Israeli Apartheid System and the Canadian Media Supporting It

Christo El Morr  Yahya El-Lahib

Source: Al Mayadeen English

The CBC and other mainstream media outlets in Canada have had many opportunities to distinguish between misinformation and what is happening on the ground. Yet, they chose to stand with "Israel" against Palestinian rights to self-determination.

We don't expect less from a colonial settler government's mouthpiece like CBC; on its website, you can read the following title: "Food will run out in days under Israel's total blockade of Gaza, humanitarian experts warn: Experts condemn 'abhorrent' Hamas attacks while raising concern for 2.3M civilians in Gaza."

So, there are abhorrent attacks vs. some 'concern'... It is not abhorrent that the government of "Israel" announced that it is cutting off food, water, and fuel to the Palestinians in Gaza, all 2.3 million of them, and that the announcement described the "fight" (i.e., the attack of a whole army on besieged population) as one conducted against "human animals". The CBC and other mainstream media outlets in Canada have had many opportunities to distinguish between misinformation and what is happening on the ground. Yet, they chose to stand with "Israel" against Palestinian rights to self-determination established by international laws and many UN declarations that speak about freedom from Colonialism and self-determination. Canada and all its political parties and mainstream media sided with "Israel" in declaring an act of collective punishment against 2.3 million civilians; they normalized genocide and allowed for the mass murder of children in Palestine.

Such declarations that constitute a war crime under International Humanitarian law do not seem abhorrent for the well-educated experts (and the CBC) who respect human rights. When an Israeli government declares such a collective punishment measure, it only raises 'concerns,' and CBC repeats this 'concern' with utmost docility to maintain the ongoing racist propaganda that continues a long history of dehumanization of the Palestinian people.

The systematic subjugation of Palestinians must serve the settler colonial interest of Canada against its commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This colonial rhetoric continues to make Canadians of Arab and Muslim backgrounds feel they are rejected, don’t belong and added no value to the Canadian nation beyond performative and folkloric celebrations of Canadian diversity and multicultural mosaic. The normalization of the mass killing of Palestinian civilians proved once again that Canada as a state and its media institutions continue to treat us as second-class citizens. As Canadians of Arab and Muslim descent, together with all Canadians who stand up against colonialism, racism, and settler state apartheid, we reject these discourses and practices. We reject being downgraded to “animal humans” to justify the cleansing of our people and the mass murder of our children. We refuse to be silenced and confined within a biased media that continues to strip realities and context to dehumanize Palestinians and portray them, and all Arabs and Muslims, as “terrorists.” Canada is not only complicit in supporting an apartheid system against Palestinian people, oh Canada, the blood of more than 724 Palestinian children murdered by "Israel" since last Saturday (October 7, 2023) is on your hands, the same way your hands are covered with the blood of indigenous children, missing and murdered indigenous women, and all the marginalized groups that your settler colonial system continues to subjugate, oppress and erase. The violence of your role, Canada, will dig deeper into our memories and the memories of all those who seek justice.

Also, CBC has a photo presenting "The National" with a caption that reads "Atrocities in Israel, Gaza Crisis'... Atrocities are perpetrated, so they have an actor. But a crisis? Who can blame a crisis? It just happens with no actor. This manipulative use of words is well-known and studied in academia. Since 2022, CBC has been engaged in two campaigns in two "wars": Russia's attack on Ukraine and "Israel's" attack on the besieged Palestinians; in the first campaign, it sided with the oppressed, and in the second with the oppressor, this can only be acceptable from a racist point of view that sees Palestinians as less humans than Ukrainians. We reject such distorted views of humanity that hijack the definition of being human to a group of people and deny it to others. Human rights are for all. CBC (and mainstream media) are racist not only by the omission of the humanity of others but by the omission of context that explains the events, by the omission of news that exposes the blatant abuse of human rights whenever it is on the Israeli side, and the atrocities whenever they are perpetrated by Israeli (one can only notice the absence of human stories, of Palestinian victims' faces, their relative sorrows compared to the presence of such scenes when the victims are Israeli).

CBC (and mainstream media) are also racist by deprivation, by manipulating words to deprive a group of people, the Palestinians, of the viewers' compassion and equal treatment as humans. They are finally racist by silence; CBC has repeatedly failed to question statements that constitute blatant and flagrant abuse of Palestinians' Human Rights and treated them as mere news items.

Canadian Mainstream media and CBC have been feeding the Canadian public a distorted narrative about the realities in Palestine. The dominant discourse Canadians hear is that "Israel" is at war with Hamas, a group designated as a terrorist organization by Canada and many Western colonial countries. What gets dismissed and manipulated in these discourses is that Palestine and Palestinians have been suffering through the most prolonged occupation on earth in modern times. What gets denied is that all UN declarations of self-determination granted oppressed groups the right to use any means necessary for freedom and resistance. Mainstream media in Canada have painted a propaganda picture that "Israel" is fighting a terrorist group but neglected to acknowledge the fact that Palestinians have the right to resist the 16-year-long open prison system and 75 years old occupation; they also eclipsed the daily mass killing of Palestinian civilians, the arbitrary detention of Palestinian civilians including children (some as young as 12 years old) and the dehumanization of Palestinian people and their cause. 

What is happening now in Gaza is a Palestinian struggle, not a war with Hamas; it is a fight between an apartheid system and people resisting from the largest open prison in the world. Downgrading the entire Palestinian cause and population to blame Hamas for the decades-long Israeli occupation of Palestine only serves to further manipulate the settler colonial Western narrative about Palestine and the Palestinian struggles. These practices don’t surprise us, but they remind us that resisting colonialism and colonial practices requires calling out those who participate in manipulating realities and normalizing colonial control and subjugation.

Food will run out soon, water will run out soon, fuel will run out soon (and hospitals will stop functioning), but sooner or later, Palestinians will be free, and the system that oppresses them will be dismantled so that peace can finally be… for all. South Africa is an example of resistance to apartheid, yet we continue to see the aftermath of that system until today. Today, in Palestine, we are witnessing the result of dominant Western support of such an apartheid system instead of undoing it, and Western media are playing a significant role in supporting Israeli apartheid and justifying the mass murder and collective punishment of Palestinian people.

It is not our job to teach CBC or Canadian mainstream media about the history of colonization and the settler colonial realities in Palestine, nor our responsibility to educate the Canadian public about selective journalism feeding misinformation and manipulating history. In the time of truth and reconciliation and the commitments that center truth as a direct road to reconciliation, let's continue watching CBC News: the Canadian Biasing Company News.