In countless instances over the last 16 months since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacres, news media outlets have consistently platformed two pro-Palestinian opinions – one Jewish, one Arab – and falsely portrayed it as balance.

In a January 29 opinion column in The Globe and Mail entitled: “The next Liberal leader will need to get serious about Palestinian rights,” authors Nokha Dakroub and Michael Morgenthau, a Muslim and a Jewish-Canadian respectively, attempted to position themselves similarly as two writers from diverse backgrounds who are equally concerned by the Liberal government’s apparently insufficiently pro-Palestinian (anti-Israel) stance.

The pair condemned the Trudeau government for what they termed its “ambiguous arms trade policies, silence on anti-Palestinian racism,” demanding instead that the next Liberal leader recognize a Palestinian state, support politically-driven genocide accusations in international fora, and more.

As is common with so many similar commentaries, Dakroub and Morgenthau failed to mention, let alone condemn, Hamas, even once in their opinion column, instead misleadingly referring to “the violence in and around Israel and Palestine,” as if the violence over the last 16 months was not provoked and perpetuated deliberately by Hamas, a banned terrorist organization in Canada.

This is not a minor omission. It would be intellectually misleading enough to put Hamas and Israel on the same moral plane, but the two authors went further, demanding that Ottawa embrace more hostile anti-Israel policies, punishing a liberal democracy as it defends itself against a terrorist group dedicated to its violent destruction.

Seeking to frame their worldview as being representative of Canadians, the pair wrote that “Canadians, frustrated by inaction on Parliament Hill, have sought change elsewhere,” listing the “incredible energy in the peaceful protests.”

There are many adjectives which could be used to describe anti-Israel protests seen in Canadian cities over the last 16 months, but “peaceful” is certainly not one of them. They have been widely characterized as disruptive, hateful, expressing support for Palestinian terrorist groups and replete with violence. And while their numbers have fallen precipitously, with protesters often numbering in the dozens, as a result of a friendly media landscape, these marginal groups have received widespread attention.

Even the lone statistic marshalled by Dakroub and Morgenthau cannot be used to advance the argument that they claim, when they wrote that “Canadians want their government to stand up for Palestinians. A June poll from Angus Reid found that 53 per cent of Canadians considered Israel’s military campaign ‘too heavy handed.’”

If anything, this survey demonstrates that despite months of incessant news coverage offering precious more than regurgitated Hamas-manufactured casualty data, Canadians are split down the middle as to whether Israel’s counter-terrorism operations have “been too heavy handed.” Under no circumstances could this be used to claim that Canadians “want” more anti-Israel policies from their federal government.

The authors wrote that “this moment demands courageous conversation,” yet their commentary was largely a mishmash of peddling easy answers to complex realities, all while conveniently ignoring Hamas, without which there would have been no October 7 massacres and no subsequent war in Gaza.

The truly courageous conversation needed, but which was utterly absent in their opinion column, must start with the recognition that as long as the Palestinians embrace terrorism as a means to an end, there will be no progress in the elusive search for peace.