The Globe & Mail is widely considered to be Canada’s newspaper of record, which makes its recent egregiously one-sided coverage of the Iranian-backed proxy war on Israel all the more regrettable.

On October 24, Eric Reguly, The Globe & Mail’s European bureau chief, who is not new to presenting anti-Israel narratives in his articles, published a report on October 24, combining photographs by Siegfried Modola, a photographer on assignment in Lebanon for The Globe and Mail. The feature article entitled: “In photos: Lebanon’s displaced people face hardship and hostility in Beirut as Israeli-Hezbollah fight drags on,” detailed the displacement of the Lebanese while fully ignoring the impact the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah has had on the tens of thousands of displaced Israelis and the mortal threat they pose to Israel.

Reguly wrote: “Beirut is inundated with people fleeing their homes. Thousands of them live in their cars or in tents pitched by the once glamorous seaside-promenade. Many others are in schools turned over to them by the government, or in hotels that have been commandeered by the Amal Movement, the Lebanese Shia political party.”

While all suffering deserves to be reported on, doing so without acknowledging the full context in which it tragically happens and the parallel damage to the other side skewed his readers’ perceptions and is an affront to journalism.

Indeed, in our view it violates the Globe and Mail’s Editorial Code of Conduct, which states that: “The Globe and Mail will seek to provide reasonable accounts of competing views in any controversy so as to enable readers to make up their own minds.” Reguly does not comply.

He neglected to mention that Hezbollah is recognized as a terrorist organization in Canada. He referred to them as “militants” and their weapons, fired into Israeli civilian centres out of ‘solidarity’ with Hamas in Gaza, as “military assets.”

He did at least acknowledge that Hezbollah started this war. Yet, he still seemed to tacitly blame Israel. He wrote of the displaced Lebanese: “Some of them arrive with severe wounds from the Israeli air strikes. Mr. Modola’s photos in the trauma wards of central Beirut’s Lebanese Hospital Geitaoui show that the Israel-Hezbollah war has tragic consequences for civilians, many of them children.”

He made no mention of the 12 Druze children murdered while playing Saturday football in Majdal Shams, when they were massacred by a Hezbollah rocket. Nor did he mention that Hezbollah, by firing thousands of rockets into Israel, has also displaced tens of thousands of Israel’s northern residents, many for over a year, as well as injuring and killing dozens. Hezbollah’s murderous intent exceeds even the casualty figures. Hezbollah’s missiles have been limited only due to Israel’s well-developed missile defense systems, including the Iron Dome.

In fact, Hezbollah has been preparing for an all-out war with Israel for years. Days after Hamas’ massacres on October 7, 2023, three thousand Hezbollah terror operatives were primed “near the Lebanon border in a plan to storm the Galilee and unleash similar carnage there.” Israel’s recent discovery of a tunnel under a Lebanese border village, fully primed for invasion, at 2 kilometres long and 40 meters deep, capable of housing hundreds of terror operatives, clarifies Hezbollah’s intentions for anyone still in doubt.

On  November 1, another feature article and photo essay was published by The Globe and Mail entitled: “Two lenses on Lebanon,” featuring images by Goran Tomasevic and Siegfried Modola, and the article was written by Evan Annett. As with its preceding article, this two-page folio feature gave extensive insight into the impact of Hezbollah’s war inside Lebanon, all while simultaneously downplaying the Lebanese Islamic terrorist group’s role in launching hostilities against Israel more than a year ago.

While Annett did acknowledge instances where Hezbollah terrorists fired rockets into Israel, most recently on October 31, where its attacks killed four Thai workers and three Israelis (two of whom were Arabs), no mention was made of the most critical aspect of the Lebanese front of Iran’s war: that Hezbollah, on October 8, 2023, launched an unprovoked war on Israel.

Furthermore, nowhere in the lengthy article and photo essay were readers shown or told about the tens of thousands of Israelis who have similarly had to flee their homes because of Hezbollah rocket attacks. Unlike Israel, which provides warning to Lebanese civilians so they can find shelter or evacuate from a war zone, Hezbollah seeks ultimately to destroy all of Israel, much like its patron, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Not only did Hezbollah launch a war on Israel more than a year ago, it deliberately continues it. Israel’s stated aims in fighting Hezbollah are clear – to ensure Israelis can return to their homes which have been bombed by the Islamic terrorist group. Once again, this point is absent.

Israel is fighting for its survival against Hezbollah, which has been called the most powerful terrorist group on the planet. Opening a window for readers to view the tragedies on the Lebanese side without showing the tragedies in Israel is journalistically unacceptable. Doing so without clarifying that Hezbollah – as the perpetrator of the war – is culpable for the harm to both sides ought to be astonishing. Unfortunately, given the Globe and Mail’s record during this war, it just ratchets up another notch against it.