When one Montreal teenager, a student at Royal West Academy, received a slap on the wrist punishment after publishing multiple hateful anti-Israel postings to social media, including one spreading the baseless conspiracy theory alleging that Israel permitted the October 7, 2023 massacres by Palestinian terrorists, a CBC News report portrayed her as being unduly punished as a result.

In the November 6 television report, “This high school student’s anti-Israel posts landed her a suspension. Now she’s speaking out,” reporter Sharon Yonan-Renold portrayed the girl as a victim of an attempt at censorship, while downplaying the egregiousness of her actions.

Click below to watch the segment:

The report began with Yonan-Renold stating that the teenager’s posts came following “recent Israeli strikes in Gaza after both sides agreed to a ceasefire,” quoting the Hamas-run “health ministry” saying that 104 people died, though curiously ignoring that it was Palestinian terrorists who attacked Israeli soldiers first, a central detail that was omitted.

Following her posts, the girl received one day’s suspension from school.

The report quoted three individuals defending the girl – herself, her mother, and James Turk, director of the Centre for Free Expression – while only one voice, from the local school board, elaborated on how her actions violated the Quebec Education Act.

While Turk was introduced as a defender of free expression representing a group that “describes itself as a nonpartisan platform,” in reality he is a vocal anti-Israel activist who has spent much of the last two years whitewashing hateful anti-Israel propaganda, claiming that purveyors of such speech are nothing more than victims of censorship. In a preface for Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), a group that has been accused of Holocaust denial and rationalizing Palestinian terrorism, Turk claimed that advocates for Palestinians face “deeply concerning” and “harassment.”

A regular interviewee in the news media, Turk has also spread anti-Israel disinformation.

While Ronan-Regold did note that the girl’s conspiracy theory alleging Israel permitted the Palestinian massacres of October 7 was unfounded, no interviewee from an Israeli or Jewish perspective was quoted who could have explained how her aggressive anti-Israel rhetoric and conspiracy theory was problematic, harmful or dangerous.

Predictably, the girl soon became a cause celebre for anti-Israel activists, with an open letter being circulated by her supporters entitled: “Petition to revoke the suspension of Sunny Picard,” calling for the school to relent on its one-day suspension.

This incident shines a light on complaints by anti-Israel activists that the consequences of their actions are ‘censorship,’ while ignoring violent attacks by their peers who seek to clamp down on anyone seen as supporting Israel.

While the report focused on this one incident, it failed to note that anti-Israel rhetoric has been regularly promoted by agitators over the last two years, resulting in incidents like the violent mob that took place on November 5 at TMU, orchestrated by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a registered club on campus.

While CBC News is entitled to report on this story, it failed to interview any voices who could have elaborated on the relentless campaign to harass voices supporting Israel, and instead sympathetically portrayed one purveyor of vicious anti-Israel content as a hapless victim.