Canada's Zionist media face a crisis of legitimacy

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for the leadership of Hamas and of Israel. This might mean that someday, there will a trial into the events of October 7, something that is desperately needed.

But of course, the big news of the announcement is that Benjamin Netanyahu has been charged with war crimes.

I don’t feel like debating the legitimacy of the court or pretending that Hamas’ leadership, a group that exists because of Israel’s occupation of Gaza, is the same as Israel’s leadership. Instead, let’s look at how Canadian politicians and media reacted while we reflect on the question: where have all the adults gone?

The ICC's statement was made at about 7:00 AM EDT on Monday, May 20.

CBC's first reaction from Trudeau was published on Tuesday, (May 21) at 2:34 PM EDT. That is +31 hours after the statement was live.

For the rest of the media, as of 7:00 PM EDT on May 21, this is what it looked like:

Globe and Mail: published at 4:30 PM EDT

CTV News: nothing

Global News: nothing

CP: published at 6:19 PM EDT

By 8:16 PM EDT, Global News had posted an article that was mostly wire copy from the Associated Press with the exact same details as the Canadian Press’ story, and there was still nothing at CTV News.

In each of the stories, they reference Trudeau’s reaction based on comments he made while in Philadelphia. There, the journalist who asks the questions does two bizarre things: first, she referred to the ICC decision as “today” even though it had come out early the day before (is this to make it look for Canadians like we’re reacting to breaking news, even though we are not?) and she injects the “false equivalent” narrative into her question, allowing Trudeau to seize it, which he does, as his main talking point, rather than just asking for his reaction.

Trudeau’s line? He rejects the notion that there is any equivalence between the bloodthirstyness of Hamas and the bloodthistyness of Israel’s leadership.

To be clear: by every measure of “bloodthirsty” — from a death toll that is more than 40 times higher on the side of Israel than it is on the side of Hamas, of the pictures of torture, the child amputations, the child murders, the child murders by point blank shooting children in the head, the attacks on hospitals, the destruction of Gaza’s civil society, and on and on and on — Israel is the bloodthirsty one in this equation.

As I type, Israel is coordinating a new campaign in the West Bank.

And yet, not one article in Canadian media fact checks this. Not one article mentions the lop-sided deathtoll, the fact that the only day of mass casulties caused by Hamas was been Oct. 7, but Israel has had dozens of days of mass casualties and committed horrors far worse than that single day. Nothing. No, we’re left to believe that Hamas are the bloodthirsty ones because they are brown and racism is key Zionism.

For this to be the question posed more than 30 hours after the news first broke is scandalous. But even worse? Canadian media went along with it. They didn’t report on the fact that the government of Canada had made no comment about our ally and weapons dealer/receiver’s Prime Minister is being formally accused of war crimes by the ICC. Not one article mentions that it’s hella fucking weird that the Prime Minister of Canada didn’t issue a statement about the ICC decision, and that it only came out after he was asked during an unrelated scrum. Mind you, no media have seemingly noticed that Trudeau said nothing about the death of the Iranian Prime Minister either.

And now, more than 50 hours later, not one article is in any mainstream Canadian media that asks: what are the implications for Canada considering our cozy relationship with a war criminal?

This is about as close as Canadian media could come to a bread fixing scandal. There is clear collusion to not question, intervene, challenge or criticize the fact that Canada's leaders had no comment about war crimes charges levelled against the leadership of one of Canada's closest allies. It also happens to be a county that we buy and sell weapons to. Not to mention, the tremendous public interest in the story.

This genocide is transforming Canadian media. The manufacturing consent is in overdrive and the vast majority of Canadians have simply checked out. Just look at how popular Justin Podur’s The Anti-Empire Project is or how Dimitri Lascaris’ interview with Scott Ritter blew past 100,000 views. Canadians are getting their news elsewhere.

The combination of Zionist influence on reporting and the collapse of media jobs will never be recovered. This is a crisis of legitimacy and media is responding by becoming even less legitimate. We're watching a structure fire in real time.

The states in green recognize Palestinian statehood. This is a war over the legitimacy of the Western order.