Ismael Haniyeh, one of Hamas’ two senior leaders, was assassinated on July 31 while in Tehran where he was a guest at the inauguration of the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian. While Israel has not publicly claimed responsibility, Jerusalem is widely seen as having been responsible.

Haniyeh was visiting the Iranian capital from his home in Qatar, the tiny oil-rich kingdom where he had been living under government protection. Qatar is home to the Al Jazeera headquarters as well as a large U.S. military base.

Haniyeh was a longtime figure in Hamas, and in 2017, Haniyeh was elected the chief of the Hamas Political Bureau, the decision-making body behind the Palestinian Islamic terrorist group Hamas. Despite it being called the “Political Bureau,” the body is no less part of the Hamas terrorist group than its so-called “Military Wing.”

Hamas seeks Jewish state’s annihilation

Hamas, a genocidal group dedicated to the violent destruction of Israel, pursues its goals in two ways: through military means and through political means.

Hamas’ use of violence is no secret. Long before its massacres on October 7, when thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel in a rampage of rape, torture, murder and kidnapping, the group had long carried out suicide bomb attacks against Israeli civilians, as well as shooting and stabbing attacks.

But much of Hamas’ success comes from its veneer of legitimacy. Like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Hamas has sought to create a functional governance structure in the Gaza Strip, which it took control of in 2007 in a violent coup. But Hamas’ credibility has also come from its protection from the Qatari government, and from attempting to present itself as the legitimate voice of the Palestinians.

In essence, Hamas’ “political” and “military” wings are like two hands on the same body; they may perform different tasks, but they ultimately work towards the same project and same goal.

Hamas’ cunning practice of cloaking itself in legitimacy for global audiences does not mean it has ever changed or jettisoned its genocidal attempt to wipe Israel off the map; in fact, the group is more committed than ever to its goal of mass murder, as Haniyeh made clear in statements just two months before his death, when he said Israel’s violent demise was a goal Hamas was eagerly working towards.

However, following Haniyeh’s death, he was quickly eulogized by a number of news media outlets, not as a terrorist mastermind with the death of thousands of Israeli civilians on his hands, but as a “pragmatic” and moderate political leader.

In a July 31 post on X (formerly Twitter) Chris Brown, a CBC News foreign correspondent, referred to the assassination by decrying “killing the guy on the other side who is negotiating,” making no mention of Hamas’ role as a terrorist organization banned in Canada, and sanitizing him as a legitimate political leader.

Brown’s post was soon flagged by Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre on social media, who lambasted it and said “CBC is mourning the loss of the leader of Hamas, who carried out the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.” Brown, for his part, soon engaged in damage control mode, writing that his previous post “didn’t include enough context. Likely better to save the analysis of its implications for longer formats.”

This isn’t the first time Brown has found himself in hot water for his anti-Israel news coverage. He has previously used his reports to give undue attention to false claims that Israel holds Palestinians as revenge, has downplayed humanitarian aid into Gaza and statements that Israel is murdering journalists in Gaza, and has romanticized Palestinian terrorism.

According to the CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices policy, Chris Brown, in our eyes, is in violation of “Personal use of Social Media”, as he has openly expressed personal political opinions that exemplify a lack of impartiality.

Click below to read CBC’s policy for ‘Personal use of Social Media’:

CBC spokesperson Chuck Thompson told True North that the state broadcaster “recognizes this tweet (Chris Brown’s) needed more context,” but ultimately, CBC News as an organization “does not take a position on the Israel-Hamas war.”

The same day, Julia Chapman, another CBC News correspondent, in a broadcast for the World Report radio program, described the “political leader in exile” as having “represented a more pragmatic faction” of Hamas, obscuring the reality that while Haniyeh’s role may have been more public in nature, there is no basis whatsoever to describe him as more pragmatic than any other arm of Hamas.

Listen to the full clip below:

Not to be outdone, CBC reporter Andrew Chang also published his latest episode of ‘About That’, a news series on CBC’s YouTube channel, entitled “What we know about the assassination of a Hamas leader in Iran“, where Chang said that Haniyeh had a “reputation as a pragmatist”.

Watch the full episode below:

And in what is arguably the most egregious instance – once again from CBC News, Canada’s taxpayer-funded broadcaster, the news outlet posted an article online with the subheading claiming that Haniyeh was “seen as more moderate.” The article later tells readers that “Haniyeh was deeply religious and studied Arabic literature at university,” in what is reminiscent of a widely lampooned Washington Post headline which referred to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State as an “austere religious scholar.”

If Haniyeh, a vocal advocate in his role as one of Hamas’ two senior leaders for the genocidal murder of Israelis, was a “moderate,” then the term becomes all but meaningless.

CBC News’ shameless whitewashing of Ismael Haniyeh does not change his central role in Hamas, but it does serve to help legitimize one of the world’s most murderous terrorist groups by serving to legitimize it in the eyes of the Canadian public.

HonestReporting Canada has filed official complaints with CBC regarding these problematic issues, requesting corrective action be taken.