The right to speak and the right to be complicit

A response to The Globe and Mail Editorial Board.

The following is a reply to an op-ed from the Editorial Board of The Globe and Mail, Canada’s largest newspaper. (Read it here without paywall.) A perfect example of the gaslighting I recently described, the piece makes a spurious case to restrict pro-Palestinian protest. Mohamad Fakih, CEO of Paramount Fine Foods, responded to the substance of the argument in a thread online (Instagram, X); my comments are more general. -JRS

Dear Editorial Board,¹

I am writing in response to your recent op-ed on protests, “The right to speak and the right not to listen”.

It’s become a tiresome routine, for those of us who value Palestinian life, to drag out the growing list of individuals and organizations that describe what is happening as “genocide”. I could do the same here: I could mention the statements from the Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide, for example; or the conclusions of scholars in the subject and Israeli historians like Ilan Pappé and Avi Shlaim; or the cases before the ICJ and ICC.

I could mention, as we often do,² the advocacy of prominent Jewish-Canadians like Naomi Klein, Gabor Maté, or Rabbi David Mivasair, for instance. I could point out how pro-Palestinian protests include – and in some cases are organized by – Jewish groups and individuals, such as Independent Jewish Voices, or Orthodox anti-Zionists. I could note that the Jewish community is neither uniform nor unanimous, in general – and how it might be antisemitic to claim such.

I don’t see the point, however. You know all this – how could you not? You are in the business of knowing all this.

You know the story of five-year-old Hind Rajab, for example, murdered while waiting for help in a car among her dead family members. You know about the 15 paramedics assassinated by the IDF in March, and how the soldiers attempted to bury not only the bodies, but the ambulances, too. You know about Shaban al-Dalou, who was burned alive in a viral video, lying in a hospital bed. You know that Israel has killed hundreds of your colleagues in Gaza, making it the deadliest conflict for journalists, ever.

You know all this. And yet, in the op-ed, you describe the numberless dead as either “Hamas fighters” or “non-combatants”. I could call this disingenuous and shameless; I could call it gruesome and racist – and I’d be right on all counts. But again, I don’t see the point.

Clearly, you’ve made your decision, and perhaps it takes a kind of courage, to editorialize reality in this way; it certainly requires effort. But you know. For even denial, as Palestinian writer Isabella Hammad argues,³ “is based on a kind of knowing”, a “wilful turning from devastating knowledge, perhaps, out of fear”.

Speaking of fear, I read, now and again, about the crisis of Canadian journalism. The shrinking newsrooms, the loss of revenue, the layoffs. You know this, too: The writing is on the wall for newspapers like The Globe and Mail.

This, then, might be your legacy; that, during the first live-streamed genocide in history, the Editorial Board stood with those doing the killing (the Israeli officials who declared their genocidal intent, the soldiers who broadcasted their crimes), and against their victims, against the people who marched in protest.

What a legacy.

1. David Walmsley (Editor-in-Chief), Sinclair Stewart (Deputy Editor), Angela Pacienza (Executive Editor), Christine Brousseau (Managing Editor), Priorities, Gary Salewicz (Editor, Report on Business), Natasha Hassan (Opinion Editor), Matt Frehner (Managing Editor, Products and Platforms), Renata D’Aliesio (Deputy Managing Editor, Priorities), James Keller (National Editor), Dennis Choquette (Deputy Editor, Report on Business), Patrick Brethour (Editorials Editor), Matt French (Head of Visuals), Melissa Stasiuk (Head of Newsroom Development), Sandra E. Martin (Standards Editor).

2. We do this for two reasons: One, thanks to decades of decades of anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism, the West does not listen to Palestinian journalists, scholars, writers and activists; and two, Zionists intentionally conflate Judaism and Jewishness with Zionism and Israel.

3. In Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative.