The Media Accountability Project  

"While it is alarming to see such clearcut false statements in print, it is equally concerning that there is such defamatory language used toward Palestinians. Walker’s definition of terrorism is confounding, as he is talking about groups in Jenin that were actively resisting an Israeli military invasion."

"Your description legitimizes Ben-Gvir’s extremist position, which is out of step with the vast majority of the international community, let alone human rights groups, or Canadian foreign policy. Ben-Gvir is a member of Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), which is a far-right and racist party with origins in Kahanism, a fascist and terroristic movement which calls for the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel."

"The article should state that Ben-Gvir is the leader of Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), a far-right and racist party with origins in Kahanism, a fascist and terroristic movement which calls for the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel."

On May 25, 2023, the Toronto Star published an article on a forthcoming visit to Canada by Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli. The article touched on Chikli’s far-right positions and associations but did not include any context about his racist and dangerous views against Palestinians. Chikli has called for the elimination of the Palestinian national identity, called Palestinian society “barbaric,” repeatedly compared Palestinians to Nazis, and says that annexing the occupied West Bank is “excellent." CJPME wrote to the Toronto Star on May 26 to request the inclusion of this information, noting that "Chikli and his far-right government present serious harms to many different groups of people, and Palestinians cannot be left out of this conversation.”

Following CJPME’s complaint, the article was updated later that day to note that “Chikli has also been called out by his critics for making anti-Palestinian remarks.” An editor’s note was added to say that “This story has been updated to provide more background on Amichai Chikli.”

CJPME had also taken issue with the Toronto Star’s description of Jerusalem Day, which was only described from Israel’s perspective as the “unification” of Jerusalem. CJPME requested an update to note that “unification” refers to the occupation and illegal annexation of East Jerusalem, but this change has not yet been made.

On April 5, 2023, the Hill Times published a letter from CJPME about a recent meeting between Minister Joly and her counterpart in Israel’s far-right government. The letter reads:

People around the world are openly questioning Israel’s commitment to democracy. Right-wing Israeli ministers make blatantly racist remarks about Palestinians. Human rights organizations have published detailed analyses of Israel’s apartheid policies against Palestinians.

Yet the Global Affairs readout on the March 16 meeting between Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and her Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen made it sound like a meeting of friends in prosperous times, cooing about “shared values.”

In fact, Joly should have refused this meeting, as Cohen is little different from his right-wing cabinet colleagues. Last year, for example, he suggested that Palestinian citizens of Israel who disagree with Israeli laws could “move to Gaza on a one-way ticket.” Hopefully, Joly doesn’t take the same attitude toward people who disagree with her government.

It’s time for Canada to question Israel’s democratic character. It’s time to forcefully condemn Israel’s illegal settlements in Palestinian territory. It’s time to denounce Israel’s apartheid policies. It’s time to withhold trade benefits and arms from Israel until it respects international legal norms.

It is time for Canada to stop providing cover for Israel and its dubious rights record and right-wing ideologies. Events of recent weeks make clear that Canada can no longer pretend that Israel is a liberal western democracy. “Business as usual” with the current Israeli government is no longer an option.

On April 4, 2023, The Guardian (Charlottetown) and Saltwire published and widely syndicated a letter to the editor from CJPME, rebutting a letter which had attempted to defend Israel’s far-right Finance Minister, Betzalel Smotrich, after his inflammatory comments about ‘erasing’ the Palestinian town of Huwara. The letter reads:

A recent letter by Robert Walker criticizes another writer for misrepresenting the context around Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich’s comments calling for a town in the occupied West Bank to be “wiped out.”

Walker's letter repeats the error he complains about, that of “missing some information.” Only in this case, most of the information is missing.

In acting as Smotrich’s apologist after his genocidal remarks, Walker accepts Smotrich’s pathetic excuse that it was somehow an emotional “slip of the tongue.”

When Smotrich made this comment, he was responding to a question about why he had liked a tweet from an Israeli deputy mayor calling for Huwara to be “erased.” As such, this was his second public engagement with the idea, making it hard to believe that this was part of an emotional flare-up.

Furthermore, Smotrich even complained that the media was trying to create a “distorted interpretation” of his words rather than owning up to them.

To underscore the superficial core of his apology, just weeks later Smotrich would take the stage in Paris and say, “There is no such thing as the Palestinian people.” The destruction of a Palestinian village was scarcely extreme for Smotrich. He would prefer to erase the idea that Palestinians exist at all. I'm not sure why Robert Walker feels compelled to defend the indefensible.