If you tuned into CBC Radio on November 10, you were likely aghast to hear a 30-minute anti-Israel invective that centered largely on replacing the world’s only Jewish state with an Arab-majority, Palestinian-run country.

On “The Sunday Edition” yesterday, CBC Anchor Michael Enright interviewed avowed anti-Zionist and anti-Israel detractor, Noura Erakat (pictured right), professor of law at Rutgers University, who aside from uttering outright falsehoods and flagrant distortions of the truth through misleading legalese, Erakat advocated for the “right of return” of millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants into Israel, akin to a demographic ticking bomb that would see the Jewish character of the state of Israel and Jewish majority, eliminated. Naturally, to make a discussion about annihilating the Jewish state more palatable, Erakat abused the language of human rights to lecture about a so-called righteous quest for freedom and equality which served to obscure her real goal of seeing a proverbial Palestine “from the river to the sea.”

You can listen to Michael Enright’s 30-minute interview with Noura Erakat at the following link or please click on the image below.

The CBC’s segment entitled: “Israel violates international law with impunity, says human rights lawyer” was very concerning. CBC Anchor Michael Enright did not adequately challenge many false and highly misleading statements that Ms. Erakat made, and didn’t seem informed enough about the issues at hand, or at least willing, to ask hard and informed questions.

Here’s what was discussed in the program:

• The “scales of justice are permanently tipped in Israel’s favour” says Erakat.
• “No one has held Israel to account” says Erakat.
• “[International law] has served Israel more because Israel, its lawyers and its judiciary have understood this dimension of the law better than have the Palestinians,” says Erakat.
• Israel’s position on the “right of return” is a “racist argument” says Erakat. Israel “expelled” Arab-Palestinians, not that they fled at the behest of marauding Arab armies seeking Israel’s destruction.
• Israel has a law of return for Jews, but not for Arab-Palestinians says Erakat, “why can’t they (Israel) live with them?” By that she is referring to the millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants who would flood into Israel were the “right of return” to be implemented. The answer to Erakat’s rhetorical question is that doing so will negate the Jewish state’s very existence. Like a pot calling the kettle black, Erakat’s statement itself was racist. She then offered the following cavalier rejoinder: “Isn’t that unfortunate!”
• Israel’s position on the settlements and its presence in the disputed territories is dubbed a “legal fiction” and was “made up” by Israeli experts says Erakat. Erekat says that Israel is perpetuating “colonial dominance” and “a colonial erasure of the juridical status of Palestinians.” No mention was made by Mr. Enright about the Jewish people claiming indigenous, religious and legal rights to the land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria.
• No mention was made that UN Security Council Resolution 242 authorizes Israel, having conquered the land in a defensive war, to remain in possession of the territories. According to Resolution 242, when “a just and lasting peace in the Middle East” is achieved, Israel can withdraw to “secure and recognized boundaries.” Of course, Erakat claimed that the 1967 Six Day War was “not a defensive war”.
• Erakat says UN Resolution 181 “did say there should be a Jewish state, but also said that Palestinians can be citizens of that state and that the religious and civil and political rights would be enshrined…” This is a total fallacy. Resolution 181 called for separate Arab and Jewish states, not a one-state solution as she described.
• Erakat suggestively says: “Should we extend a terrorist designation to Israel?” No rebuttal was made by Mr. Enright to this suggestion that Israel be regarded as a state-sponsor of terror.
• Enright says: “When it (Israel) put the first people in that occupied territory, they were civilians, but they were called soldiers so that the occupation was a matter of national security, not occupation.” To wit, Israeli citizens have never been deported to, nor transferred forcibly, to these areas. There is no element of international law that can be used to prohibit the voluntary return of individuals to the towns and villages from which they or their ancestors had been previously evicted by forcible means.
• Erakat claimed: “Israel is using its own Israeli citizens as human shields.” Her accusation that Israel commits war crimes did not draw a rebuttal from Mr. Enright.
• There was almost no mention of the daily terror attacks against Israelis, aside from a historical mention of past PFLP suicide bombings. There was no discussion about Palestinian incitement and how terrorists are paid stipends for conducting attacks against Israelis.
• Ms. Erakat lauded the “Great March of Return,” as a non-violent protest movement that on May 15, 2018 saw 60 Palestinians killed by Israeli sniper fire. No mention was made that the Palestinians rioted and engaged in terrorism, and that these attacks were abetted, organized and financed by Hamas terrorists. They fired assault and sniper rifles, hand guns, lobbed grenades, molotov cocktails, kite bombs, IED’s and attempted to breach the border to massacre Israelis. No mention was made that Hamas acknowledged that 53 of the 62 Palestinians killed in the May 15 riots were Hamas operatives.

The interview then veered to a discussion about Zionism that was way out of line. Mr. Enright even claimed that the term Zionists has become “a toxic word… the word itself, Zionist is a loaded word.” In sharp contrast, Zionism is the nationalist movement of self-determination of the Jewish people espousing the re-establishment of, and support for, a Jewish state in the historic Land of Israel. A “loaded term” means “wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes.” The word “Zionism” is not a pejorative.

Mr. Enright, who seemed infatuated by Ms. Erakat, and who fawned over her saying “you are clearly a brilliant lawyer,” also expressed admiration for PLO official Hanan Ashrawi, “she’s a terrific person,” he said. Mr. Enright was also of the opinion that Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor to the Middle East, doesn’t have a lot of “intellectual subtly”.

Mr. Enright claimed there’s a “target” on his program and on the media in general, when doing coverage of Israeli-Palestinian matters. In other words, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.

Enright wrongly claimed that Hamas’ new charter doesn’t call for the eradication of Israel, it does and Hamas proudly boasts this. Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Zahar explained that despite the publication of the Hamas policy document in 2017, the old charter remains “the core of (Hamas’) position,” and that “there is no contradiction between what we said in the document and the pledge we have made to God in our (original) charter.”

A little background about Ms. Erakat is in order. She once authored a polemic asserting that “Israel does not have the right to self-defense in international law against occupied Palestinian territory.” According to CAMERA, Erakat “hatefully likened Israeli ‘settler colonization’ (by which she means the presence of any Jews between the Sea and the River Jordan) to a cancer, charging that either the two-state solution or the one-state solution is like ‘using Tylenol to address the cancer… instead of chemo …the thing we need to do is remove the cancer… If we admit that the West Bank is occupied we have to admit that Tel Aviv and Haifa are occupied as well as Jerusalem.’”

This is Noura Erakat. Someone who equated Israelis to a cancer which needs to be removed and who has whitewashed violence against Jews.

In conclusion, Mr. Enright and the CBC provided a one-sided platform for Ms. Erakat’s anti-Israel invective. While Ms. Erakat is entitled to her views and CBC is certainly permitted to giving her a platform, however, many of her comments should have been forcefully challenged by a skillful interviewer and as they weren’t, a forthcoming segment should be produced by the CBC interviewing a pro-Israel expert on international law in the interests of balance, fairness and accuracy on this controversial issue. In so doing, a semblance of balance can be brought about. CBC’s listeners deserve it.

HonestReporting Canada has filed a complaint with senior executives at CBC News and has called on Mr. Enright and The Sunday Edition to invite an international law expert who can strongly articulate Israel’s position on all the controversial and nonsensical issues raised by Noura Erakat.

If you would like to communicate your concerns to Mr. Enright and The Sunday Edition, please send emails to: thesundayedition@cbc.ca. Please refer to the program’s November 10 interview with Noura Erakat.