In a May 30 article by CBC News Senior Reporter Evan Dyer entitled: “Israel’s provocative settlement response may force Canada to back up its words,” the CBC’s journalist ignored crucial historical and legal facts while effectively legitimizing calls for Canada to sanction senior Israeli officials over supposed “illegal settlements.”

Not once did Dyer acknowledge extensive Jewish historical ties to the area. Instead, he presented a lopsided narrative of Israel as a greedy and expansionist aggressor.

Dyer reported that Israel approved new development plans in Judea and Samaria (what media call the “West Bank”), in response to a recent condemnation of Israel by Canada, the UK, and France. He framed Israel’s move as willful and defiant, like that of a belligerent child. This is backed up with a quote from a former ambassador to Israel, Jon Allen, who said Israel is “thumbing their noses at the international community,” like a child might do.

At no point did he consider that Israel may have legitimate reasons for its decision. Nor did he bother interviewing an Israeli official or anyone with a dissenting viewpoint. For Dyer, Israel has impudently defied Ottawa’s edict and must now be punished with sanctions.

Dyer pointed out, correctly, that “the Fourth Geneva Convention… forbids a victorious party in war from transferring its own population into conquered territory, or forcing the civilian population that lives there to leave.”

While this is true in principle, none of this applies in the case of Judea and Samaria.

What Dyer didn’t mention is that these areas are hardly “conquered territory.” Jews have lived there for thousands of years, they have never been part of any Palestinian state, and according to international law, Israel has a better legal claim to the land than anyone else. They only changed hands because Jordan, which occupied the lands in 1967, attacked Israel during the Six Day War that year. Furthermore, Israel never forcibly transferred any populations to these areas, Jews who live in the region did so voluntarily.

While it may be fashionable to say otherwise, it is not logically possible to “conquer” or “occupy” land that already belongs to you.

Yet reporters often seem unaware or disinterested of these historical facts. Many, including Dyer, fail to even acknowledge that there might be any opposing viewpoint.

Thus, Dyer repeatedly refers to settlements as “illegal” without qualification. He never once mentioned that this is a disputed legal interpretation, not objective fact. Dyer also made it sound as if this is an objective, universal standard. In fact, Israel is almost always the only nation singled out with the accusation of illegal settlement.

This isn’t the first time Dyer has gotten it wrong about Israeli “settlements.” In 2020, Honest Reporting Canada alerted CBC News to a particularly biased anti-Israel article he wrote, which led to CBC’s revising its the article, offering a more balanced viewpoint and acknowledging Israel’s claims to Judea and Samaria. But now, it seems, he’s at it again.

Both Evan Dyer and the CBC News have betrayed readers’ sacred trust with this article. Dyer’s report presented disputed legal claims as fact and omitted historical context that could bring much-needed balance, as he has done previously. It’s time that Canada’s public broadcaster holds itself to a higher standard in reporting.