Why is the Canadian Media Ignoring Evidence of 1948 Massacres?
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- Published on Tuesday, 29 December 2015 00:00
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1202 .... December 29, 2015
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Why is the Canadian Media
Ignoring Evidence of 1948 Massacres?
Dan Freeman-Maloy
The better part of a decade ago, I described the Toronto Star's Mitch Potter as "a canary in the mineshaft of liberal Canadian racism." A piece on 1948 Palestine published in a recent edition of the Toronto Star shows the canary very close to asphyxiating.
Since Potter insists he was within his rights to describe Palestinian fighters in Gaza as "lemming-like," he'll surely forgive the metaphor.
The article, entitled "The Toronto man who saved Nazareth," celebrates the heritage of Ben Dunkelman, the most prominent Canadian to travel to 1948 Palestine to support the Zionist war effort. In more than 2500 words spread across the Star's "Insight" section, Potter and his editors... transform this Canadian's role in occupying Palestinian communities into fodder for patriotism. "What he did was bring his hard-earned Canadian military professionalism to help organize a chaotic fighting force and help set down the rules of engagement," the Star quotes one of a number of friendly sources as explaining. "And that included saying, ‘No, we will not expel civilians.’"
The record of this "gentle giant of a man," as Potter introduces Dunkelman, is well documented. The son of the founder of Ontario retail giant Tip Top Tailors and a veteran of the Queen's Own Rifles of Canada, Dunkelman was not an obscure figure. In Canada, he was an eminent member of the country's community of patriotic respectables. In Palestine, he was a participant in the mass expulsion of Palestinians from the Galilee, commanding troops who repeatedly massacred civilians.
