Omitting the UN is Journalistic Malpractice

On April 23, the UN released a statement about disturbing findings of a mass grave in Khan Younis. The article highlights how over 200 bodies buried under waste at Nasser Hospital were found with their hands tied. This is not even the first mass grave discovered at a hospital site in Gaza. Previous reporting from Al Jazeera stated "one of several" mass graves was discovered at al-Shifa Hospital.

It would be incorrect to state these discoveries are being ignored wholesale by our news media, but they receive very little coverage. CBC News and CTV News both ran wire stories from Reuters and CNN, respectively, with little fanfare. Few, if any, other big news outlets have reported on these mass graves, let alone as crucial evidence of Israeli massacres.

But fear not, the entire news and political ecosystem decided to band together and focus on something completely asinine and distracting. Indeed, much like how the mass graves have been largely ignored, these agencies also all decided to omit other crucial information in the latest anti-Palestinian topic du jour.

During a pro-Palestine demonstration in Ottawa on April 20, protestors were "caught" praising the Palestinian counteroffensive launched on Oct. 7. Footage was obtained of speakers saying things like "Long live Oct. 7. Long live the resistance" and "long live every form of resistance."

News media has since covered the event with breathless diligence. CBC News ran a story on it, speaking with the Ottawa Police Chief Eric Stubbs and, in the video version, spoke to a representative from the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre. CTV News ran a story that only mentioned comments from Stubbs and condemnations from various politicians. Global News similarly only sourced Ottawa police and politician's condemnations. Both The Globe and Mail and Postmedia's Ottawa Citizen ran Canadian Press stories on the event. As mentioned, politicians from across the party lines condemned the footage.

Unsurprisingly, one version of the clip was shared by Jesse Brown of Canadaland fame. Typically, he packaged it with his near-trademarkable brand of sombre (and subtle) anti-Palestinian sentiment. It's important to note that the clip Brown shared was taken by Dacey Media, a Twitter account purporting to be news that is explicitly pro-convoy. They chronicle themselves regularly harassing and has even dog whistled to white supremacists.

I need to stress at this point that Brown has built his entire brand and utility on news media criticism. Yes, the man who shared a far-right propaganda account's footage uncritically believes he's a reliable voice of news media criticism.

What these politicians, journalists and Brown are doing is omitting crucial context surrounding these statements. Namely, that the militaristic response launched by Palestinian organizations is backed by the UN in a resolution, as well as in international law.

In 1982, within the context of apartheid-era South Africa's assaults on several sovereign African nations and, indeed, Israel's aggression against Palestine and Lebanon, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 37/43. This resolution called on the states perpetuating the contemporary attacks (South Africa and Israel) to follow UN resolutions "regarding the exercise of the right to self-determination and independence by peoples under colonial and foreign domination."

Crucially, number two reads that the UN "Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle (emphasis mine)."

Some may balk at this reading. Didn't Hamas commit war crimes on Oct. 7? Yes. Kidnapping civilians is against international law. But it's important to note that war crimes can, and do, happen in legal military actions. This does not invalidate the legality of these actions. If your argument is that we should pursue legal actions against the perpetrators of war crimes, that is a valid one. However, if you are not focusing the majority of this push on Israel, who has near-countless examples of committing war crimes, you are showing your hand.

The UN is not infallible by any means, of course. For example, when critics will claim that Israel is not a colony, but that's not actually true. This is in large part because the UN lent it legitimacy. The UN's ineffectual nature with Security Council vetoes have been impossible to ignore as of late, as well. But even with this in mind, Israel has occupied land illegally since 1967, and therefore is, in the legal sense, they are colonizing Palestinian land.

News agencies breathlessly reporting on the protest comments, and the politicians who should know what international law allows, are serving a function: to distract from events like those described in the beginning of this article. Mass graves are being uncovered by Israel at hospital sites they put under siege. Israel's ethnic cleansing continues unabated. Similar to the media uproar over the Columbia University protests in the US, this coverage functionally serves to draw attention away from the genocide being perpetrated by a geopolitical ally.

Omitting this position of the UN is very much intentional. If these news pieces covered chants like these with the added context that what they're saying is actually endorsed by the de facto global authority, it completely deflates the event into a non-issue. You may disagree with the UN, but news media not informing you of its position is where the bias comes in.

So, yes "Long live every form of resistance" in the context of colonized people attacking their oppressor is in line with the UN General Assembly. News agencies and politicians are omitting that fact across the board in service of making you mad at protestors... rather than at the settler-colonial state committing mass murder in full view of the world.