On December 23rd, a site called Petition for Palestine was launched, containing the following petition attacking the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for supposedly being biased against palestinian Arabs:
Dear CBC,
On May 15th, 2021, nearly 2000 people protested together in front of the Vancouver CBC headquarters to condemn the Israeli airstrikes launched into Gaza. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, these airstrikes have killed at least 256 Palestinians (of whom 66 were children) and injured at least 1,900 other civilians. Moreover, according to the UN’s office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 17,000 residential and commercial units have been damaged or destroyed, including a 12-story building that housed news outlets.
Palestinian communities within Canada, as well as their allies, feel unseen, unheard, and intentionally underrepresented by CBC’s unethical journalism practices. There has been an alarming lack of coverage of the multiple rallies held in Vancouver for Palestinian liberation, the 11-day bombardment of Gaza, as well as the forced expulsion of Sheikh Jarrah residents backed and encouraged by the Israeli military.
The feeling of being unseen by our local news outlet is not a unique experience endured in the year 2021, but rather, is a part of CBC’s larger language guide to avoid using the word “Palestine” except for very rare circumstances. In addition, in May of 2021, more than 2000 people signed an open letter titled “An open letter to Canadian newsrooms on covering Israel-Palestine,” where it was highlighted that CBC did not cover a Human Rights Watch Report that described Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as amounting to Apartheid.
Even when CBC covered the Al-Aqsa attacks by the Israeli police, extremely biased and misleading language was used, reducing decades of occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide to a mere “clash” or “conflict”. To equate an unarmed community of people fighting for their right to exist, with a fully-armed military utilizing rubberized bullets, stun grenades, and skunk water on innocent civilians is extremely inappropriate. We expected more from a news outlet with such high stature.
Moreover, we have questions as to why stories of the residents of Sheikh Jarrah were not covered: Why were there no interviews on the experiences of these people facing an impending and forced expulsion? These stories were all over social media, so the lack of coverage was certainly not due to a lack of interest from the general public, but rather an intentional effort by CBC to be complicit and silence the voices of the people of Sheikh Jarrah while also facilitating their ethnic cleansing. Finally, when almost 2000 Canadians rally outside your headquarters, we wonder why there was no attempt at understanding the purpose behind their protest. Why were there no interviews conducted with those present at the rally?
In the Journalist Code of Ethics document, outlined by the Canadian Association for Journalists, the following points are listed as principles that all Canadian journalists should hold themselves to: – We are disciplined in our efforts to verify all facts. Accuracy is the moral imperative of journalists and news organizations, and should not be compromised, even by pressing deadlines of the 24-hour news cycle. – We are accountable to the public for the fairness and reliability of our reporting. – We do not allow our own biases to impede fair and accurate reporting. The lack of coverage on the Palestinian struggle, inaccurate claims being made, as well as the clear use of misleading and biased language when covering this subject, indicates that CBC has been operating with very little journalistic integrity, and our community is highly disappointed. We want to communicate that we have noticed your silence, your one-sided journalism that silences the voices and stories of the indigenous people of Palestine, and your carefully selected words meant to dilute a settler-colonial project into mere “clashes”, “conflicts,” and denial of apartheid. We have noticed, we condemn and demand an apology for falling short on your ethical duties as investigators of truth in our society.
Sincerely,
An underrepresented community.
It was shared by the likes of the Canadian BDS Coalition, Canada Palestine Association, Just Peace Advocates head Karen Rodman, and BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish Territories.
Notice anything about it?
Yup, these BDS-holes used Wix, the Israeli website builder, to build the petition site. And they are not even hiding it; check out the top of the site, as well as the bottom:
“Proudly created with Wix.com.” You can’t make this stuff up.
Funnily enough, this is not the first time the BDS-holes and haters have been caught using Wix. It’s as if they can’t live without Israeli tech.
