On the same day that investigative journalist Warren Kinsella broke the scandalous news that CBC has told its staff to avoid referring to the 9/11 attacks as terrorism in their official reporting on the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in the United States, Canada’s publicly-funded broadcaster produced a report providing what we regard as being a sympathetic portrayal of pro-Palestinian activism.

The August 26 report, “Young Palestinian-Canadian fights censorship,” featured Tareq Barhoumeh, a Palestinian-Arab living in Winnipeg, telling his story about “censorship” while he was a student at an international school in China in 2023, which was created by CBC’s Creator Network, which “amplifies the voices of the next generation of Canadian storytellers.” The segment was acknowledged as having been written, edited and directed by the featured star, Tareq Barhoumeh himself, and which produced by CBC’s Robin Summerfield and Donna Carriero. At the end of the segment, the logo of the Winnipeg School Division also appears and it’s not clear of the involvement that organization had in the production of this report. Credit was also given to filmmakers Marcus Fowler and Jonathan Dyck-Lyons who have been previously described as being part of CBC’s Creator Network. An organization called Sisler’s Create Program was also credited, as was Is It On Studios.

Watch the full segment below:

In the 5-minute broadcast, Barhoumeh spoke about trying to plan a fundraiser for Gaza in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacres in southern Israel, though he made no mention of October 7 nor of Hamas, instead only making reference to Israel and “its bombing of Gaza,” as if Israel’s counter-terrorism operations simply arose out of thin air. That the school would not permit such a project was platformed by the CBC effectively as censorship.

Telling viewers that he was a descendant of Palestinians from the “nakba,” which he described as “the mass displacement of Palestinians from Palestine.” He did not share that the “nakba,” or Arabic for catastrophe, came about when Israel’s neighbours (and many Arabs within the newly independent state) sought to destroy Israel, refusing to recognize its very existence, and launched a war against it.

Like his failure to mention the October 7 massacres which precipitated the subsequent war in Gaza, in our view, this erasure grossly twisted history to frame Israel as the aggressor, rather than a country defending itself against openly genocidal enemies seeking its destruction.

In Winnipeg, Barhoumeh said he made a TEDx presentation which covered, as CBC dutifully noted on its screen, the “ethnic cleansing of Palestine,” from 1936 onwards. It is unclear what “ethnic cleansing” Barhoumeh or CBC is referring to, since the Palestinian-Arab population has grown significantly over the last 90 years, hardly indicative of “ethnic cleansing.”

But, Barhoumeh complained, the TEDx talk was not highlighted on YouTube, which he attributed to – once again – censorship, never acknowledging that misinformation and historical revisionism might have played a factor.

Rather than addressing at all any possibility that his content may have been false, misleading or otherwise misinformation, Barhoumeh instead blamed “racism,” a reaction which is consistent with claims from activist groups who attempt to position any opposition to pro-Palestinian activism as racist in nature, and claim that individuals who spread anti-Israel misinformation are victims of bullying or censorship, rather than simply individuals who face the consequences for their actions.

CBC could have offered critical context to help viewers make sense out of the highly misleading or false claims featured in the broadcast, but did no such thing, instead letting them stand completely unchallenged. Tareq Barhoumeh, who says he will be enrolling at Vancouver Film School (VFS) in the fall, has been given what we regard as a completely uncritical platform to spread half-truths and misinformation about Israel, courtesy of Canada’s taxpayer-funded broadcaster.