Kudos to CP24 for its efforts to provide comprehensive coverage of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas with its January 15 coverage. Both hosts provided a helpful backdrop to the present war and ceasefire announcement. They clearly aimed to create journalistic balance with guests representing Israeli and Palestinian perspectives. Yet these efforts were undermined by one guest who spouted anti-Israel propaganda and who, in our view, defended Hamas’s so-called “resistance”.

Hosts Bakari Savage and Phil Perkins first welcomed Maureen Leshem, a cousin of Romi Gonen. (Gonen was among the first three Israeli hostages released under the deal.) Leshem spoke of her hopes for the ceasefire, a better future for the people of Gaza, hostage families’ feelings of abandonment by humanitarian organizations, and the challenge of supporting returning hostages.

Click to watch the full segment below:

Savage and Perkins then introduced Dalia El Farra as a “GTA resident… who has family in Gaza.”

El Farra described the mood in Gaza as largely mournful, expressing condolences and taking “an inventory of our losses.”

This despite most media outlets airing nonstop footage of Gazans singing, dancing, and driving through the streets honking and cheering Hamas’ self-proclaimed victory, taken mostly with cellphone footage, despite El Farra’s claim that phones in Gaza are “not able to connect.”

El Farra did let slip that there may be some “cautious optimism” and perhaps even joy. Which was fine, she rushed to add, because “they’ve earned it.” Given the number of Gaza civilians who participated in the October 7, 2023 massacres, saying that they had “earned” a celebration was troubling at best.

Next, El Farra began hurling baseless accusations. She blamed Israel for blocking humanitarian aid, calling this a “crime against humanity” and “one of humanity’s worst atrocities.”

In fact, Israel has been coordinating the entry of hundreds of trucks per day. Unfortunately, many shipments have been looted by Hamas and Palestinian gangs before it can get to needy civilians in order to resell the goods at inflated prices in order to fund its terrorism.

But it was when El Farra was asked how to ensure that Gaza doesn’t revert to a “safe haven for more terrorist groups” that her, in our view, extremist views really started to show. She said, “I want to question the use of ‘terrorist groups’ and who gets to define what is a terrorist.”

To his credit, Perkins spoke up. He pointed out that both Canada and the U.S. do in fact define Hamas as a terrorist organization. El Farra waved this off. She said groups like the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were once seen as terrorists and later hailed as “heroes.”

She went on to say that “as long as there is an illegal occupation… there will always be resistance in all forms… and no chance of peace.” And by “occupation,” she pointed out, she didn’t mean only Gaza, but “all of Palestine.”

Importantly, for outlawed terror groups like Hamas, “resistance” is a euphemism for attacking Israelis and westerners, often civilians, in suicide bombings, rocket attacks and shooting rampages.

It’s possible that Savage and Perkins were unaware of El Farra’s history of anti-Israel activism. But perhaps they should have been. Her views have been aired in a number of Canadian media interviews.

She also spoke previously as part of a “courageous conversation” sponsored by the University of Ottawa in March, 2024. As documented by The Toronto Sun at the time, El Farra used that event—ostensibly around antisemitism and Islamophobia—to describe Hamas’s efforts as a “struggle for justice” against “Israeli colonial settlers.” According to the Sun, she also glorified the death of a suicide bomber.

As Senior Advisor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion with the Centre for Human Rights at York University, El Farra is part of a team creating York’s “decolonization” strategy, denouncing the university’s racist and colonial history and boosting “equity-deserving scholars.”

Coincidentally, El Farra is also listed on the board of the non-profit Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), an anti-Israel organization that in November 2024 bragged that York University’s faculty association (YUFA) had called to divest from “the occupation of Palestinian territory.” El Farra is also listed as a board member of the CJPME Foundation, a Canadian-designated charity which has tax-exempt status and says it can issue tax receipts.

At the very least, CP24 hosts Savage and Perkins should have introduced El Farra as an activist, not merely a Torontonian who happened to have family members in Gaza.

Journalistic neutrality doesn’t mean avoiding difficult or controversial topics. CP24 clearly recognizes this. But it does mean presenting information fairly and allowing viewers to form their own opinions. In our view, if CP24’s hosts had researched El Farra’s background, they would have been aware of what we consider to be her extremist views and perhaps found a source who could offer more relevant insights about the ceasefire rather than rote repetition of anti-Israel diatribes.