On August 16, CBC’s The Early Edition radio program welcomed NDP foreign affairs critic and Member of Parliament (MP) for Edmonton Strathcona, Heather McPherson, to discuss the resumed ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
Listen to the full segment:
The Early Edition has been featured repeatedly by HonestReporting Canada, for its wildly one-sided portrayal of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and this episode was no exception.
Early Edition’s 1-Sided Anti-Israel Bias
During the interview, McPherson wasted no time in dishonestly calling Israel’s defensive war against Hamas a “genocide,” repeating the accusation several times throughout the interview. Of course, she didn’t offer any discussion as to how she arrived at the determination that a genocide is occurring, nor did she offer us any insight into what exactly it was when Hamas broke through the Israeli border, slaughtering men, women and children indiscriminately and while live streaming their gleeful massacres. That was, after all, what started the conflict, but McPherson failed to even mention the October 7 massacres and Hamas’ ongoing commitment to genocide of Jews as the reason for the war to begin with.
NDP Foreign Affairs Critic Claims All 40,000 Dead Palestinians All “Innocent Civilians”
McPherson went on to state that 40,000 Palestinian “innocent civilians” have been killed, despite Israel stating that at least 17,000 Hamas fighters have been killed. Leaving aside the ridiculous assertion that every single fatality was an “innocent” civilian and not a Hamas fighter, those numbers are wildly problematic.
Currently, all fatality reports come directly from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, an agency which has every reason to inflate the death toll, and which has been shown multiple times to arrive at death numbers within minutes of an operation – an absolute impossibility during the fog of war. Indeed, in May, the United Nations quietly halved the number of women and children suspected of being killed at that time, citing faulty reporting and data tracking by Hamas. How can anyone with a position in government, and who has an obligation to be a leader on the world stage, then parrot these numbers uncritically?
McPherson continued the interview by lamenting the fact that the Canadian government “unfortunately… has not been doing what they can to facilitate a ceasefire.” What authority Canada has to issue any sort of demand or “facilitate” anything in terms of Israel’s right to self-defence is unclear. After all, Israel is a sovereign nation (located half a world away), who is defending itself against a genocidal Islamic terrorist organization bent on Israel’s total annihilation. Why McPherson thinks Canada should be able to tell Israel to allow such a situation is baffling.
McPherson Prefers To Deny Israel The Means To Defend Itself
Further, she went on to say how “disappointed” she is in Melanie Joly, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, for not issuing an arms embargo against Israel, saying that it would take her “all of two minutes” to facilitate it by posting on the Foreign Affairs website. One would like to hope that Joly’s hesitancy about issuing such an order is not, in fact, how labour intensive it is to set up, but rather that doing so would mean helping to rob Israel of the right to defend itself against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and half a dozen other state and militant actors in the region committed to its destruction. Indeed, McPherson herself even acknowledges there are “escalating tensions” with Iran, who is a “terrible state actor.” How, then, can she also suggest that advocating for a defenceless Israel is the moral position to take?
She cited the “very clear genocidal language coming out of the Netanyahu government” as the reason for needing an immediate ceasefire and an arms embargo, while at the same time not offering the listener any examples of what she means by such an incendiary charge. Of course, the CBC’s host did not ask for clarification, assuming, presumably, that the listener will just go along with it.
Finally, the interview ended by questioning why, if Canada’s formal position is that Ottawa supports a two-state solution, why has it not already recognized a Palestinian state? Indeed, McPherson said Ottawa should also acknowledge the right of return for “all Palestinians” to a “rebuilt Palestinian state.” For someone who is supposed to be the Foreign Affairs Critic of a major Western country, this logic and reasoning is, frankly, shocking. It should be immediately obvious to McPherson that one cannot just “acknowledge” a state where no state exists. What are its recognized and defined borders? Who are its leaders? What’s its currency? The foreign and domestic policies, necessary state-oriented institutions and judiciary? Indeed, what state apparatus exists for one to recognize? Neither the Palestinian Authority nor Hamas are prepared to address these issues.
Moreover, is MsPherson suggesting that the Palestinian state being recognized fall within the borders of Gaza and the West Bank? Because if that’s the case, the Palestinian leadership can hardly launch terror attacks against Israel, as they regularly do, in pursuit of more territory. Recognition of a state would require them to accept a Jewish state – something they refuse, under all conditions, to do. Finally, the recognition of a Palestinian state would mean that they are no longer a nation of refugees – if they have a recognized state, we have no need of UNRWA, as there are no longer any Palestinian refugees – they have a state to which they can return. No one in the Palestinian leadership wants to see that happen.
Despite McPherson’s lamentably ignorant commentary, she was never challenged by her CBC host, who allowed a torrent of misinformation to stand unopposed, which in our view stood in violation of the CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices.
