Even amidst the spectrum of fanatically anti-Israel groups that have become active in recent years, primarily after the Hamas massacres of October 7, 2023, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) is particularly odious.

Just hours after Hamas’ invasion that day, where thousands of terrorists and countless ‘civilians’ attacked Israel in a bloodthirsty campaign of murder, torture, rape and kidnapping, the group held a public event in Mississauga, Ontario, where it celebrated the biggest mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust, offering “honour” to the terrorists.

The group is also a key organizer in many of the anti-Israel protests seen since then, many of which have featured hateful rhetoric, support for terrorism, and even violence. One of the group’s most vocal spokespeople, Yara Shoufani, who has been frequently given a platform by news media outlets, has been unabashed in her support for Palestinian terrorists and their mass murders perpetrated on October 7.

But that hasn’t stopped the group from being treated as a legitimate and peaceful organization by compliant news media outlets.

In a July 11 segment for the CBC radio program based in Kitchener-Waterloo, The Morning Edition – K-W entitled: “Palestine Day is at Kitchener City hall this Sunday,” a guest host filling in for Craig Norris spoke with Shatha Mahmoud, one of the organizers of an upcoming event meant to be “celebrating Palestinian culture.”

Click below to listen to the full segment:

No mention was made of PYM’s extremist rhetoric or support for Palestinian terrorism at any time in the segment, and the event that was supposedly celebrating “Palestinian culture,” it soon became apparent, was little more than an excuse for Mahmoud to spread hateful attacks on Israel, including accusing it of genocide. But rather than challenging her guest, the host, sounding impressed about an installation which mimicked a car being attacked in war, said “so you’ve sourced the car yourself and figured out a way to mimic bullet holes yourself? Tell me about that, how did that work?”

In recent months, Norris’ program has offered a platform to radical anti-Israel guests on multiple occasions without any pushback or attempt at balance.

Two days later, CTV News joined the publicity parade with an article and accompanying video broadcast. The reports entitled: “Kitchener-Waterloo festival celebrates Palestinian culture,” by Multimedia Journalist Sidra Jafri, also sanitized PYM’s extremism, making zero mention of it, and instead rehabilitated the group by saying that the event was aimed at sharing the “culture of Palestine.”

Watch the full segment below:

That supposed “culture,” based on the article and video, appears to be largely in opposition to Israel’s existence, with the organizer on film wearing a necklace replacing Israel with a map of what is presumably ‘Palestine.’

While these CBC and CTV News reports from Kitchener-Waterloo are the latest attempts to erase the Palestinian Youth Movement’s extremism, and instead frame it as a legitimate group, these are by no means the only instances of this inversion of reality.

The anti-Israel group has been highly successful at garnering positive coverage from sympathetic news media outlets, ranging from The Toronto Star to CBC News to La Presse.

In whitewashing the Palestinian Youth Movement’s extremism, these outlets are helping to legitimize a group that openly glorifies terrorism and promotes hate.