The Media Accountability Project  

On August 6, 2024, CJPME sent a letter to the editor (LTE) to The Telegram in response to Heidi Matthews’s August 3 opinion piece: “A disregard for students’ human rights.”

In her opinion piece, Matthews defended the student protest encampments, and CJPME sent a letter in support.

The LTE was published on August 20, 2024, in the Telegram.

You can read the LTE here.

It is always encouraging to see CJPME’s LTEs published, especially when it concerns the issue of pro-Palestine encampments, which has been unfairly and inaccurately reported on in Canadian media. 

Re: “ A disregard for students’ human rights” (The Telegram, Saturday, August 3, 2024 by Heidi Matthews)

"The West Bank and East Jerusalem are widely (if not universally) considered occupied territory. Palestinians there live under Israeli military law and have no right to vote for the government that rules them."

"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."

In no other country that is called a “democracy” does a government stand idly by while radicalized youth unleash hell upon innocent everyday civilians. Israeli settler violence committed against Palestinians has elevated to alarming new heights. Israel does this all while continuing to contravene international law by building more new illegal settlements on occupied land.

Far from being representative of Israeli society, around 20% of Israel’s population is made up of Palestinians who are excluded from joining the Israeli military and its economic benefits. Although Israel has a policy of mandatory conscription for all its citizens, Muslim and Christian Palestinian citizens, numbering around 1.6 million, are exempt from military service because they are deemed “disloyal” and “untrustworthy” by Israel. Further, Palestinians largely refuse to join Israel’s army due to its military occupation of Palestinian land including the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as the Syrian Golan Heights. In other words, the composition of Israel’s military reflects the segregation in society.