The Media Accountability Project  

"I was glad to see this segment which covered a rally organized by Palestinian Winnipeggers near the Manitoba legislature to commemorate 75 years of the Nakba, and the dispossession and violence that the Palestinian people have endured. I especially appreciated your interviews with members of the local Palestinian community, including Rana Abdulla, the founder of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba."

"The segment largely portrays Israel’s 75^th anniversary as a celebration but without mentioning that it is also a day marking upheaval and tragedy for the Palestinian people. Indeed, this year also marks the 75^th anniversary of the Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe), when Zionist forces forcibly expelled at least 700,000 Palestinians from their homes during the creation of Israel (1947-49). "

"I appreciated that your article included a reference to the Nakba. Too often media reporting neglects to tell the complete story of Israel’s creation. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, the creation of the state of Israel ‘was’ and ‘continues to be’ a ‘catastrophe’"

"This framing presents Israel as a beleaguered country which has faced waves of violence, but fails to capture the extent to which Israel has been the aggressor power in the region. In particular, it does not mention that for the last 56-years Israel has been a belligerent occupying power over the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza), as well as the occupied Syrian Golan Heights."

"To refer to the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe in Arabic) as a “Palestinian exodus” overlooks the fact that approximately 750,000 to 1 million Palestinians were expelled from their homes by Zionist militias and made refugees. Many are still refugees today, along with their families. They were forced to make a life for themselves elsewhere in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and in Mr. Najjar’s case, Jordan."

Palestinian and pro-Palestinian perspectives are often ignored or excluded from Canadian public discourse. Highlighting a film like The Tree is a positive start to sensitizing the Canadian public to Palestine, especially devastating events such as the Nakba. 

On March 8, 2023, Saltwire published a letter to the editor by CJPME’s Policy Analyst Reem Majid rebutting claims in an op-ed by Gwyn Dyer that a “cycle of violence” between Israelis and Palestinians “stretches back” to 1967.

Here is an excerpt of the letter:

It is factually incorrect to claim that Israeli violence against Palestinians stretches back to 1967 when the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 necessitated Palestinian dispossession and death. The Palestinian Nakba, or catastrophe, describes the mass forced displacement and exodus of over 750,000 Palestinians from their lands and the destruction of over 530 Palestinian villages before, during and after the creation of the state of Israel in 1947-49. This violence also took the form of massacres carried out by Jewish paramilitary groups to facilitate Israel’s project of ethnic cleansing which led to an ongoing problem of stateless Palestinian refugees. Much of the violence that continues today has its roots in Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights since 1948.

On January 22, 2023, the National Post published a letter to the editor by CJPME’s VP Michael Bueckert about the Nakba, e.g. the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the creation of Israel from 1947-49. This followed a complaint from CJPME about a recent op-ed on the creation of Israel which had omitted any mention of the Nakba.

The letter as published is as follows:

Allan Levine fails to mention that 1948 not only commemorates the creation of Israel, which is the focus of the “Israel at 75” series, but that for Palestinians it also marks 75 years since the Nakba: the forced expulsion of at least 700,000 Palestinians by Zionist military forces. This process of ethnic cleansing and its associated atrocities (including the Deir Yassin massacre) had begun in the months prior to Israel’s declaration of Independence in May 1948, and it was followed by the expropriation of refugees’ property and land, the destruction of over 500 villages, and the imposition of military rule over those Palestinians who remained.