April 5, 2008

Jewish dissent not covered by the Canadian media

By Dr. Judy Haiven

Maybe I'm just getting old, but in my day newspapers and more broadly "the media" covered international speakers -- especially radical or provocative speakers-- who toured Canada.   Over the years there was Angela Davis, Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Margaret Thatcher, and Arundhati Roy.  Just last week it was Moshe Feiglin's turn.  He is a West Bank settler who speaks for the often-violent Jewish Defence League.  An Israeli cabinet minister called Feiglin a Jewish fascist.

Feiglin spoke in Toronto last week, and Michael Valpy, a leading feature writer for the Globe and Mail, wrote a 360 word article about Feiglin which even advertised where he was speaking (Globe and Mail, Mar. 22, 2008).

But it seems the newspaper did not want to interview another Jewish speaker who made Toronto one stop on a six city tour across the country.  The newspapers ignored Dr Ilan Pappe, author of critically acclaimed book, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”. He is a "new historian" from Israel and now a well respected academic in the UK, who spoke in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, London, Calgary and Vancouver.

Unlike Feiglin, Pappe did not even merit a  mention in any daily newspaper in the country.

Maybe it was an oversight. Maybe all the press releases about his tour went missing on the various City Editors' desks.  Maybe Ilan Pappe spoke on a night which conflicted with a major municipal event, such as a winter carnival,  a snow storm or the opening of a new mall.

That might account for it.

Maybe most of the newspapers outside of Toronto are owned by CanWest Global, a company which celebrates Israel's occupation of Palestine and writes about "taking on the Israel bashers." (see op-ed by Barbara Kay, National Post, January 30, 2008).  Let's see:  CanWest Global owns the National Post, Calgary Herald, the Vancouver Sun, the Vancouver Province, the Montreal Gazette and the Ottawa Citizen. That might explain why there was no coverage in any of those cities.

But who would begrudge a measly 100 word article -- or even just a photo and a cutline -- in the independently owned Toronto Star, or Canada's "national newspaper" the Globe and Mail?  But there was not a peep.

If I believed in conspiracies, I might call this situation a conspiracy.  If I were a cynic, I'd say what do you expect?  However Ilan Pappe wasn't the only critic of Israel in the last week who was not covered by the press. There was the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians' first national conference on the weekend.  The media advisory says the ACJC aims to "challenge the views of the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canada-Israel Committee and B'nai Brith, along with the Stephen Harper government—all of whom uncritically support the Israeli government's violations of international and humanitarian law."

The ACJC even featured Canada's bestselling author, Naomi Klein, as their keynote speaker.  The conference was even in her hometown but not a word in the Toronto dailies.   What gives? Could it be that the media will not give a column inch to Pappe, Klein or other Jews because they dare to speak against Israel's illegal occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza-- and worse dare to organise against it?

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