Last night, I read a dispatch from Warren Kinsella of the Toronto Sun concerning the decision of the CBC to take journalist Neil Herland off the air for exposing anti-Semitism:
A few days ago, CBC management quietly pulled Herland off the air – because he had documented a newsworthy event. One they apparently didn’t want documented.
On Monday evening, Herland was walking to a Yom Kippur service near where he lives in Toronto. The synagogue service was being held at the Meridian Centre at Yonge and Sheppard Sts. in Toronto by The Song Shul, because a large number of congregants were expected.
Upon arriving, Herland and the other Jewish attendees saw about two dozen protestors blocking the entrance to the synagogue service, waving Palestinian flags and yelling epithets and abuse. The mob yelled “free Palestine” and “Zionist alert” when Jewish congregants came near.
Herland started filming.
One man, wearing a mask, repeatedly yelled “You’re going to Hell” using a bullhorn pointed at Herland and others. Another man screamed “baby killer.” Elsewhere, a woman was called an “ugly Jewish bitch” – and, when the cantor at the service went outside and smiled at a protester, another yelled: “The Jew smiles while he kills babies in Gaza.”
A Toronto Police officer told the cantor to stop “antagonizing” the protestors.
Herland posted his video clip on social media, and it has been watched more than three million times around the world.
In his post on his personal X account, Herland writes: “I’m a journalist. And I happen to be Jewish. On Yom Kippur I went to a synagogue service in Toronto and was met by protesters trying to taunt and intimidate me from entering the building.”
And for this, the CBC sees fit to discipline Herland. On what grounds? Is the CBC claiming his account is false? Or is Palestinian anti-Semitism simply a taboo subject? Is it taboo just like declaring the attacks of September 11, 2001, to be a terrorist incident, an incident also exposed by Kinsella. The CBC sheepishly walked back its policy.
It seems the CBC never learns. At the very minimum, there is a double standard when it comes to Jewish and Muslim journalists describing their "lived experiences". More from Kinsella:
CBC’s actions seem unfair, say CBC veterans who spoke anonymously, because their journalists are explicitly permitted to write about “lived experiences,” just as Herland did. Following the tragic 2021 mass-murder of a Muslim family in London, Ont. – and after a Muslim CBC journalist gave her personal opinion about the terror attack on a national broadcast – CBC’s Ombudsman decreed that no rules were broken.
“We will reinforce that lived experience and being a part of any one community does not constitute a conflict of interest when covering those communities. We will remind all that we value lived experience and community connections in our journalists because it helps us to broaden and deepen our journalism.”
So why do Muslim journalists’ “lived experience … broaden and deepen” CBC journalism, and Jewish journalists’ “lived experience” do not?
My guess is that the CBC will quietly place Herland back on the air rather than explain the double standard. Because there is no explanation they can possibly give.
Should this come pass, it will only be a matter of time before the CBC engages in a cowardly manner when it comes to anti-Semitism and/or terrorism committed by groups with Islamist ideologies.
But by removing Herland from the airwaves, the CBC is basically saying anti-Semitism is an acceptable form of political discourse and that Jews ought not to complain about it unless they wish to be disciplined.
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