The last 18 months of the Hamas-Israel war has demonstrated widespread and systemic anti-Israel bias in many corners of the Canadian news media, in both of the country’s official languages. But when it comes to deeply problematic coverage and commentary of the Middle East, often the worst offenders are not in English and French.
Arabic is the language spoken at home by about 300,000 people, and this community is served by a number of news outlets. One such newspaper is London, Ontario-based Al-Bilad.
A December 2024 edition said that Israel “continues its massacres” in Gaza . In its September 2024 edition, it republished a poem in English by Nour Khalil Abu Shammala, a law student in Gaza, which read, in part, that Gaza was “watered by martyrs blood/It fights with its soil/Holding warriors’ remnants,” and praising its “brave resisters.” Was the author referring to and lauding Palestinian terrorists? You decide.
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The newspaper’s pages feature a number of advertisements from local politicians, largely members of the provincial and federal NDP, including MP Lindsay Mathyssen, MPP Terence Kernaghan and MPP Peggy Sattler.
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Sakher Sabeel is another Arabic-language newspaper, based in Mississauga, Ontario and on October 31, 2024, it published an article lamenting the “martyrdom of (Hamas) leader Yahya Sinwar,” the mastermind of the terrorist group’s October 7, 2023 massacres. The column subsequently shared a selection of “expressions of pride and respect” regarding his “martyrdom,” quoting one mourner who called him a “genuine resistance warrior.” Another mourner quoted by Sakheer Sabeel was quoted as saying “(We) found only dignity and pride within you. May peace be upon you, leader and martyr,” and that “your blood nourishes a land that longs for freedom.”
HRC has independently verified this translation from the original Arabic.
The previous month, another column said that “what began on that day was the writing of new and glorious lines…. words fail, O Palestinians and Lebanese (brothers in the national struggle), to describe your heroism, courage, sacrifices, steadfastness… in its trenches and ambushes.”
The newspaper, an equal opportunity mourner, also dedicated space to mourning the death of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. A September column written by Jordanian professor Bashir Al-Khadra wishes “peace be upon you” to Nasrallah, and asks that “peace be granted to all the fighters,” specifically naming a number of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, who oversaw terrorist groups that murdered and tortured innocent Israelis.
The previous month, another Jordanian national, Adnan Al-Rousan, penned a love letter to Hamas’ terror tunnels, saying that “pride is made in the tunnels,” grotesquely referring to the subterranean complexes where Palestinian terrorists have kept Israeli hostages and murdered them there.
In early 2023, Sakheer Sabeel published an opinion column praising the “martyrdom of Nasser Abu Hmeid,” who was convicted of murdering seven Israelis in a series of terrorist attacks.
The newspaper’s extremist rhetoric has not prevented it from being filled with advertising, including from immigration lawyers touting their services helping facilitate moves to Canada.
Hona London is another Arabic-language newspaper, based in London, Ontario, and in a February 2025 column, its editor-in-chief, Abdalla El Farra, praised the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, saying that Gazans considered this “a great victory for the resistance,” appearing to refer to Hamas, when they understood that Israel was unable to “free the detainees,” referring to the hostages kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists, and proudly declaring that “Hamas fighters…were embraced by the people of Gaza.”
Despite the newspaper’s extremism, an advertisement for NDP MP Lindsay Mathyssen, and NDP MPPs Teresa Armstrong, Terence Kernaghan and Peggy Sattler appeared in the pages of Hona London the very next month, alongside a number of immigration lawyers. In fact, a photo of Mathyssen with El Farra is posted to the newspaper’s website, showing her in a keffiyeh and wearing a necklace (Hona London Lindsay photo) displaying a map of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, fully erasing Israel.
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It’s important to note that the newspaper received $11,300 in federal Covid-19 relief funding in 2020.
These select articles and columns from various Arabic-language Canadian newspapers which appear to glorify terrorists and demonize Israel, demands critical coverage from other news outlets to expose the hate and extremism in our midst.
