In his March 19 opinion column in The Globe & Mail, “Israel is losing support in the country it needs most – America,” columnist Gary Mason argued that the war against the Iranian regime is splitting the conservative movement in the United States.

Mason wrote his piece exactly when the Israel-U.S. partnership had reached an impressive level of operational coordination, with United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stating (on the same day Mason’s article was published) that Israel is “an incredible and capable partner.”

Instead, he used his word count to share the anti-Israel perspective. He explained that there are various anti-Israel voices in the MAGA right, including Tucker Carlson. “Mr. Carlson has been vicious in his critique of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing it of leading a murderous campaign in Gaza that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. He’s called the war in Iran ‘disgusting and evil.’”

Carlson was nominated on X (formerly Twitter) by StopAntisemitism as the Antisemite of the Year. They listed the reasons, including “He is obsessed by Israel and repeats rabid lies about the Jewish state and its people.” Yet this is who Mason chose to reference as a mainstream voice.

Mason continued, writing that “recent violence in the West Bank, where Palestinians have been attacked (killed in some cases) and forced from their homes by Israeli settlers, has likely also contributed to the enmity some on the right have toward Israel.”

All violence against civilians must be condemned. However, Palestinians have also frequently attacked neighbouring Jews, a point ignored by Mason. Eighteen year-old Israeli Yehuda Sherman was recently murdered in a car ramming, thought to be a terror attack by Palestinians.

Anger from this seems to have led to attacks on Palestinians. In another incident, a mentally disabled 14-year-old Israeli boy wandered into a Palestinian town, where he was savagely beaten.

Additionally, as Israeli NGO Regavim exposed, the statistics that are often used to paint a picture of ‘settler violence’ can be deeply flawed, as they include in their Palestinian casualty count those who committed the terror attack, along with other misrepresentations.

During the article, Mason tipped his hat to Jewish concerns, acknowledging that it was concerning that there are “deeply held antisemitic attitudes (even Hitler-worshipping) among some young Republicans.” Yet he fell short of acknowledging the global rise in antisemitism, much of it from progressives and Islamic extremists.

He also wrote, “fresh images out of southern Lebanon that have shown apartment buildings being levelled by Israeli bombs have drawn comparisons to the destruction of Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been displaced from their homes. This won’t help the public relations battle Israel is fighting either.”

Israel is fighting for its survival, not a popularity contest. Iran and its terrorist proxies – Hamas and Hezbollah – openly seek its destruction. On March 2, Hezbollah escalated the conflict by launching rockets into Israel in response to the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Israel’s military actions are, therefore, acts of self-defence against an entity that seeks its annihilation. Yet even in doing so, it routinely warns civilians to evacuate ahead of operations, sacrificing tactical surprise. Meanwhile, these same proxies embed their military infrastructure within civilian areas. Mason omits all of this, leaving readers with a distorted and incomplete picture.

The problem with Mason’s piece is not that he has an opinion; it is that he misrepresents the situation he is commenting on, withholding the facts that would complicate it, misinforming his readers in the process, and not for the first time.