The CBC podcast Front Burner is rapidly becoming an anti-Israel echo chamber with host Jaymie Poisson. In her third occasion this month of giving disproportionate airtime to pro-Palestinian voices, on November 22 she hosted David Bergen, author and former prize winner of the Giller Prize, giving him a barely interrupted opportunity to share his self-righteous views on the controversy around the Giller Prize this year.

Entitled: “Politics, Gaza, and Money Collide at The Giller Prize,” the segment discussed the controversy surrounding Scotiabank, one of the larger supporters of the prestigious literary Giller Prize. Critics note that Scotiabank invests significantly in Israeli weapons manufacturers and other Israel-supporting foundations.

Listen to the full segment below:

In the interview, Bergen painted himself and his family as anti-war pacifists as a result of their Mennonite faith, explaining that “my grandfather in Russia was a conscientious objector. My father in the Second World War was the same, a conscientious objector. We were raised with passages about peace and turning the other cheek, that sort of thing….and so for me to participate in any way in violence, in war, even at a distance, is– it’s very deeply ingrained in me that that’s just something that we do not do.”

While it is strangely a source of pride for Bergen that his father refused to fight the evil Nazi scourge, that misplaced boast illustrated his utter lack of understanding about the nature of the threat(s) facing Israel. Unlike Bergen’s self-involved family, Israel has no luxury of sticking its head in the sand, hoping that genocidal murderers ignore it.

In fact, Hamas’ raison d’etre is its death wish on Israel and the Jews. It states it clearly in its charter and its leaders shout it from the rooftops. It wants to repeat the massacres of October 7, 2023 until Israel is no more. It doesn’t want two states, it wants Israel, expunged of its Jewish populace.

Hamas doesn’t care about anyone’s life but its own. It hides its weapons and fighters behind the most vulnerable Gazans; in hospitals, children’s bedrooms, schools, and more, and celebrates the death of its ‘martyrs’ who skew the casualty algorithm in Hamas’s favour by making Israel look worse. Additionally, it manipulates the casualty figures by combining combatant and civilian deaths, and controls the media reports out of Gaza.

Hamas’ victims, including their hostages do not have the luxury that Bergen’s family had, a point that Poisson did not challenge him on. Neither Poisson nor Bergen raised the question of how to rescue them, nor of how to prevent further such tragedies in future. The answer, it seems, is to hope that Hamas simply decides not to carry out a genocide, or as Bergen’s father did in World War Two, to simply not do anything at all.

Bergen related that he has been ‘educated’ by Gazans he is in touch with, for example sharing that “I said in my op-ed that flour cost $100 a bag. Well, it’s now, in the last week, gone up to $280 a bag in Gaza. [JP: Wow.] And inevitably, people are fighting over those bags of flour.”

The blame for this is tacitly laid at Israel’s door. However, social media reports that 109 trucks of flour – free aid entering Gaza – were recently stolen, likely by Hamas, who controls the population via the food. Bergen did not point this out.

When prompted by Poisson to talk about the Azrieli Foundation, known for its Holocaust education, included in the boycott, he says of them, “I just don’t want to be connected to that. And I don’t think the Giller should want to be connected to that.”

For all of Bergen’s self-righteousness and professed interest in peace, he was never asked by his host about other charities in Canada which should be of concern to him. For example, NGO Monitor lists several ‘charities’ that the Canadian government committed to matching funding for that allegedly have terrorist links. Islamic Relief Canada is but one example. It states that it works “alongside the Ministry of Health” in Gaza. NGO Monitor points out that, “This is a Hamas entity.”

It would be interesting to have Poisson balance her guestlist by inviting people with an opposing point of view to her existing playlist, in the interests of journalistic integrity, but week after week, she has failed to do that, despite HonestReporting Canada calling on the CBC to grant pro-Israel sources equal time.