“Hear no evil, speak no evil, and see no evil – unless you can blame Israel,” commentator Mitchell Bard’s statement (channeling Shakespeare) about humanitarian aid workers in Gaza in his Jan 3 article in JNS comes to mind when listening to Nadia Kidwai’s CBC radio segment on humanitarian aid in Gaza.

As part of CBC’s The Weekend Morning Show (Manitoba) on August 21, Kidwai interviewed Casey Harrity, team leader of Save the Children in Gaza. In the 17-minute diatribe against Israel, the pair managed paint a picture of abject humanitarian suffering without acknowledging Hamas’s role in it, reminiscent of a 23-minute segment from May where Kidwai gave a guest a long platform to demonize Israel with zero pushback.

Click below to listen to the full segment:

The so-called “conflict” that they discuss is a sanitized way of referring to the genocidal war that was initiated when Hamas broke the ceasefire by invading Israel. On October 7, an estimated 6,000 terrorists from Hamas and other groups in Gaza invaded Israel, committing bestial atrocities on 1,200 innocents, and taking 250 captives. Large crowds in Gaza celebrated this antisemitic pogrom.

Hamas has made clear that it intends to repeat October 7’s massacres until they have annihilated Israel. Their charter is transparent about their aim to destroy Israel. However, Kidwai and Harrity follow Shakespeare’s statement to the letter. They mention Hamas’s evil only once and only to whitewash it.

Kidwai started by asking about the need for the Polio campaign in Gaza. Harrity said: “This is something that would not have happened except for the conflict.”

She continued, talking about Israel’s relocation orders: “Already, as I’ve said we have been limited by a near total siege here, we can’t access supplies, moving through this area is extremely challenging and now to have offices and warehouses that we can’t access makes our job close to impossible.”

According to her portrayal of the situation, it sounds contradictory to admit that due to coordination with Israel via COGAT – The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories – there have been 8-hour humanitarian pauses to allow for Polio vaccinations, as well as coordinated planning with humanitarian aid groups via a special unit of COGAT established to assist with humanitarian aid. In terms of Polio, this has resulted in the World Health Organization exceeding its vaccination goals as of Sept 3.

Harrity also said that her organization, Save the Children, sends midwives to help mothers deliver, offers breastmilk substitutes for newborns, has a nutrition program for malnourished children, and even offers psychosocial support for mental health needs. Clearly “near total siege” isn’t an accurate description. Kidwai made no comment, neglecting to point out that aid work is only possible through Israeli coordination.

Harrity also said: “It’s been a horrific month in this conflict…what we’ve seen in August is that new relocation orders have come almost every other day. Nearly 300,000 people were relocated just in August. People are being relocated squeezed into a tiny tiny part of land where there’s no space left.”

It is a war. A war Hamas brought upon the people of Gaza. In war, there is terrible suffering and it is wonderful that Harrity is working to alleviate it, but bemoaning relocation orders that Israel issues to move Gazans out of harm’s way is bizarre. Yes, it is not everyday living, yes, they are sadly suffering, but they are being kept alive by Israel’s forethought. Hamas never even built a bomb shelter for their electorate and considers their lives disposable, routinely using them as human shields. Something else that seems to slip Kidwai’s mind in her role as a journalist committed to CBC’s standards of balanced reporting.

Kidwai asked Harrity: “The Israeli government will often rationalize the bombing of some Gaza shelters, schools, and hospitals saying that Hamas is operating or fighting from there. What have you observed, have you seen Hamas fighters in those locations?”

Her bias in accusing the Israeli government of “rationalizing” is apparent. Equally obvious is Harrity’s sidestepping of the issue, another evidence point towards Bard’s statement. She responds: “I can’t speak to what Hamas is or isn’t doing, but what I can say is that we know that women and children are in these shelters and they have nowhere else to go…we know that innocent civilians are being caught up in this.”

Painting Hamas as irrelevant is astonishing. It should be equally astonishing that Kidwai lets it go, especially as Harrity described human shields. However, the CBC’s appalling anti-Israel record makes it routine and par for the course.

Ending, Kidwai asked Harrity what her message is. She responded: “There needs to be accountability for the crimes that have been perpetrated.” Agreed. Hamas and their supporters should be held accountable. A “Save the Children” representative who makes no mention of the Israeli children harmed in this conflict, including Kfir Bibas who has passed his first birthday as a hostage of Hamas, has responsibility too.

Nadia Kidwai’s neglecting to remember the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and her failing to tell of their suffering to the world, is just another example of the CBC’s anti-Israel bias.