The Media Accountability Project  

"Your article presents several issues that contribute to unfair and unbalanced coverage of the Israeli violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. First, your headline, 'Two dead as violence in Jerusalem, West Bank simmers' should include the word Palestinian in it. Seeing as two Palestinians were killed it must be made clear in the headline."

"In short, Brehaut’s article 'foodwashes' Israel’s crimes against humanity. Just as Israel is increasing illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, displacing thousands of Palestinian families from their ancestral homes, it is erasing Palestinian heritage and culture by appropriating indigenous Palestinian food."

You will need to delete the sentence where Mr. Nisan writes, “When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government evicted thousands of Israelis from their homes in Gush Katif in 2005, based on a decision to withdraw from all of the Gaza Strip, the Supreme Court refused to protect the dispossessed Israelis’ human rights, property rights and even their right to protest.” This sentence apes arguments advanced by many of Israel’s right-wing leaders today, and has been repeatedly disproven

I insist that you update your article to note that Netanyahu agreed to establish a ‘national guard’ under Ben-Gvir as part of the compromise. Further, your reporting should also note the extremist, ultranationalist background of Itamar Ben-Givr, and the threat that his militia force poses to Palestinian citizens of Israel.

It is true that "most countries" deem Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank to be illegal, and it is true that Israel disagrees. However, this is not a matter of a country’s opinion. While almost every country believes that Israeli settlements are illegal, it is more relevant to point out that this is a settled consensus and legal fact 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.

"Benlolo points to opinion polls which show that Palestinians have lost hope in a political outcome and are turning to armed struggle as a last resort. However, he ignores the many troubling polls which show that Jewish Israelis do not support democracy or equality."

"You assert that there have been 'periodic flare-ups of fighting with the Palestinian Islamist-ruled Gaza strip.' Your use of the phrase 'periodic flare-ups' is inaccurate because it assumes sudden escalations of violence without cause. This completely ignores the context of the over 15-year punishing and illegal blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza strip and its population. In fact, these escalations of violence are almost always instigated by Israel and quickly transform into a fully-fledged bombing campaign on Gaza, indiscriminately killing civilians. By omitting this critical context, your article assumes a pro-Israel, biased stance."

"There have been different interpretations of Jama’s comments with many groups, including Jewish ones, contesting her comments as being antisemitic. However, you assert this in your headline as fact whereas it is way more accurate to describe it as an 'antisemitic controversy' for sparking debate. As such, I insist that you change the headline from 'antisemitic comments' to 'antisemitic controversy' to better reflect the fact that this is a news article."

Zivo claims that “Israel is a bastion of LGBTQ acceptance in a region that otherwise beats, executes and imprisons queer people.” It is quite ironic that Zivo’s concerns for LGBTQ rights do not extend to queer Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, who are denied their most basic, fundamental human rights. Zivo’s portrayal of Israel as an almost-perfect liberal democracy completely ignores and erases the 6.8 million Palestinians living under Israeli rule against their will.

On March 3, 2023, the National Post published an opinion piece by Avi Benlolo tited, “The West keeps subsidizing the Palestinian Authority's death culture.” CJPME identified several issues in the article which crossed the line and amounted to falsehoods and racist tropes, rather than legitimate differences of political opinion.

On March 9, 2023, the article was amended to correct a quote from a video posted to a Facebook page affiliated with the Fatah movement, which had been directly and falsely attributed to Mahmoud Abbas.

Unfortunately, other issues remain uncorrected, including the fraudulent use of the term “terrorism” in a way which includes all acts of resistance by Palestinians (and not only acts of violence against civilians), and the use of a dehumanizing and generalizing trope that Palestinians possess a “death culture.”