Canadian Media Has Learned Nothing
The parallels of Canadian Media's Post-9/11 coverage vs. the October 7th Attacks
On the morning of September 11th, 2001 Canadians began their days as they normally would. Kids went to school, adults went to work, and newsrooms were preparing the day's stories with no inclination that this day would live in infamy.
Then the towers fell and everything changed…
From the media’s coverage of the Middle East and the Islamic faith to the hyper-reliance on the intelligentsia and the desecration of immigration policy regarding Muslims coming from the Middle East. Journalism as a practice mobilized to push a pragmatic agenda akin to that of the United States.
Canadian media before 9/11 still depicted the Middle East as uncivilized but this was exacerbated in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks.
On September 20th, 2001 when former president George W. Bush declared “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” newsrooms across Canada began to publish stories demanding that the government step up to the plate and hold the enemy accountable.
The effects of this type of reporting have had a lasting impact on the Canadian identity to this day. A lack of critical analysis and clarity on the stories published immediately following 9/11 depicts a clear lapse in the judgment of journalists and editors in newsrooms across Canada.
Some have expressed regret for their Middle East coverage in those days, while many others continue their coverage in a similar vein.
OCTOBER 7th 2023
One month prior to 9/11 on August 11th, 2001, National Post reporter Alexander Rose published a story titled "Paranoid Imaginings: Hopes for peace infected by disease of conspiracy."
A scholarly article published in 2003 by T.Y. Ismael and John Measor titled, “Racism and the North American media following 11 September: The Canadian setting” describes the National Post article as being written below an image of a young Arabic man with bloodshot eyes and a threatening stare and wearing a red keffiyeh over his face.
Rose attempts to examine the driving factors behind the Palestinian uprising against Israel. He examines three major categories; antisemitism, conspiracies, and holocaust denial culminating in an incredibly reactionary and ahistorical critique of Palestinians.
Rose does not account for the years of apartheid, ethnic displacement, and bombardment that Gazans continue to face and have faced for decades. Instead, he blames the lack of what he deems as civilization on Palestinians.
This is an example of the already reactionary reporting being conducted in Canada that was only exacerbated by 9/11 and now October 7th…
The Hamas attacks on Israel came as a surprise to many. It was a Tuesday morning when news broke here in Canada causing many to mobilize in defence of Gaza.
Israel has a long history of disproportionately retaliating against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Often killing countless civilians many of whom are children. Such disproportionality is well documented by independent organizations like Human Rights Watch over many years.
An attack like we saw on October 7th was unprecedented — so many assumed the response would be too.
Pro-Palestinian activists immediately took to social media and the streets to show support for Gazans and those living in the occupied West Bank. As a result Canadian “columnists” took to their keyboards to immediately condemn such actions.
Joe Warmington for the Toronto Sun wrote an article with the headline “Some in Toronto celebrating mass murder of Israelis as death toll mounts” citing a social media post by the group Toronto4Palestine that stated, “a banner drop is happening today to honour and celebrate the resistance and continued solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation.”
George Monastiriakos for the National Post wrote an article headlined “There is no moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas” in which he writes, “a sovereign and democratic state (Israel), is fighting Hamas and other brutal Iran-sponsored non-state actors, on behalf of the civilized world.” A particularly interesting framing that declares Israel and their actions as civilized and Hamas and other Arab countries as uncivilized.
BLOWBACK
The concept of blowback was coined by the CIA in the 1950s originally describing it as “unintended and unwanted side effects of covert operations.” However, as we have seen blowback is not confined to just covert operations.
Many argue that the events of 9/11 can be described as “blowback” for the years of destabilization that the U.S. partook in during the Soviet War in Afghanistan.
During the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, the U.S. funded and armed the Mujahideen in their fight against the USSR as part of an operation code-named “Operation Cyclone”. The Mujahideen were a paramilitary group that splintered off into several other groups after the war ended including Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Many former Mujahideen members who joined these groups were dissatisfied, to say the least, with the lack of rebuilding that the U.S. engaged in after the Soviets left Afghanistan and they sought revenge.
In 2005, Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip by removing the remaining settlements in the region. Determined to solve the conflict, President George W. Bush pressured Fatah to hold elections.
Fatah urged President Bush to hold off on elections as Hamas had been growing in popularity and they were not confident they could win.
They did not.
Hamas won the election with 44 percent of the vote and elections have not been held since.
It is important to note that Hamas’ popularity had less to do with Hamas and more to do with the unpopularity of Fatah. Many did not vote for Hamas but instead voted against Fatah who had failed to change the living conditions of Palestinians.
Despite attempting several peace agreements with Israel, Palestinians have been unable to secure peace because Israel frequently fails to honour such agreements. An example of this is the rise in illegal settlements in the West Bank.
The U.S. immediately attempted to sponsor a coup against Hamas but it failed. Since 2007, Gaza has been under complete blockade from both Israel and Egypt. Every few years Israel engages in bombing campaigns against Gaza resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians.
Analysts have dubbed this as “mowing the grass.”
Around half of Gaza’s population are children who were one or not even born when Hamas was elected. Over 45 percent of Gazans are unemployed, over 80 percent are refugees, 90 percent of the water in Gaza is undrinkable, 80 percent depend on international aid, and over 40 percent are food insecure.
All of this set the stage for the events of October 7th.
HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF
Of course, Canadian media will never recognize the events of October 7th as “blowback.” Canadian media will never recognize the events of September 11th as “blowback” either.
Instead, columnists and journalists all over the West will continue to use events like 9/11 and October 7th to justify the disproportionate response of the U.S. and Israel alike.
Now would be a good point to add that no — this does not mean innocent civilians “deserved” to die on 9/11 or on October 7th. What it means is that it is the responsibility of the media to speak truth to power.
The media must condemn the actions of the Canadian government, the U.S. government, other Western governments, and the Israeli government as they stand on the graves of every innocent civilian who died on October 7th and every innocent Palestinian child and civilian who has died as a consequence of Israel’s response.
To date, more than 1,400 Israelis have been killed and at least 10,022 Palestinians, including 4,104 children, have been killed. Violence has also risen against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank with over 150 deaths there since October 7th.
If the Canadian media does not reverse course and put pressure on our government and the Israeli government to implement an immediate ceasefire these death tolls will only continue to rise.
If the Israeli government does not immediately reverse course more blowback will happen. Violence breeds more violence and the onus is on the West and Israel who hold all the power in this conflict to cease what they are doing — only then will they truly defeat Hamas because there will be no need for reactionary forces like them to exist.
Of course, Canadian media has not recognized this. They do not analyze the situation with nuance.
Until they do history will just keep on repeating itself.