The Propaganda War and Vote Palestine
The very best thing about retirement is you can take a break whenever you need it. I had a short vacation and then was madly preparing for Passover, which was lovely, exhausting, meaningful and very sad, in this second year of hostages still being tortured in captivity.
This week brought me back to writing. I could have responded daily to erroneous media reports. It started with the New York Times front page on Sunday. It accused Israel of increasing fatalities exponentially by sending A.I.into combat. Why the New York Times chose to report this old story before Israel had finished its own investigation is unclear, but you can imagine their reasons. On October 31, 2023, Ibrahim Biari a top Hamas Commander in northern Gaza, who helped plan the October 7 massacres,was killed in a targeted operation. The New York Times, in their article titled “Israel’s A.I. Experiments in Gaza War Raise Ethical Concerns”, published that 125 civilians died. This is a Hamas statistic that is repeated without attribution. As usual Hamas makes no distinction between civilians and combatants. Are we really to believe that none of the people surrounding Biari were also Hamas terrorists? In the very last sentence of a two page article, the New York Times admits that “over time, the tools were refined to more precisely find individuals.”
This was quickly followed by an episode of This American Life podcast. Chana Joffe-Walt who is Jewish and a senior producer at This American Life has used her status to promote Hamas propaganda before. The last time that Ira Glass was away, she aired an obvious piece of Hamas propaganda, where a Hamas supporter’s daughter was used to lie about conditions in the territory. This week with Glass again away, she aired a blood libel, accusing Israel of targeting babies. This particular antisemitic libel goes back to the Middle Ages. How could people have been so ignorant in the past to believe antisemitic propaganda? Whether it was of mediaeval, Soviet Union or Nazi origin, you need to look no further than many media reports of today to understand. They are sophisticated in their presentation.
The story was produced by Ike Srikandarajah. He was hired by This American Life as a producer after a career as an investigative journalist with an interest in human rights. The problem for Mr. Srikandarajah is that the reports of children targeted by Israeli snipers was debunked months ago after being published in the New York Times. Here is an excellent column in the Jurist by Joel Zivot, an intensive care doctor at Emory University, who is also a lawyer and ethicist. It was clear that the CT scans had been falsified by placing a bullet on top of these children’s heads, not inside. The x-ray injuries in no way corresponded to the damage that would normally be seen when a bullet enters the skull. None of the stories were consistent with real life wounds and the medical workers refused to provide corroborative evidence. They were lying. The lies are believed because they confirm their anti-Zionist beliefs.
Srikandarajah also relied on Breaking the Silence. This is a far left Israeli group supported by international anti-Zionist charities. They signed a report with other Human Rights NGOs rejecting the IHRA definition of antisemitism. They promote “Israeli apartheid” and have been sued by individual IDF soldiers for defamation claiming they fabricate stories. Breaking the Silence has also rejected calls to ban BDS and consider boycotts of Israel to be legitimate protest. All of their IDF accusations remain unchecked since all complainants are completely anonymous. In a country where every war crime is rigorously investigated, with the intent to prosecute, this makes no sense.
Srikandarajah could not get even one Israeli soldier, out of hundreds of thousands, to confirm that children were targeted by snipers. So he had an actor read the part,saying that although he had never seen anyone target Palestinian children, he could believe that it would happen,given the level of hatred that far right settlers hold for Gazans. How is that responsible reporting rather than airing terrorist propaganda? Joffe-Walt the daughter of a reconstructionist rabbi, once again chose to give voice to a terrorist organization, which wants to destroy her own country. She ignores that Hamas openly expresses its genocidal ambitions toward all Jews. Her father, Rabbi Brian Walt, is a member of the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist organization.
The week continues with Canada’s election results. It’s hard not be depressed but it is likely true that most decent people are entirely unaware of the issues facing Jews and barely care about Israel, despite its front page presence for more than a year. Vote Palestine is a group allied with three virulently anti-Zionist groups, Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), Canadians for Justice in Palestine and the Middle East (CPJME) and Palestinian Youth Movement(PYM). IJV has been described as neither independent nor Jewish and promotes Holocaust denial.
CPJME aims to dismantle the sole Jewish state by using BDS to alienate and vilify Israel. Dimitri Lascaris, a lawyer, activist and former chair of CPJME, accused Anthony Housefather of being more loyal to Israel than his own liberal colleagues. Lascaris defended Hamas and supported other terrorists. He is an adherent to BDS. CPJME is focusing its energy on getting anti-Palestinian racism adopted by our schools and governments.
PYM has close ties to PFLP and supports terrorism. Its protests are accompanied by antisemitic chants.
Vote Palestine demanded allegiance to five tenets:
• Imposing a two-way arms embargo on Israel
• Ending Canadian involvement in illegal Israeli settlements
• Addressing anti-Palestinian racism and protecting freedom of expression on Palestine
• Recognizing the state of Palestine
• Protecting and funding Gaza relief efforts, including UNRWA
According to their website, 366 candidate signed onto the platform. Only one, Alexandra Mendes, Liberal MP from Brossard opposed recognizing a Palestinian state. Perhaps she understood that recognition requires defined borders and a government not run by genocidal, murderous terrorists. Most of the others seem to have signed on to the entire platform. Of the 366, the vast majority were NDP or Green party candidates but there were 23 liberal candidates. There were no Conservative signatories. The one bright note of this week is that the NDP, having been infiltrated by Jew haters was decimated. They lost official party status gaining only 7 of the needed 12 seats. Jagmeet Singh, the party leader came in a distant third in his own riding, with 18.2% of the vote.
In spite of anti-Semites successfully spreading an entirely false narrative of Jews being white settler-colonialists stealing Arab lands, most Liberal candidates did not endorse this platform.
Of the seven NDP candidates elected, six gave the full platform endorsement. The one exception was Lori Idlout from Nunavut. Perhaps it’s moot since she has spoken about the genocide in Gaza while in Parliament. She squeaked by with less than 80 votes. Elizabeth May, the one Green party official elected, endorsed the full platform.
Why did 23 liberal candidates sign? John Aldag from Langley Township, BC resigned and became an NDP candidate. He lost. Of the 22 remaining only five lost their elections. 17 came in, most by large majorities. Although three eked out wins of less than 3000, the vast majority won by over 5000. Only a third seem to have Arabic names. Most are progressive.
I have not interviewed each of these people to understand why they endorsed this hateful platform. I suspect most of them are responding to heartfelt requests from constituents who are grief stricken about the lives lost in Gaza and mistakenly blame Israel, based on the constant stream of Hamas propaganda our media promote. Even if some of their constituents are terrorist supporters, they are unfortunately victims of a massive and successful propaganda war. They aren’t inherently evil.
Missing from that list are the many liberal candidates who have entirely bought in to that false narrative. Mark Carney, our prime minister, recognised the idea of a genocide in Gaza and a two way arms embargo on Israel. Melanie Joly, the worst of Trudeau’s cabinet was surprisingly absent from the list. Chrystia Freeland, my MP, who has refused to meet with me despite more than five requests, was absent. Many MPs may harbour these ideas without having formally declared their allegiance. Only 24 of the 366 who declared their fealty were elected. Perhaps that is something to celebrate.
Hi, Cynthia.
Good post. I also wrote something about this for Canadian Zionist Forum:
https://canadianzionistforum.substack.com/p/liberals-have-betrayed-israel-and