My current World Beyond War Course on Media & Communication for Peace has
begun with an examination of how to consume, critique and interact with media. This is a most compelling topic for me as a novice “Peace Writer”. We live in a time when mainstream corporate media in the west is seriously skewed toward supporting a status quo of imperial dominance – rooted in unbridled capitalism and growing militarism, funded largely by the US, by far the world’s biggest military spender. I intend to place my focus on media coverage of Israel, now in its 57th year as the occupier of Palestinian Territories, and its 2nd year of a genocide on Gaza. Beginning here at home, I want to study the entity known as Honest Reporting Canada and consider its role in shaping text media on Israel-Palestine consumed by Canadians.
Honest Reporting Canada (HRC) started over 20 years ago when its founders observed that “falsehoods being reported by the news media about Israel often manifest as anti-Jewish sentiment and often turn into hate crimes against Canadian Jews.” Their website makes a link between reporting about Israel and “hate crimes” “often” following, but fails to give a single example of such an occurrence. (http://honestreporting.ca ) HRC describes itself as “Israel’s sword and shield”.
Just Peace Advocates states HRC’s purpose as being: “to control the narrative in Canadian media by overwhelming newsrooms with complaints of coverage critical of Israel, or supportive of Palestinian solidarity.” (Just Peace Advocates, October 11, 2024: CRA asked to investigate HRC). Why, you might ask, is Canada Revenue Agency being asked to investigate this group?
Because they are a registered charity under Canadian law. That means that anyone who donates to HRC gets a tax receipt, a write-off of their donation against their income. It means that Canadian taxpayers pick up part of the tab for HRC’s work. HRC’s website beckons donors with the promise that “any donation up to $250,000 will be matched dollar for dollar by several HRC benefactors.” Last year – 2023 – HRC provided over $1 million in charitable tax receipts. Now this is a small amount in comparison to the sums raised by the many Zionist charities in Canada – which could be as much as a billion dollars annually (Yves Engler, Canadian Foreign Policy Hour, 4th October, 2024). It is yet another example of how tied in our charitable tax structure is with Israel’s settler-colonial project, and how we subsidize the Zionist lobby’s direct influence on the media we consume.
HRC further promises that “our educational initiatives combat the pernicious targeting of the Jewish people and the nation-state of the Jewish people, both recipients of hatred, double standards and contempt.” If there’s any doubt that HRC considers mere criticism of the State of Israel to be antisemitic, HRC “works to challenge anti-Jewish rhetoric, particularly when antisemitism hides behind a mask of anti-Israel criticism”. (Italics mine, from website, above.)
One way HRC does its work is by coaching its 60,000 subscribers to respond to its cues, write media outlets complaining that any criticisms of Israel are antisemitic. No one wants to be
considered antisemitic, so, as their website boasts, HRC is often successful. The website provides a glossary of “Problematic Mideast Terms” and the preferred substitution. Here are some examples:
Settlement Neighbourhood
West Bank Judea & Samaria
Occupied Territory Disputed Territory
Militant Terrorist
Language shapes thinking, and we can see how the preferred substitutions create the illusion, the fiction, that the Occupied Palestinian Territories (that is: West Bank, East Jerusalem & Gaza) are not occupied since 1967, they are “disputed”. And that gated, armed, Jewish-only, settler- colonial settlements aren’t actually “settlements”, they are much more friendly – neighbourhoods in fact! And that a Palestinian militant who resists those designations, non-violently or otherwise, is a “terrorist”.
Why has Just Peace Advocates filed a complaint to CRA re Honest Reporting Canada? Because they are very likely in violation of Canadian and international law. Canada has stated, in accord with international law, that the West Bank settlements are illegal. Canada has never formally recognized the so-called “annexation” of East Jerusalem by Israel. The International Court of Justice has ruled (19th July, 2024) that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal, and that all member States are obliged to oppose that occupation.
On October 18th, 2024, a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry released its “Legal analysis & recommendations on implementation of the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion, Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” The Commission’s Position Paper states:
“With respect to non-profit or non-governmental organizations, States must carefully review any organization that is financially or politically supporting the unlawful occupation. States shall not give support to these organizations, for example through allowing the organization to have
tax exempt status or providing tax deductibility for donations to the organization and must ensure that financial contributions to support the unlawful occupation, including settlements and settlers, cease.”
To have Canadian taxpayer money going to silence criticism of Israel’s illegal actions very likely violates CRA criteria for holding charitable status. Now that CRA has formally revoked the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund and the Ne’eman Foundation, perhaps the door is opening to demand real accountability of other charities such as HRC and require them to live up to their name or lose their comfortable status. You can tell CRA what you think as well by going online and filling out CRA’s RC193 Service Feedback Form.
