Following the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, a CBC radio program in Winnipeg produced two back-to-back segments featuring exclusively Palestinian perspectives.

On February 4, Information Radio, hosted by Marcy Markusa, featured an interview with Hala Kofa, describing her as “a Palestinian refugee who lived in exile in Qatar since the age of two,” even though Kofa was born in Kuwait, not the Palestinian territories.

Click below to listen to the full segment:

The interview was a recorded segment between Kofa and Zubina Ahmed, who wrote an article about Kofa the previous day for CBC News. In the segment, Kofa repeated the dangerous genocide libel against Israel, saying the world has “witnessed this genocide live.” No pushback or challenge, or even basic context, was presented by Ahmed nor Markusa, in light of these outlandish remarks.

These two segments are not the first time that Markusa has presented anti-Israel commentaries unchallenged on her program. In May, 2024, she broadcast a fawning interview with Mona Zangana, a Palestinian in Winnipeg, asking her about “nakba day,” when anti-Israel activists mourn Israel’s existence.

The next day, Markusa spoke with Ramsey Zeid, a local anti-Israel activist, for his thoughts on US President Donald Trump’s suggestions about a post-war plan for Gaza. No mention was made of Zeid’s long history of making extremist anti-Israel comments, including appearing to justify, or at least rationalize, Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacres, and describing all of Israel as “occupied” Palestinian territory.

Click below to listen to the full segment:

During their conversation, Zeid presented himself and the Palestinians as victims of Israeli aggression, saying the Palestinians have “been at war for 76 years,” referring to Israel’s independence, and that “we don’t want war, we want peace.”

While Markusa elected not to challenge Zeid, these two statements are simply irreconcilable. One cannot tacitly state that violence is due to Israel’s very existence, when the country voted to accept a United Nations partition plan which would have seen the creation of an Arab state alongside the Jewish state, Israel (which the Arab delegates to the United Nations rejected), and simultaneously claim to be victims simply because Israel exists.

However, Markusa made no effort to push back against Zeid’s comments.

Near the end of the interview, Zeid was asked if he can “tell me a little more about that desire to return” to the Palestinian territories, to which he responded, in part, “it’s our right to return.” While this wording would likely strike most listeners as unobjectionable, it appears to be a reference to the so-called “right of return,” a demand made by many anti-Israel activists that Arabs who left Israel or were displaced in 1948 (most of whom did so at the encouragement of Arab leadership), should be permitted to live in present-day Israel, which would effectively spell the end of the country as a Jewish-majority state.

Markusa’s failure to hold Kofa and Zeid accountable for their statements, or even offer background on past comments by both guests, is problematic enough, her recently hosting of exclusively Palestinian guests to discuss the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement and related news is unjustifiable.

Even as she hosted two Palestinian guests over two days on her program, no Israeli, ranging from a relative of a hostage or former hostage or a relative of a terrorist victim, or even just an Israeli in Winnipeg, was given any platform to share their experiences with her audience. Instead, as has become seemingly a CBC practice, only Palestinian (or pro-Palestinian) voices were presented, while Israelis were sidelined and ignored.