr. Jolly, Ms. Syed and Mr. Fraser
Regarding the article, “IDF claps back against Anita Anand's criticism of the Gaza war” published by the National Post on May 19, 2025.
I’m surprised this article is not an opinion piece as you have gone to great lengths to embrace the Israeli perspective and omit the Palestinian view. This of course denies any empathy for Palestinian suffering and attempts to shift it all to Israel as if they are the victims.
As a journalist it’s very easy to spin things your way when you only talk and listen to one side. It also reveals your bias.
What is most remarkable is the obvious violations of basic journalistic ethics in your article. You state that Lt. Col Nadav Shoshani made a comment to reporters “travelling in Israel on a trip sponsored by the Exigent Foundation.” What you don’t clarify, is you are one of those reporters. You are on a trip sponsored by the Exigent Foundation. By not clearly disclosing this, and even being on the trip in the first place and still writing “news” articles, you are violating the Canadian Association of Journalists’ (CAJ) ethics guidelines on independence, conflicts of interest, and transparency. This is a remarkable failure by a professional member of the National NewsMedia Council (NNC).
To be clear, this is not a unique violation for Postmedia workers. Journalists have recently revealed that many Postmedia columnists and journalists have also taken these trips, including Bryan Passifiume and Warren Kinsella. This is not a one-off mistake, but a consistent pattern of total disregard for journalistic ethics in news related to Israel.
The National Post should take urgent action to remedy these gross violations of ethics and the CAJ and NNC should take note.
The article is also full of small slights of hand too - like casting skepticism over the sickening death toll in Gaza, now over 53,000. Using terms like “a figure released by the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.” is meant to build mistrust in the source of that barbaric number. As if there are Hamas militants actually running the hospitals instead of doctors and nurses. You state Israeli death toll numbers as fact and don’t attribute them. This is a clear double standard.
Letting IDF propagandists spin their false concern about the people of Gaza is another underhanded tactic. As if warning people you are going to bomb them somehow justifies the bombing and the inevitable slaughter. You make the Israelis sound benevolent and by omission demonize the Palestinians making them seem ungrateful. This is an embedded and smug form of racism. The mass starvation imposed by Israel unfortunately undermines your framing
You claim as fact that Hamas started the war but leave out the fact that Israel could have prevented it by ending its illegal siege of Gaza.
Lastly, there’s a typo in paragraph two.
Thank you for reading and I look forward to your response.
Jeff Winch