The Media Accountability Project  

As expected, I saw the attack on The Link for its article by “(Dis)honest Reporting Canada” last week. Ultimately, their aim is to silence Palestinians and their narratives, and whitewash Israel’s human rights abuses. Their attack on you is testament to the fact that you provided comprehensive, personal and candid reporting. Again, thank you. Continue reading

Settlers set homes on fire with families still inside. The majority of injuries were a result of tear gas fired by the Israeli army and smoke inhalation from widespread fires set by the settlers. This horrific event of settler terror must be described for what it is: a pogrom. Continue reading

In the case of Tuesday morning’s 8:00 a.m. news slot, you highlight the story of an American citizen from Connecticut who was killed by Palestinians.  One might reasonably ask, “What was an American citizen from Connecticut doing outside Nablus, a large Palestinian city in the West Bank, territory slated to be part of a future Palestinian state?”  In fact, the individual killed was not only an American citizen, but also an illegal Israeli “settler.”  Since 1967, when Israel militarily occupied the West Bank through war, Israel has been colonizing (“settling”) Palestinian territory, and to date, there are over 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank.  Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention – the international law applying to situations of war and occupation – strictly forbids the colonization of occupied territory.  As you can imagine, the indigenous Palestinians in this land are highly threatened by presence of 700,000 (and growing) illegal Israeli settlers.  Frequent confrontations and violence are the result. Continue reading

While I can understand you want to show your readers related video content, it is in poor taste to include a “heartwarming” story about a refugee from Gaza above a story about the bombing of her homeland and other Israeli violence being committed against Palestinians. This does not aid the reader in further understanding the incidents in the article. Continue reading

Your Feb. 16 article in the Globe and Mail, "Palestinians sense a new intifada coming as young people focus their anger on Israel's resurgent right," did an excellent job of giving space for Palestinian perspectives. I welcome this development, which helps restore some balance to our national conversations. It’s important to note that your Feb. 16 regularly included significant space for Israeli perspectives as well, with quotes from people from different parts of Israeli society. While the article represented an honest effort at meeting journalistic expectations around fair and balanced reporting, I would have hoped the same approach would be taken going forward. Unfortunately, the article published on February 22 almost entirely excluded the Palestinian perspective. Only twice does a Palestinian perspective come into the picture, and both times in a very limited fashion. Continue reading

Your article also describes the new right-wing government’s decision to authorize nine illegal settler outposts as a way to “expand its authority” in the occupied West Bank. This framing severely downplays the gravity of this decision. In fact, since 1967, Israel has established at least 132 illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian territory according to the Israeli Peace Now watchdog group. These settlements are in direct violation of the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, therefore constituting a war crime. Scandalously, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s response is that nine settlements are simply “not enough” and that he “want[s] much more.”  Continue reading

This article again describes the occupied West Bank as “lands the Palestinians seek for a future state.” Your article also suggests that Israel “captured” the West Bank in 1967. Referring to the West Bank in this way obscures the reality that it is territory, occupied militarily by Israel, that all UN resolutions and international peace agreements reserve for a Palestinian state. This is not an opinion but a matter of a settled consensus at the international level, as confirmed by the United Nations Security Council, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel’s military occupation of these Palestinian territories is critical context for interpreting the nature of, and motivations behind, the new far-right government’s plan to expand illegal settlements. Continue reading

The use of the term “attackers” in the headline is misleading. According to the Israeli parliament’s press release, the new law applies to Palestinians who are convicted of an offense that “constitutes a breach of trust to the State of Israel.” As reported by the Times of Israel, the law applies to Palestinians who have been “incarcerated following a conviction for terror, aiding terror, harming Israeli sovereignty, inciting war, or aiding an enemy during wartime.” Many of these requirements are vague and could potentially encapsulate many Palestinian citizens of Israel convicted of a variety of offences, and not necessarily for violent attacks on Israel. Therefore, referring to them as “attackers” minimizes the potentially harmful implications of this new law. Continue reading

As a professional journalist reporting on armed conflict, you have an obligation to be skeptical of official reports from an armed aggressor. The Israeli military’s-vague allusion to a person with an“explosive device” should have immediately triggered doubt in your mind as to the transparency of the Israeli military’s account.The DCIP report, on the other hand, also points out that Al-Aydi was shot by a sniper–something the AP/CTV story ignored. The general public deserves much better journalism on such reports. Continue reading

Cotler should be straightforward with Canadians and admit that he views IHRA as opposed to the human rights sector, the UN, and the application of international law itself. Then we could have an honest public debate about whether we think that Canada’s institutions should be restricting criticism of any state’s human rights violations. Continue reading