Antisemitism audit calls out legacy media for amplifying Hamas, antisemitism

A leading Jewish advocacy group has accused legacy media in Canada–particularly the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation–of enabling the spread of antisemitism through biased reporting.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

A leading Jewish advocacy group has accused legacy media in Canada–particularly the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation–of enabling the spread of antisemitism through biased reporting, disinformation and a failure to provide balanced perspectives on Israel and Jewish issues.

Bnai Brith Canada’s annual antisemitism audit devoted a section of the report to calling out legacy outlets for being “active participants” in the spread of disinformation and the “normalization of antisemitism.”

The Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents found that reports of antisemitic harassment, violence and vandalism have seen a 124.6 per cent rise in just two years, and warned that the number of actual incidents is likely higher due to underreporting.

One section of the audit calls the CBC out by name and accused multiple Canadian media outlets of one sided reporting.

“Media outlets across the country have become active participants in the spread of disinformation, the normalization of antisemitism, and the justification of violence against Jews,” the report said. “From newsrooms to taxpayer-funded broadcasters, from online media platforms to the entertainment industry, Canadian media institutions became megaphones for terrorist propaganda, sanitizers of antisemitic rhetoric, and manufacturers of sympathy for extremists in 2024.”

B’nai Brith said that by framing stories to paint Israel as the aggressor, omitting the critical context of the actions of Hamas terrorists and “amplifying voices” that aim to delegitimize the Jewish state, Canada’s media stakeholders were “complicit” in the rise of antisemitism in Canada.

The report accused several outlets of referring to Hamas terrorists as “militants” while characterizing Israel’s defensive actions as genocidal acts of aggression. They noted that the CBC and other outlets “actively spread terrorist propaganda” by treating the casualty figures reported by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry “as gospel” while questioning official statements produced by Israel.

“Hundreds of Israeli civilians—men, women, children, and Holocaust survivors—

were kidnapped by Hamas, paraded through Gaza as war trophies, and inhumanely held captive,” the report said. “When these innocent hostages were finally released, Canadian outlets equated the hostages with Palestinian prisoners convicted of rape, terrorism, and attempted murder.”

The group noted that some of the Palestinian prisoners had been convicted of stabbing Israeli women and children, planting bombs, or attempting suicide attacks. Despite this “the media” referred to them as though they were unjustly imprisoned political detainees.

“Placing them on the same moral plane as the Israeli hostages is a grotesque distortion of reality that has fueled the growing wave of antisemitism in Canada.”

Another Jewish and Israel advocacy group, Honest Reporting Canada, has been a continuous source of criticism against legacy media’s anti-Israel bias, including recently highlighting CBC’s over-reliance on anti-Israel sources when discussing topics such as food scarcity in Gaza.

In an interview with True North, Austin Parcels, the Manager of Research and Advocacy at B’nai Brith, said this part of the report was intended to hold media accountable rather than sow distrust in the fifth estate, which he said is crucial for democracy to thrive.

“With this, we're trying to draw attention to what seems to be a systemic problem across news agencies that segments of the news that portrays pro Hamas protesters as simply pro Palestinian,” he said. “While failing to characterize that, they're dressed like Hamas members, wearing Hamas headbands. These are things that are happening across the news spectrum in Canada.”

Parcels said the media bias has a “tangible” effect on the Jewish community in Canada.

“It's essentially left us feeling alienated, unsafe and unheard,” he said. “Those concerns are mostly around evidence that the media has a consistent pattern of selective reporting and omission.”

He said the double standards of the media result in the delegitimization of Israel's right to defend itself and lends itself to harming the Jewish community. He noted that a 2024 survey, which is cited by the Canadian government website, showed that 91% of Jews in Canada believe that Jewish people have a right to self-determination as a Jewish State in Israel.

Parcels said that interviewing pro-Hamas individuals without appropriate scrutiny results in the legitimization of the terrorist group - a group whose charter calls for the “vanquishing” of its enemy “the Jews.”

B’nai Brith is calling for news agencies to “reassess (their) editorial standards and ethical responsibilities and include a balanced perspective from Jewish and Israeli voices.

“Use accurate language; terrorists must be identified as terrorists, sugar coating them, only serves the interests of those who are seeking to murder civilians,” he said.

He said government sources have more weight than Hamas propaganda and should be treated as such.

“Stop providing air time to individuals or groups whose interest isn't just simply to represent Palestinians..the Middle East,” he said. “They also often provide platforms to groups not interested in legitimate discourse. They are interested in the full destruction of the Israeli state, the full destruction of the Jewish indigeneity. “

During a recent federal debate hosted by B’nai Brith Canada, the federal candidate from the Eglington–Lawrence, Toronto riding answered a question from the audience about tackling the CBC's media bias.

The Liberal candidate Vince Gasparro pledged to fight to have the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism used by any federal organization to stem the bias. The Conservative candidate, Karen Stintz, and her leader, Pierre Poilievre, are committed to defunding the “biased” and increasingly “irrelevant” organization.