In continuing news coverage of US President Donald Trump’s proposed solution to the Hamas-Israel war, on February 6, in an effort to get “more reaction,” CBC News featured an interview with a retired American diplomat who offered her thoughts.
The segment entitled: “Trump’s Gaza proposal violates international law: former ambassador,” saw CBC host Dwight Drummond speak with Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, the former chief diversity and inclusion officer of the United States Department of State, as well as former ambassador to Malta, a tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea slightly smaller than the Gaza Strip.
The friendly tenor of the interview became immediately apparent. After Abercrombie-Winstanley gave her initial criticism of the Trump policy, Drummond interjected by saying “yeah, he’s missing some of the context here, some of the history here,” and again, after she continued following another question, Drummond offered his editorialization for a second time, saying “good point.”
As the interview progressed, Abercrombie-Winstanley’s comments pivoted from criticizing the Trump proposal to attacking Israel directly, saying that the United States has been “supporting the destruction of the Gaza Strip,” misrepresenting Israel’s counter-terrorism operations against Hamas as simply “destruction,” and making no mention of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas which launched and perpetuated the war by refusing to surrender and holding hundreds of Israeli hostages.
But it was Drummond’s question relating to the future prospects of a two-state solution which provoked Abercrombie-Winstanley’s most extreme statement, when she said that a singular state “with everyone having equal rights” would be feasible, if “both sides” had a different mindset.
Despite saying “both sides” needed to have a different mindset, she soon launched a broadside against Israeli society in general, saying “the state and people of Israel have decided de facto that it is more important to have a Jewish state than a democratic state.”
With that, Drummond thanked his guest, and the interview concluded, and no challenge or pushback was offered by CBC News.
Abercrombie-Winstanley’s comments are far more inflammatory than they seem at first glance. First, she is suggesting that Israel’s desire to be a Jewish state is somehow problematic, despite the existence of dozens of Islamic states in the Middle East alone. Secondly, suggesting that Israel cannot simultaneously be democratic and Jewish is disproven by the last 76 years of the country’s existence, where it has been able to be both, and home to a large non-Jewish minority that enjoys full democratic and civil rights under Israeli law.
Most importantly, her statement that Israeli society is the obstacle to peace is the most problematic of all. While the representatives of Palestinian society, represented both by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA), may differ in their tactics, both mainstreams make clear that the existence of a Jewish State is offensive and must be rectified. Both Hamas and the PA widely incite their populations against Jews, helping to ensure that Palestinian society will continue to be poisoned against the very possibility of peace with Israel. In contrast, despite wide divisions within Israeli society, Jerusalem has repeatedly offered peace plans to the Palestinians, only to be met with violence and terrorism in response.
That outlook is dangerous in its own right, and shows in no uncertain terms why a singular state is both unfeasible and morally objectionable. Not only is it absurd to suggest that Jews, living in their ancestral lands for 3,000 years, ought to give up their rights to self-determination, it is equally clear that Jews, living under a Palestinian state, would enjoy few freedoms and rights, and their very existence would be imperiled, given that groups like Hamas make little effort to conceal their goal, not simply to destroy Israel, but to go to war with Jews, writ large.
CBC News’ February 6 interview with Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley offered the retired US diplomat a platform to assail Israel, and offered her no challenge, even as she made inflammatory comments about the Jewish State.
Originally published by Honest Reporting Canada.