In response to today’s post of an interview with the Israeli Ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, Canadaland journalists Cherise Seucharan and Noor Azrieh present the following analysis.
…and a fact check of the statements made in the interview.
I found it very illuminating as someone who doesn’t follow the conflict that closely. Moed was there to push a narrative and Brown could’ve done better to counter some of the lies. Respect to Canadaland for attaching that fact check to the interview.
Yeah, coverage of Israeli/Palestinian conflict is notoriously filled with half truths and misleading implications. I think having a fact check co-published is quite useful.
I don’t know what that guy’s problem is.
I think Jesse did a good job. I’m extremely skeptical of the ambassador’s explanation of the invitation to collaborate.
Anti-Zionist Jews are a very, very small minority. They’re fringe. The fact of the matter is that Israel is closely associated with Jews because it is the Jewish homeland. That’s why antisemitism spikes around the world when violence flares up in Israel - because people hold all Jews responsible for what happens there.
While someone can logically be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic, we’re not dealing with logical arguments. This isn’t a philosophy class. This is the real world. And the inconvenient truth for many on the left is that there is a significant overlap between the anti-Zionist and antisemite circles on the Venn diagram. Most people just don’t want to confront their unconscious biases about Jewish people.
So here’s the thing. If someone is going to say with a straight face that they “stand with Israel”, even when Israel is committing genocide in their name, then those people are effectively throwing in their lot with genociders and frankly I have little sympathy for them. Thankfully, nearly every Jew I’ve ever met has been very critical of Israel (including the Israeli citizens), many of which have confessed zero interest in an ethnostate, preferring a liberal democracy with no state religion. A secular state for both Jews and Muslims – from the river to the sea if you will.
These people may well be the minority, but you’ll forgive me if I won’t accept the assumption that the majority of the 15 million Jews around the world support genocide. Call me a naïve optimist if you like, but I want to believe that most people are better than that.
Israel is not committing genocide. Calling it a genocide is extremely disrespectful to people who have, you know, actually suffered genocides.
I haven’t met a single Jew ever in my life that thinks, “Israel is perfect and everything they do is right and every single government policy is right.” Perhaps you remember the large protests that were taking place before Oct 7 regarding judicial reform. “Standing with Israel” simply means “supporting Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal enemies,” or perhaps more simply, “supporting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.” It means in a war between a liberal democratic country (however imperfect) and genocidal Jew-hating terrorists, taking the side of the former rather than the latter.
The reason why anti-Zionist Jews exist now is the same reason they existed before Israel was created. Because they live in privilege and safety, assimilated into left-wing circles, and they don’t want to risk losing that. Anybody who proposes a single secular state is either naive, completely ignorant of history and the broader geopolitical context of the conflict, or just doesn’t give a crap about Jewish well-being. Because Israel’s enemies have made it very, very clear that they aren’t interested in peaceful coexistence with Jews. Their objective is to destroy Israel, along with as many Jewish lives as possible, and return the land to its rightful place in the Muslim empire.
Yeah this isn’t a conversation we can have. If you’re going to sit there and deny the international criminal court and somehow accept the killing of tens of thousands of children, many by sniper fire like it’s comparable to bad tax policy then there’s no hope for you.
Typical. “This person doesn’t agree with my opinion so we can’t have a conversation.”
The ICJ has not ruled on the genocide accusation. Which, by the way, was brought by a country with a strong anti-Israel bias a month after entertaining Hamas leaders as visiting diplomats. And to pre-empt your response, no the ICJ did not say that genocide is plausible. The former head of the ICJ clarified herself that what they actually ruled was that it is plausible that Palestinian rights to be protected from genocide have been engaged, which is a fancy way of saying that the ICJ has jurisdiction to hear the case.
Did you know that children are the largest victim population in literally every major war in history? Do you know how many children died in WWII? If you don’t want children to die in war, don’t start wars.
I’m not the person you were replying to but thought I’d weigh in.
Canada attempted/committed (results varied) genocide of its first nations not by killing children (though they did do that) but by making continuation of indigenous ways of living/ culture untenable.
China is attempting genocide of its Uigher population in a similar way.
Russia’s denial of Ukrainian identity and treatment of orphaned Ukrainian children is also genocidal.
Genocide is the attempt to destroy a nation/ ethnicity. It doesn’t have to be murder factories to be genocide.
Responsible journalism is more than simply showing up for an interview and broadcasting whatever lie the subject wants you to share for them. If he’s not going to fact-check the ambassador immediately, then he’s operating as a defacto mouthpiece for his subject. Attaching a fact-checking document, after the fact, in an entirely different medium that outlines just how much of the interview was obvious propaganda is not journalism.
The worst part is that Jesse has levelled this very criticism in the past against other journalists! Specifically in reference to how Trump is covered, but others as well. You can’t just hand your mic, your platform over to a 3rd party and claim that you’re doing journalism when you’re really being complicit in the distribution of propaganda.
I agree it’s strange and possibly inappropriate that the fact check was a text document, not a podcast.
But I really don’t think he was acting as a mouthpiece the way you’re accusing him. He repeatedly asked about the head of the Israeli military characterizing events as Jewish terrorism.
I think it’s important to ask what responsibility Israel has for the safety of Jewish Canadians when hatecrimes rise as a result of Israeli military operations.
It’s Israel’s favourite shield: to claim that their actions are linked to Jews everywhere. They use it to smear any opposition to their war crimes as antisemitism, and lines of questioning like this only reinforce this link. You just can’t bemoan how Jews are being linked to war crimes while starting from the position that Israel is inherently linked to Jewish identity. What you get is a conversation where both parties agree that Israel is both inexorably linked to Jews everywhere but that they’re also not responsible for their safety because they can’t be – they’re not Israelis.
To put it another way, no one would do an interview with the Iranian ambassador and suggest that they’re somehow responsible for Islamophobia in Canada. That would be absurd, but because it’s in Israel’s interest to claim representation of all Jews everywhere, you get this ridiculous session where both parties agree on a distorted version of reality. Since journalism is supposed to be about distributing factual information, beginning an interview on such a flawed position is both illogical and irresponsible.
Canadaland focuses on Canada, so Jesse tries to ask questions that are relevant to Canadians
journalism is supposed to be about distributing factual information
I have a friend in Canada that I know is trying to figure out if he should send his daughter to public school (eventually, she is still quite young) where she could face anti-Semitic treatment from peers/teachers, or Jewish day school where she could be murdered by extremists. (I think he was already more inclined towards public schools)
His concern is because of the increase in attacks on centers of Jewish community (eg schools & synagogues) in Canada. The increase in those attacks is because of Israel’s disproportionate response to the Oct 7th attacks.
The question of Israel’s accountability is probably quite relevant to him.
Canadaland seems to be going on a weird direction. All these stories of worker antagonism and so many journalists leaving in bad terms, most recently Ling and Pugliese left, Goldsbie on a sabbatical… meanwhile Jan Wong keeping the red scare alive, and then Brown amplifies all this bullshit.
It’s a shame that the path to survival for indie media is most often to drift right and never stop going.
I’ve also gotten the sense of a major schism between Jesse and the employees. I don’t keep track of which employee has what views do in not really sure what you mean by Jan Wong’s red scare.
I don’t think Jesse was amplifying Israel’s bullshit, I think he was pushing back against it.
Pushing back against 20% and letting the 80% just flow, that’s not really pushing back. And for this interview, 20% is probably too generous… he asked the questions but answers flew by unprovoked. The fact that such an extensive fact check needed to be published after the fact means that he as interviewer was not prepared to push back or he chose not to.
The interview goes like:
JB) If you keep killing Palestinians, Jews in Canada will suffer, no?
IM) We have to continue the war because Palestinians are terrorists.
JB choses to push back on “yes but your military is saying that it will stain Judaism” instead of “that’s genocidal, if you don’t stop escalating the only end is genocide”. No challenge to the war itself, just the minor points whether Israel is being “unproductive” and inviting antisemitism.
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The very existence of that scathing fact check document should have ensured that this episode was never published.
I found it very illuminating as someone who doesn’t follow the conflict that closely. Moed was there to push a narrative and Brown could’ve done better to counter some of the lies. Respect to Canadaland for attaching that fact check to the interview.
Yeah, coverage of Israeli/Palestinian conflict is notoriously filled with half truths and misleading implications. I think having a fact check co-published is quite useful.
I don’t know what that guy’s problem is.
I think Jesse did a good job. I’m extremely skeptical of the ambassador’s explanation of the invitation to collaborate.
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Anti-Zionist Jews are a very, very small minority. They’re fringe. The fact of the matter is that Israel is closely associated with Jews because it is the Jewish homeland. That’s why antisemitism spikes around the world when violence flares up in Israel - because people hold all Jews responsible for what happens there.
While someone can logically be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic, we’re not dealing with logical arguments. This isn’t a philosophy class. This is the real world. And the inconvenient truth for many on the left is that there is a significant overlap between the anti-Zionist and antisemite circles on the Venn diagram. Most people just don’t want to confront their unconscious biases about Jewish people.
So here’s the thing. If someone is going to say with a straight face that they “stand with Israel”, even when Israel is committing genocide in their name, then those people are effectively throwing in their lot with genociders and frankly I have little sympathy for them. Thankfully, nearly every Jew I’ve ever met has been very critical of Israel (including the Israeli citizens), many of which have confessed zero interest in an ethnostate, preferring a liberal democracy with no state religion. A secular state for both Jews and Muslims – from the river to the sea if you will.
These people may well be the minority, but you’ll forgive me if I won’t accept the assumption that the majority of the 15 million Jews around the world support genocide. Call me a naïve optimist if you like, but I want to believe that most people are better than that.
Israel is not committing genocide. Calling it a genocide is extremely disrespectful to people who have, you know, actually suffered genocides.
I haven’t met a single Jew ever in my life that thinks, “Israel is perfect and everything they do is right and every single government policy is right.” Perhaps you remember the large protests that were taking place before Oct 7 regarding judicial reform. “Standing with Israel” simply means “supporting Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal enemies,” or perhaps more simply, “supporting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.” It means in a war between a liberal democratic country (however imperfect) and genocidal Jew-hating terrorists, taking the side of the former rather than the latter.
The reason why anti-Zionist Jews exist now is the same reason they existed before Israel was created. Because they live in privilege and safety, assimilated into left-wing circles, and they don’t want to risk losing that. Anybody who proposes a single secular state is either naive, completely ignorant of history and the broader geopolitical context of the conflict, or just doesn’t give a crap about Jewish well-being. Because Israel’s enemies have made it very, very clear that they aren’t interested in peaceful coexistence with Jews. Their objective is to destroy Israel, along with as many Jewish lives as possible, and return the land to its rightful place in the Muslim empire.
Yeah this isn’t a conversation we can have. If you’re going to sit there and deny the international criminal court and somehow accept the killing of tens of thousands of children, many by sniper fire like it’s comparable to bad tax policy then there’s no hope for you.
Typical. “This person doesn’t agree with my opinion so we can’t have a conversation.”
The ICJ has not ruled on the genocide accusation. Which, by the way, was brought by a country with a strong anti-Israel bias a month after entertaining Hamas leaders as visiting diplomats. And to pre-empt your response, no the ICJ did not say that genocide is plausible. The former head of the ICJ clarified herself that what they actually ruled was that it is plausible that Palestinian rights to be protected from genocide have been engaged, which is a fancy way of saying that the ICJ has jurisdiction to hear the case.
Did you know that children are the largest victim population in literally every major war in history? Do you know how many children died in WWII? If you don’t want children to die in war, don’t start wars.
I’m not the person you were replying to but thought I’d weigh in.
Canada attempted/committed (results varied) genocide of its first nations not by killing children (though they did do that) but by making continuation of indigenous ways of living/ culture untenable.
China is attempting genocide of its Uigher population in a similar way.
Russia’s denial of Ukrainian identity and treatment of orphaned Ukrainian children is also genocidal.
Genocide is the attempt to destroy a nation/ ethnicity. It doesn’t have to be murder factories to be genocide.
Do you agree?
Do you mean that the ambassador lied so much that his views shouldn’t have been aired, or that the fact checking is unacceptably anti-Israel.
Or something else? I’m not sure how to interpret your statement.
The former.
Responsible journalism is more than simply showing up for an interview and broadcasting whatever lie the subject wants you to share for them. If he’s not going to fact-check the ambassador immediately, then he’s operating as a defacto mouthpiece for his subject. Attaching a fact-checking document, after the fact, in an entirely different medium that outlines just how much of the interview was obvious propaganda is not journalism.
The worst part is that Jesse has levelled this very criticism in the past against other journalists! Specifically in reference to how Trump is covered, but others as well. You can’t just hand your mic, your platform over to a 3rd party and claim that you’re doing journalism when you’re really being complicit in the distribution of propaganda.
I agree it’s strange and possibly inappropriate that the fact check was a text document, not a podcast.
But I really don’t think he was acting as a mouthpiece the way you’re accusing him. He repeatedly asked about the head of the Israeli military characterizing events as Jewish terrorism.
I think it’s important to ask what responsibility Israel has for the safety of Jewish Canadians when hatecrimes rise as a result of Israeli military operations.
Actually, this is one of the things that drives me crazy about Jesse’s take on this. Putting aside for the moment the base selfishness that would lead someone to ask: “how does your committing genocide affect me?”, he’s taking Israel’s position from the start that their actions are directly tied to the lives of Jews around the world. There are millions of Jews out there who are (a) not Israeli citizens, (b) are not Zionists, and © even actively condemn its actions purportedly in their name, but Jesse always starts with the position that Jews == Israel.
It’s Israel’s favourite shield: to claim that their actions are linked to Jews everywhere. They use it to smear any opposition to their war crimes as antisemitism, and lines of questioning like this only reinforce this link. You just can’t bemoan how Jews are being linked to war crimes while starting from the position that Israel is inherently linked to Jewish identity. What you get is a conversation where both parties agree that Israel is both inexorably linked to Jews everywhere but that they’re also not responsible for their safety because they can’t be – they’re not Israelis.
To put it another way, no one would do an interview with the Iranian ambassador and suggest that they’re somehow responsible for Islamophobia in Canada. That would be absurd, but because it’s in Israel’s interest to claim representation of all Jews everywhere, you get this ridiculous session where both parties agree on a distorted version of reality. Since journalism is supposed to be about distributing factual information, beginning an interview on such a flawed position is both illogical and irresponsible.
Canadaland focuses on Canada, so Jesse tries to ask questions that are relevant to Canadians
I have a friend in Canada that I know is trying to figure out if he should send his daughter to public school (eventually, she is still quite young) where she could face anti-Semitic treatment from peers/teachers, or Jewish day school where she could be murdered by extremists. (I think he was already more inclined towards public schools)
His concern is because of the increase in attacks on centers of Jewish community (eg schools & synagogues) in Canada. The increase in those attacks is because of Israel’s disproportionate response to the Oct 7th attacks.
The question of Israel’s accountability is probably quite relevant to him.
Canadaland seems to be going on a weird direction. All these stories of worker antagonism and so many journalists leaving in bad terms, most recently Ling and Pugliese left, Goldsbie on a sabbatical… meanwhile Jan Wong keeping the red scare alive, and then Brown amplifies all this bullshit.
It’s a shame that the path to survival for indie media is most often to drift right and never stop going.
I’ve also gotten the sense of a major schism between Jesse and the employees. I don’t keep track of which employee has what views do in not really sure what you mean by Jan Wong’s red scare.
I don’t think Jesse was amplifying Israel’s bullshit, I think he was pushing back against it.
I don’t know if it’s drifting right or not.
Pushing back against 20% and letting the 80% just flow, that’s not really pushing back. And for this interview, 20% is probably too generous… he asked the questions but answers flew by unprovoked. The fact that such an extensive fact check needed to be published after the fact means that he as interviewer was not prepared to push back or he chose not to.
The interview goes like:
JB choses to push back on “yes but your military is saying that it will stain Judaism” instead of “that’s genocidal, if you don’t stop escalating the only end is genocide”. No challenge to the war itself, just the minor points whether Israel is being “unproductive” and inviting antisemitism.