Questioning Taboos in Canadian Media and Academia
Henna Team
The widespread interaction with the Palestinian cause of recent weeks has raised many questions about issues that went relatively unquestioned for decades in both Canada and Europe. These questions, pushed to the fore after Israel’s continuous violations against the Palestinians, from Sheikh Jarrah to Gaza, measure the ability of Israeli lobbies to control the interaction of public and academic circles with what is happening today. These lobbies work to clear the discussion from accusations or sharp terminology. They push the media to adopt a language that is either consistent with Israeli narrative, or neutral, and therefore avoidant of direct criticism of Israel.
For example, CBC did not cover the Human Rights Watch report accusing Israel of committing “apartheid” against the Palestinians. Neither did it cover one of the biggest recent scandals in higher education in Canada, when the University of Toronto’s law department withdrew a job offer to Dr. Valentina Azarova. Azaroz’s research shines a light Israel’s violations of international law. The behaviour of the university administration, which clearly violates academic freedom, caused the University Teachers Union in Canada to intervene and call for a boycott of U of T until the university administration backs down and resubmits the job offer to Azarova. The Canadian media only began covering this important event recently, after significant solidarity efforts, and increased calls for a boycott. A number of academics around the world have boycotted activities that were to be held at the university.
Voices against silencing attempts
Israeli violations against Palestinians — settlements, forced displacement, racial discrimination, brutal bombings — have been published extensively across social media. This has led to remarkable and unprecedented solidarity with the Palestinians. In a remarkable transformation, solidarity began to find its way into many academic and cultural circles around the world, including in Canada. Yet the ability of the Israeli lobbies to pressure and intimidate these circles still constitutes an obstacle to the expansion of this solidarity. In the main this takes the form of fear of reprisal against one’s employment and career.
Those circles however are witness to a counter-movement. Many academics and journalists are bothered by any restrictions on covering Palestine. For them, it contradicts the freedom of expression. This comes after a full year of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. BLM devoted an explicit and direct form of solidarity concerned with challenging power relations, prejudice, and structural discrimination present in every detail of life in the West, especially in institutions. Those who have learned during the past years to listen with great sensitivity to the victims and to the marginalized, appreciating their experiences, can notice the paradox when they are asked to leave all this behind in covering Palestine.
Instead, they are asked here to listen to the official foreign policies of the state, to influential elements, and to lobbies that support and finance their institutions. Managers in these circles demand equality between the victim and the oppressor, tantamount to pushing one to say “All Lives Matter.” This is the favourite slogan of the extreme right in the United States, that aims to restore Black lives to a state of invisibility.
To condemn these restrictions, more than 2,100 Canadian journalists and academics signed a letter to the Canadian newsrooms, expressing their opposition to the manner in which these newsrooms cover the events of today. They criticized the lack of accurate coverage of the forced expulsions and air strikes, regarding it as “disappointing.”
The letter criticized the biased stance of the Canadian media, which had contributed strong coverage of the killing of George Floyd and its consequences, the impact of the pandemic on marginalized communities, and even Indigenous issues and colonial discourse in Canada. Yet, it didn’t apply this progressive frame towards the events of Palestine, according to the letter. The letter added that forced expulsion, violence against civilians, and police racism “are not complicated matters,” calling the media newsrooms to “acknowledge their failure” in this regard.
As a result of adding their names to the list of signatures, two CBC employees were effectively barred from covering issues of Israel and Palestine in the future.
The censor is ‘alarmed’
In response to the letter, a website called Honest Reporting Canada (which works to ensure “fair and accurate coverage in Canadian media of Israel”) wrote an article criticizing the statement, and demanding “clarifications” from Canadian media heads about “the bias” of their employees. The article posited that “Any Canadian journalist who signed this letter should never be allowed to report on the Arab-Israeli conflict again in light of their clear anti-Israel bias which is on full display.”
This willingness of pro-Israel supporters and lobbies, the assumption of their entitlement to manage the interaction of these circles with today’s events, raises a burning question about the democratic system’s effectiveness in preserving freedom of expression for citizens and journalists. In democratic countries, journalists are not supposed to find themselves facing fears generated by self-censorship of their thoughts and the topics on which they can work. This may happen in brutal and repressive dictatorships, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, but it is a shame for a journalist to be afraid of censorship imposed on them in Canada, Germany, the US, or any democratic country. The question whether or not media and academia can guarantee freedom of expression is urgent. It needs clear answers. Criticism of Israel’s behaviour shouldn’t be banned. This doesn’t happen in Israel itself.
There is an urgent need to be free from this and any other censorship. The “Whiteness” in these institutions tries to smooth matters over with uncomplicated platitudes, such as “it’s complicated,” that can be recited without context. These work against the causes of justice, painting over ignorance of the global south as muted wisdom. Whiteness would prefer saying nothing and spin others in a cycle of embarassment and apologies. Canadian history is full of similar incidents. Israeli propaganda is crumbling and disintegrating today through eye-catching scenes of violations. These violations are documented by neutral parties and present in the Israeli media itself. Israeli journalist Azaf Harel, in his program The Last Monologue, called on Israelis to “self-review and acknowledge the existence of an apartheid regime.”
This “complicated conflict” will not stop as long as Israel exhibits such arrogance and vanity by denying Palestinians’ rights. Peace is conditional on justice and recognition of the rights of the Palestinians, whom Israel cannot eradicate, and whom will continue to resist attempts to end their existence. Today, in the democratic countries to which we sought refuge from dictatorships, we cannot bypass the restrictions on freedom of expression in institutions responsible for documenting history.
Today, Yaqoub needs to provide answers about stealing the Palestinian house, not the poeple who publishe his video. The dilemma of self-censorship should not find presence in the journalist’s mind. The violators should have it. Those who raise the stick of “anti-Semitism” in the face of any criticism, bet on it easing their critics’ withdrawal from confrontation. This, the “most complex” issue in contemporary history, as many would like to say, can be less complicated when Israel realizes the gravity of its racist policies. When its allies work to stop these violations, not to try to twist them into acceptability. It is not possible in today’s world.
