Anti-Israel activists have been nothing if not creative in finding opportunities to spread their disinformation. Whether it is harassing politicians at public events, trespassing in shopping malls and accosting shoppers on Boxing Day, they have sought every opportunity to promote anti-Israel messages, and force them upon the unsuspecting public at large.
As the year 2025 approached, it seems their tactics remain no different.
As many broadcasters did, CBC hosted a live broadcast on New Year’s Eve, featuring a light-hearted repartee between guests and hosts, and musical entertainment.
But CBC’s New Year’s Eve entertainment was not all smiles.
For an extended period throughout the evening, multiple individuals were seen holding handwritten signs outside the studio, faced directly towards the cameras, with hateful anti-Israel and anti-Jewish messaging.
One sign read: “Zionism is Terrorism,” a full frontal attack on the Jewish People’s movement for self-determination in their historic homeland, and an assault on the overwhelming majority of Canadian Jews who believe Israel has a right to exist, i.e. Zionism.
Another sign took the same theme, featuring the message: “Zionism and Nazis are supremist cults,” conveying the claim that Nazism, the ideology which exterminated millions of Jews in the biggest mass murder in human history, is akin to Zionism, the Jewish People’s liberation movement.
These are not simply profoundly ignorant posters; they are indisputably hateful and targeted at the Jewish community, both because the vast majority of Canadian Jews identify themselves as adhering to the central tenets of Zionism, but also because the term ‘Zionist’ has become a widely-used dog whistle for those seeking to attack Jews, but using a different word to protect themselves from liability.
Another sign read “The only real journalists are in Gaza televising their Holocaust,” once again comparing Israel – a liberal democratic state – with the Nazi regime. Importantly, comparing contemporary Israeli policies to the Nazis is antisemitic according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.
At no time during the extended period when these peddlers of anti-Jewish hate were outside inciting CBC’s viewers was any visible action taken by the broadcaster, either to remove the individuals, their signs, to block their hateful messaging, or anything else.
In any other circumstance, it would be inconceivable that CBC would do nothing. Had people been standing outside CBC studios during live broadcasting holding signs with anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ+ or any other kind of hateful messaging against other groups, there can be little doubt that action would be taken to ensure that such overt incitement and hate was not going to be tolerated by Canada’s publicly-funded broadcaster.
However, as has become the expected practice by Canadian news media outlets and many authorities in general, incitement against Jews is not worthy of addressing seriously. From family physicians and restaurants who openly praise Hamas terrorism – and still get fawning news coverage – to campus newspapers doing likewise, to a singer who thanked participants of a pogrom in Amsterdam for attacking Jews, but who still performed in two Canadian shows, in many corners, anti-Jewish hate has been tolerated to a dangerous degree.
While CBC did not create the hateful anti-Jewish signs, by appearing to take no action whatsoever to remove them, it is nevertheless complicit in letting those inciting messages be broadcast across Canada.
Originally published by Honest Reporting Canada.