Neil Macdonald’s tenure as CBC Television’s Mideast correspondent from 1998 to 2003 was nothing if not controversial. His caustic style and overt fondness for the Palestinian narrative triggered scores of complaints from HonestReporting Canada regarding his anti-Israel bias.
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In his latest op-ed on CBC.ca entitled "Hardened hearts and a decade lost" MacDonald provided some good fodder and of course, some bad.
The good: MacDonald acknowledged how immediately after the 9/11 terror attacks that Palestinians "celebrated… in the streets of their cities," noting how Arafat tried "to suppress video footage of those parades."
The bad: MacDonald downplayed Arafat’s role in inciting, supporting, and financing the 2nd Intifada by stating that: "the first intefadeh, back in the 1980s, had worked pretty well for Arafat and the second one might have, too, had it not been for a gang of miscreants that he’d never met, but who played a far more deadly game than the PLO had ever contemplated.”
The good: Macdonald acknowledged Arab incitement of the West by prominent Middle Eastern imams along with conspiracy theories about Jewish involvement in the 9/11 attacks.
The bad: MacDonald downplayed Palestinian weaponry used in the 2nd Intifada by describing it as: "Palestinians with their stones and popguns "
The good: MacDonald acknowledged the threat that Pakistani and Iranian nuclear weapons pose to the world.
The bad: In referring to Israel’ security barrier, MacDonald only presents the Palestinian narrative that the barrier annexs West Bank land, without referring to Israel’s rationale – which of course sees the barrier as a necessary self defense mechanism to save lives.
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