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 Poor coverage – Media outlet to be critiqued
A CJPME Media Researcher has launched a media alert for the following op-ed. Please submit a quick response to the media, even if it’s just a sentence or two:
Title of Piece: Avi Benlolo: “How Palestinians weaponized rape on October 7”
Media Outlet: National Post
Click here to access the piece on-line.
Click here to access the piece in pdf format.
Comments of the CJPME Media Researcher:
(Note: Please do not copy and paste the material below as the content to your message to the media - put all comments in your own words):
The National Post published an inflammatory article by Avi Benlolo that includes highly alarming language.
The author writes:
I refer to them as “Palestinian” and not as “Hamas” so as to strip away the mask we often use to pretend they are someone else — as we did by referring to “Germans” as “Nazis”.
This is overtly hateful language that crosses the line even for opinion articles. We urge our Media Responders to challenge this harmful portrayal by writing to the National Post and then consider filing an independent complaint to a press council, like the National NewsMedia Council or the Quebec Press Council.
Beyond this particularly egregious violation, the article also includes the following issues you might include:
- The op-ed mentions that it took the United Nations months to acknowledge the alleged sexual assaults perpetrated by Hamas militants; however, it presents the UN response in a selective manner — omitting that the UN team relied primarily on sources close to the Israeli government and faced challenges in collecting evidence related to the alleged crimes committed on October 7. In fact, the report itself states that the team did not meet with any victim or survivor of the alleged sexual violence said to have occurred on October 7.
- The op-ed also criticizes The New York Times for publishing an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof detailing testimonies of Israel’s use of systemic sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees, portraying the accounts as “alleged” while suggesting that the timing of the op-ed’s publication before the release of the Israeli report was an attempt to “muddy the waters.”
- The op-ed also reports uncritically the findings of the report published by the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children. Absent from the piece is any mention that the report consists of rehashing unverified allegations, including the “beheaded babies” claim which has already been debunked. The report also references Sheryl Sandberg’s Screams Before Silence, a documentary promoted as “a film on the sexual violence committed by Hamas” during the events of October 7, 2023. However, up until now, Israeli authorities have not publicly presented evidence of firsthand witness testimonies relating to allegations of rape by Hamas militants. In fact, in 2025, an Israeli prosecutor reportedly acknowledged that there was still no complainants in alleged cases of rape committed by Palestinians during the events of October 7, 2023. Without this context, the op-ed presents highly contested allegations as settled fact while omitting important information necessary for readers to critically assess the credibility of the claims being advanced in this report.
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The author invokes Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” to frame the alleged sexual violence perpetrated on October 7 as ideologically planned, drawing parallels between Hamas militants and Nazi officials through the portrayal of violence as calculated, bureaucratic, and systematically executed.
Please click here to launch an email in which you can draft a response to this media coverage.
Thank you very much. Every response makes a difference.
The CJPME Media Centre Team
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