The Canadian news media’s ongoing free publicity for a pair of anti-Israel activists continues unabated.

Following multiple CBC interviews featuring Tal Mitnick and Einat Gerlitz, Israelis who were jailed for refusing to participate in their country’s mandatory military service, the two were the subject of a glowing interview on CityTV Vancouver.

The March 22 report entitled: “Israeli war resistors finish B.C. speaking tour,” by reporter Kier Junos, told viewers how the pair were on a speaking tour in Canada, though he neglected to share that it was on behalf of Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), a radical and fringe group that has been accused of Holocaust denial and has defended Hamas’ use of violence against Israelis.

Watch the full report below:

Junos told viewers that “Around 600 Palestinians (were) killed after Israel resumed air strikes on the Gaza Strip,” falsely conflating Hamas disinformation with verified facts, and saying that Jerusalem, in doing so, had broken the ceasefire, when in fact the ceasefire had already ended with Hamas continuing to refuse to release the remaining Israeli hostages being kept by the terrorist group.

In his remarks, Mitnick twice falsely accused Israel of “genocide,” though there was no challenge, nor context provided by Junos, who could have told viewers that, at bare minimum, Israel strenuously denies those baseless charges, which have been made by groups that have been forced to redefine genocide in order to make their allegations.

Mitnick is within his rights to make whatever allegations he so chooses, even if they are without merit, but CityTV is bound by journalistic ethics to ensure that viewers are given a balanced perspective on the news of the day, particularly when it comes to highly sensitive and contentious news stories. Providing extreme claims and no opposing statements is not journalism, but stenography.

Elsewhere in the broadcast, Junos told viewers that Israel, in suspending food aid to Gaza in recent weeks, was “Potentially putting over one million people at risk of being without food this month.” It is unclear what the basis for his speculation was, given that analysts say there are many months of food available inside Gaza, meaning that “over one million people” are not at any risk this month of running out of food.

Unfortunately, as with so many other news reports about the Hamas-Israel war, claims from the Palestinian terrorist group and its apologists are often taken as gospel truth, while Israeli statements – if they are even quoted at all – are treated with the utmost suspicion.

CityTV and Kier Junos are free to report on whatever news stories they wish, but the news media’s remarkable interest in anti-Israel interviewees is curious in its own right, given that pro-Israel guests visiting Canada, including proudly-serving IDF soldiers, are rarely, if ever, sought out for interviews with mainstream news media outlets, despite frequently being subject matter experts on subjects highly relevant to the Hamas-Israel war.

This particular broadcast was particularly problematic in its uncritical repetition of Hamas disinformation and presenting it as factual, as well as the uncritical way in which scandalous accusations against Israel were offered without any challenge nor even the basest of context.