UPDATE: Subsequent to complaints sent by HonestReporting Canada and its members to CTV News about how journalist Yara Jamal had denied Israel’s right to exist and who had organized an anti-Israel rally, we are pleased to note that as of October 26, 2023, her profile page on CTV News Atlantic, now says “Yara Jamal is no longer with CTV Atlantic.”

A spokesperson for CTV News also confirmed the news that Ms. Jamal is no longer employed at CTV in an interview with the Toronto Sun stating that “While we don’t comment on specific staffing matters we can confirm that Yara Jamal is no longer with CTV News.”

Journalists are tasked to be politically neutral and objective, and not be partisan activists. CTV’s taking swift action regarding this matter is deeply appreciated.

ORIGINAL ALERT

As the war between Israel and Hamas continues, news media outlets across Canada are expected to disseminate the latest news from the Middle East with professionalism, objectivity and integrity. While journalists have that responsibility throughout their careers, in tense circumstances such as the current conflict, those obligations become even more important.

It is therefore unacceptable that Yara Jamal, a writer and production assistant with CTV News Atlantic, recently organized an anti-Israel rally in Halifax on October 21 as part of the organization Free Palestine Halifax, where she told a local news media outlet that Israel has no right to exist.

An article covering the anti-Israel demonstration in Saltwire News quoted Jamal as saying that “Jews can continue to exist, the Zionist ideology cannot.”

“Pressed for whether by ‘Zionist ideology,’ she meant Israel, she said ‘The state, no, cannot exist,’” the article read.

Jamal’s comments do not simply express an opinion on Israel’s military practices vis-à-vis Hamas, but instead represent a carbon copy of what Hamas, an Islamist terrorist group, calls for openly in its manifesto: the complete and total destruction of Israel as a Jewish State.

To see the consequences of that ideology, one does not need to look far. Hamas’ unspeakable crimes against humanity on the morning of October 7, when it indiscriminately targeted innocent Israeli men, women and children, torturing and raping many of them, before killing 1,400 people, is not an aberration: it represents the natural progression of an ideology which seeks the destruction of Israel.

It is a natural progression that if Israel has no legitimacy and no right to exist as a Jewish State, then its elimination is to be welcomed.

Unsurprisingly, Hamas is a designated terrorist organization in Canada, and such heinous and reprehensible views similarly have no place in discourse in Canada, least of all coming from a journalist with a major and respected news outlet.

Jamal’s words to Saltwire News are aligned with the hateful views expressed at the rally, where demonstrators changed “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

This anti-Israel slogan, which refers to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, refers in no uncertain terms to the destruction of Israel, and is a common chant at anti-Israel rallies throughout the world.

These comments, both by Jamal and the chants at the rally she helped organize, are well outside the scope of what constitutes legitimate criticism of Israel and are partisan political views that we consider hateful. Rather, they represent the total delegitimization of the Jewish People’s right to self-determination within their historic homeland, and the logical consequences of those hateful words is readily apparent.

The October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas against Israeli civilians is not an isolated circumstance; while it represents the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, it is also just the latest salvo by the group in its never-ending quest to destroy Israel through violent means.

As Canada’s political leaders unanimously recognize the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas, it is inconceivable that a journalist responsible for telling the truth about the day’s news is so brazenly willing to express support for the violent elimination of the Jewish People’s ancestral land. CTV News Atlantic must take immediate corrective and disciplinary action.