CBC Digging Dirt on Muslims

On March 30, 2013 CBC online published an article on Egypt, reporting on some undemocratic actions by the new Egyptian Government. CBC is very diligent at reporting on all the failings of Arab governments, but is generally silent on the even greater human rights abuses being carried out by the Israeli Government.

The frequent CBC articles on Arab and Iranian shortcomings are excessive, to the point of appearing to be a campaign of villification. This demonisation of Arabs and Iranians would fit very well with Israeli propaganda and that is likely the reason for it.

If one looks at the comments to the March 30th article, you will see the strategy is working somewhat, as many of them write about the inferiority of Muslim and Arab culture as the explanation for all the dirt CBC is digging up.

One comment made under the alias "Lemmy Caution" was particularly disgusting and inappropriate:

who can blame Burma-Myanmar ....they know exactly who they are dealing with
...the M's ... full steam backwards since 632 AD

This comment was not even relevant to the topic. The M's are obviously the Muslims, and the writer is referring to recent pogroms against Muslims in Burma, suggesting that killing, attacking, dispossessing Muslims is justified.

I reported this as "Hate Speech - Islamophobia", but CBC rejected my report and did not remove this comment.

If a comment had said "Who can blame Hitler for the Holocaust...he knew who he was dealing with ... the J's ....full steam backwards for thousands of years." there is no doubt that CBC would have immediately removed the comment as anti-Semitic.

Is there no decent staffer at CBC that can identify hate speech unless it is directed at Jews?

OBAMA VISIT SOUND & FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING

For the three days of Obama's visit to Israel (including a brief visit to Palestine), CBC.ca's main headlines were reporting on the visit as if it was a positive event. The amazing thing is how little substance there was to any of the reporting. There was no analysis and everything said by Obama was taken at face value. Given his past record, there is no evidence that his words have any credibility or truth in them, so why  couldn't CBC apply a little analysis to them? Is it because Obama was spouting mostly Israeli propaganda, and CBC liked what they heard?
 
The main outcome of Obama's visit was to signal to Israel that they can do virtually anything they want to the Palestinians and America will support them. America will remain totally blind to the human rights of the Palestinians. This is a warmongering message, because there can never be peace until Palestinian rights are taken into full recognition. CBC is committed to war journalism, not peace journalism, so Obama's lying speech seems to have suited CBC just fine.
 
It might also be repeated that there was virtually no quotations from Palestinians, or serious reporting on the Palestinian position regarding Obama, except to say there was opposition to his visit from Palestinians.
 
The following words written by a Palestinian-American in the blog, War is a Crime, sums up the true situation perfectly (highlighting mine):
 
"It is hard to describe the level of frustration that I had watching the theater of media frenzy (devoid of any real substance) about Obama's visit.  Obama gave a new lifeline to war and conflict by avoiding human rights and international law.  It is the missing ingredient that for the past 65 years precluded peaceful resolution. It is the twisted logic that says the insecurity of the thief must be the only thing to be dealt with by ensuring the victims first recognize the legitimacy of the theft and the legitimacy of the need for the thief to first have full security and immunity from accountability for the theft before the victim is put in the room with the armed thief so that they can work out something (vague and without reference to International law). That formula has been shown to be a disaster and has kept Apartheid and colonization going."
 
Will the day ever come when CBC could at least publish a perfectly legitimate view such as this, alongside all its Israeli propaganda?   

CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORP OR ISRAELI BROADCASTING CORP?

This grotesquely unbalanced article was published in CBC online on March 21:

Palestinians 'deserve a state of their own,' Obama says

U.S. president visits with Mahmoud Abbas in West Bank city of Ramallah

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/21/barack-obama-israel-visit.html
 
After several long articles by CBC discussing Obama's visit to Israel, this one was meant to be the article covering his short visit to Palestine. However over half the article was not discussing Obama's visit at all, but spoke of two rockets that had been fired into Israel from Gaza. The message that CBC clearly wants to convey here is that Palestinians are incorrigible, and they are always at fault. CBC's message is Orwellian. It turns reality upside down. Recently CBC mentioned as an aside that a 16-year old Palestinian was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers. There was no follow up. But these two innocuous rockets warranted supplanting real news about the Palestinian position as it must have been expressed to Obama.
 
Also it is worth noting these inane quotations in this article from Israelis, and the glaring fact that there is not a single quotation from a Palestinian:
 
1) "We will be closely watching Palestinian President Abbas today to see if he condemns these attacks from Gaza against Israeli civilians," a senior Israeli government official in Jerusalem said after the attack. Whether Abbas condemns this incident or not is irrelevant. He has publicly condemned Gaza rocket attacks many times in the past. Given the suffering of Palestinians and the brevity of his meeting with Obama, he must have had bigger priorities.
 
2)  Yossi Haziza, a Sderot resident in whose courtyard the first rocket exploded, was looking at the walls of his home sprayed with shrapnel and shattered windows.
"I wish this was merely damage to property but my eight year old daughter and my wife are terrified," Haziza said. "We just want to live in peace. We don't want to keep having to run to bomb shelters."  There is no doubt that some Israelis suffer because of the currrent lack of peace, but the suffering of Palestinians is a thousand-fold worse than the suffering of Israelis. Citizens on both sides want peace, but there is no reason to believe that Israelis, who prosper under the status quo, want it more than Palestinians who suffer terribly under the status quo.
 
Also it is worth noting the inane quotes given by Obama in the article, and the fact that CBC reports them without analysis and showing how hollow they are:
 
1) U.S. President Barack Obama ....said Thursday that Palestinians deserve a sovereign state, and "an end to occupation and the daily indignities that come with it."
 
"Daily indignities" - One would think that getting shot in the head is more than an "indignity". The amount of suffering that is imposed on the Palestinians by the occupation (which should more accurately be described as "ethnic cleansing") is horrific, involving imprisonment, bombings, shootings, house demolitions, destruction of livelihoods and olive trees, theft of crucial water resources, loss of land, and the list goes on. There is no way these can simply be described as "indignities". Obama's language may be diplomatic, but it is also disgraceful, and CBC should say so.
 
2) "We don't consider [the settlements] to be constructive, to be appropriate, to be something that can advance the cause of peace," he (Obama) said.
 
The settlements serve only one purpose which is land expropriation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Obama's convoluted remarks that they are "not constructive" carry as much meaning as someone saying, "Killing people's children does not contribute to friendship with them." CBC should have pointed out how devastating the settlement building project is to the welfare of Palestinians and the possibilities of peace, and not just echoed Obama's inane statement.
 
 
Finally, how is it that CBC has space for all these inane, useless, meaningless quotations that would fit nicely into an Israeli propaganda piece, but does not quote a single Palestinian, either an official or a man on the street? Certainly there is something fundamentally corrupt about CBC's reporting on the Middle East.
 

HAVE CAKE, EAT IT TOO.

This silly headline appeared on March 18, 2013:
 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/18/israel-netanyahu.html
 

     Israel's Netanyahu says new government wants peace

        As new cabinet sworn in, PM says Israel ready for a 'historic concession' to end conflict with Palestinians

 
This is an entirely meaningless claim by Netanyahu. It does not deserve a headline, because it signifies nothing related to any reality.
 
It is misleading to give what is essentially meaningless rhetoric a headline. As a minimum, CBC should have not used the words "SAYS", but should have used the word "CLAIMS", so that readers would get a more accurate sense of how meaningless these words really are.
 
It would be more realistic if the headline were:  "Netanyahu says Israel wants its cake in the West bank, and wants to eat it too."
 
Netanyahu said nothing about giving justice to the Palestinians, nor did he indicate what "concessions" he would make to them. In his mind, it is probably a "historic concession" just to let them stay alive in their homes.
 
The peace process is just a mask to hide what is an ongoing policy of expropriation of Palestinian land and a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Netanyahu is just adjusting the mask with these words (in advance of a visit from Obama), but there is absolutely NO reason to believe he means to abandon Israel's continuous policies of taking maximum land in Palestine with the minimum number of non-Jews on the land they take.
 
There is also strong evidence that Netanyahu and his government DO NOT WANT PEACE. The status quo has worked well for Israel. They have continuously expanded their territory throughout the phony peace process, and they probably do not want this to end until they have taken over all of the West Bank and driven out as many Palestinians as possible. Peace now would have to mean an end to this expansion before Israel's goals of a total takeover are met. There is no reason to believe that Israel will abandon this goal.
 
Why does CBC pretend that this mask represents a reality by giving this claim a headline?
 
Journalists are supposed to look behind the mask, not pretend it is reality and present it in headlines as if it were real news.
 
 

MORE CBC DRIVEL

 In the same article commented on in my last posting;
 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/14/us-obama-iran-nuclear-weapon.html

 

there was the following paragraph:
 
 "Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran to be an existential threat, citing Iranian denials of the Holocaust, its calls for Israel's destruction, its development of missiles capable of striking the Jewish state and its support for hostile Arab militant groups. Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful and designed to produce energy and medical isotopes, a claim that Israel and many Western countries reject."

 

How does CBC really know what Israel "considers"? Why don't they write "claims to consider"?

 

There are strong reasons for believing that Israel is hyping this so called existential threat from Iran for other reasons, and that Israei leaders know very well that Iran is no existential threat to Israel. Indeed several leading military and intelligence officials from Israel have publicly said as much. How does CBC know better than them?

 

In the same paragraph CBC pretends to provide some balance by writing that Iran says its nuclear development is peaceful, but then immediately catagorizes this as a "claim" that has been rejected.

 

For CBC, Iran only makes "claims" that are easily dismissed, while Israel states only God's truth. Can someone explain why this is?

 

Also it is funny to see the following sentence in the same article:

"Israel has repeatedly threatened to act militarily should Iran appear to be on the verge of obtaining a bomb"

 
Over 15 months ago CBC published an article which I discussed in one of my first postings in early February. In this article CBC falsely published that the IAEA had declared that Iran was on the nuclear brink, when the IAEA had said no such thing. Now in this article 15 months later, it seems that, since Israel has not yet attacked Iran, that Iran is still does not even "appear to be on the verge of obtaining a bomb."
 
Does CBC have its own definitions for what "on the brink" or "on the verge" mean? Or does CBC just choose words according to what has the best potential for facilitating a war on Iran?

ANOTHER CBC FALSE HEADLINE ON IRAN

Obama says Iran a year away from developing nuclear weapon

 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/14/us-obama-iran-nuclear-weapon.html
 
This is what Obama actually said: "Right now, we think it would take over a year or so for Iran to actually develop a nuclear weapon"
 
CBC's headline is subtly and maliciously misleading. It implies that Iran is actively working on developing nuclear weapons and is on a track to succeed in one year's time.
 
This is very different from what Obama said. He only said that, IF Iran wanted a nuclear weapon and decided to develop one, it would take a year before they could have one.
 
Are CBC's writers and editors so incompetent in English that they cannot perceive this difference? Or are they so devilishly and corruptly smart that they are using English to disguise their war propaganda behind ambiguity?
 
And again I ask why does CBC so badly want a war on Iran? Whose interests are they serving?

FROM PASSIVE VOICE TO ACTIVE VOICE

On March 11th CBC online had this article:
 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/11/mideast-israel-gaza-bbc-son-rocket.html
 
                  Baby killed in Gaza likely died of Palestinian rocket, UN says

 
This is the first line of the article:

         A United Nations report indicates an errant Palestinian rocket, not an Israeli airstrike, likely killed the baby of a BBC reporter during fighting in the Hamas-ruled territory  last  November.

 
Although CBC is very careful to avoid the active voice when writing about Palestinians killed or wounded by Israelis, it seems quite comfortable using the active voice when the Palestinians are to blame.

Of course it is a tragedy when a baby is killed, but this article should be seen in its context.

- In recent years Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinian children. In just the last few months the Israelis have killed many unarmed youths, including some children, but this never rates a CBC headline, or much mention, or if alluded to, the use of the active voice.

- Also CBC sees fit to publish this article which casts a negative light on Palestinians, but has chosen to ignore the UN Report of a week ago that found massive amounts of Palestinian child abuse (including torture and death) being carried out by Israel. There is no way this can be seen as balanced reporting.

 

Also note in the above sentence the phrase "Hamas-ruled territory" to mean Gaza. CBC frequently uses this convoluted phrase, rather than just saying "Gaza". No doubt they prefer it because it has a negative feeling, or a terriorist nuance. But if they are really interested in convoluted names instead of "Gaza", why do they never call it "Israel-blockaded territory", or "vestigial remnant of Palestinian territory"?
 

 

CANADA-ISRAEL, SAME VALUES?

Foreign Minister Baird often claims that Canada and Israel have the same values.

Perhaps that is true if both countries scorn the rule of law as Baird obviously does.

 

Virtually the same day that Baird was down in Washington speaking at the AIPAC (Israel Lobby Group) conference, where he again bragged that Canada and Israel share the same values, this UN report came out:

      http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/06/us-palestinians-israel-children-idUSBRE9250D520130306

 

Is this another value shared by Canada and Israel; the abuse of children?

 

Is there any chance that Baird will openly denounce Israel for the abuse of Palestinian children, or should we just be grateful that he doesn't praise them for it?

 

And CBC which is always so keen on publishing dirt on the Arabs, why have they neglected this UN report?

This would have been a great opportunity for CBC to juxtapose Baird's statements with the Palestinian reality?

 

Where is the CBC Middle East correspondent, Nahlah Ayed on this? Too busy digging up dirt on Egyptians?

 

 

 

 

CALL DA COPS, WE BREAK YOUR LEGS

More on PURSING ISRAEL OR PURSUING JUSTICE.
 
Foreign Minister Baird has said many disgusting and misguided things about the Middle East,
but when he threatened to punish Palestinians if they took their case against Israel to the International Criminal Court he sunk to a new low.
 
He was talking like a Mafia boss. "If you call the cops, I'll break your legs."
 
He was saying that Palestinians have no right to the protection of the law.
 
He was saying that Israel is above the law, and should not be subject to it.
 
He was saying that Canada does not support the rule of law.
 
Does this truly represent the attitude of most Canadians with regard to the rule of law?
 
Respect for law has probably been one of the outstanding characteristics of Canadians for most of our history.
 
Has Canada changed so much under the Harper Administration, that we now can tolerate statements like these from Baird?
 
I don't think so, but why does CBC think so?
 
How can CBC report this travesty as if it were routine, and even use the same weasel words that Baird uses?
 
Isn't it part of CBC mandate to protect the integrity of Canada, by criticizing monstrous transgressions by Canadian politicians?
 
Or are monstrosities allowed as long as they protect Israel?

PURSUING ISRAEL OR PURSUING JUSTICE?

Baird warns Palestinians of 'consequences' for pursuing Israel

This was a headline on March 6th in CBC online.
 
        http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/03/06/pol-cp-baird-fantino-palestinian-speech.html
 
Also there was a photo with a caption saying the following:

       Baird told a pro-Israel group on Sunday that further actions against Israel would be noticed.


Notice the use of words like "pursuing" and further actions" makes it look like Israel is being victimized.
 
Just because Foreign Minister Baird has no understanding of the Israel/Palestine situation, this is no reason for CBC to use his misguided words, especially in a headline.
 
Taking Israel to court is a non-violent, peaceful, democratically-sanctioned way to deal with perceived injustice. The Palestinians are not "pursuing Israel", they are pursuing justice.

If their case is weak, the Court will determine that. Baird's threat to punish Palestinians for seeking justice non-violently is disgraceful, and it shames Canada. Why does CBC hide the reality of this shame with weasel words, and not expose Baird for the disgrace he is?

Perhaps it is because CBC shares Baird's unbalanced support for Israel, as revealed by these words later in the same article:

      Palestinian officials have said they would have no choice but to pursue Israel at the International Criminal Court to halt construction of new settlements in what it claims as its territory.

 
Really? Is it just a "claim" to this territory, or is it recognized as Palestinian territory by virtually every government in the world, including the Canadian Government?
 
Canadians deserve better than this kind of reporting.

THE HOLOCAUST, WAS IT WORTH IT?

Please pardon my heading. I know it is offensive, but on March 7th CBC published the following headline which is equally offensive:

Nahlah Ayed: The Iraq invasion 10 years on, was it worth it?

              http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/06/f-vp-ayed-iraq.html

Can you imagine CBC publishing a headline like mine; "The Holocaust, was it worth it?"

The invasion of Iraq was a massive war crime and human rights abuse, which caused suffering for millions of innocent people. Moreover the perpetrators of this crime have not been brought to justice. It is totally inappropriate to evaluate it as if it were a simple balance between good and bad points.

How about other similar headlines; "Charles Manson's murder spree, was it worth it?"; or "Mass rapes in Bosnia, was it worth it?"

How can CBC be so indifferent to the suffering and injustice done to Iraqis, and seemingly so forgiving of the American criminals that caused it, to publish a headline like this?

CBC's bias comes shining through here. It is a bias for imperialism and war, especially when the victims are Arabs or Muslims.

It is a war journalism because it seeks to treat as normal and acceptable something which should not be treated this way.

ONLY MUSLIMS?

This article was published in CBC online on March 4:

                        http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/03/04/quebec-homegrown-terrorist-csis-spy-intelligence-syria-islam-muslim.html

Quebec mother of terror suspect warns other parents

Son, now in Syria, on Canadian spy agency's watch list

This article must be seen in context.
It was produced in the context of many other articles and statements by Prime Minister Harper that point to Muslim fundamentalism as a threat to Canada.

If a similar slough of articles and government statements had been made about a threat of Jewish fundamentalism,
CBC would not be contributing to the deception, but would be denouncing them as racist or anti-Semitic.

Religious fundamentalism is definitely a concern, because it often attracts vulnerable young people.
However in Canada we have Jewish youth and Christian youth who are also carried away by religious fundamentalism.
The Jewish fundamentalists go off to Israel and brutalize Palestinians in support of their ideology.
Some Christian fundamentalists join the US military and travel to the other side of the world to kill non-Christians in support of their ideology.
None of these are good things, but it is hard to see why a Muslim fundamentalist traveling to Syria is more of a concern to Canada than the others.

If this article had addressed the issue of youths of all religious or non-religious backgrounds being seduced by fundamentalist religions, it would be useful and informative.

But given the context of Islamophobia promoted by Western media, including CBC, this article, which only mentions a Muslim youth, is misleading and provocative.

These are weaponized words of war journalism designed to build on a structure of vilification and fear of Muslims abroad and within Canada.