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Mr. Asper, you owe me an apology

By NEIL MACDONALD

Toronto Globe and Mail | Friday, Oct. 3, 2003

A few years ago, a future Israeli cabinet minister, irritated with U.S.
policy but evidently unwilling to discuss it substantively, called then
American ambassador Martin Indyk a "Jew boy."

It was a nasty label, and it stung. The politician was basically calling a
Jewish-American ambassador an Uncle Tom. Mr. Indyk reportedly replied that
the last time someone called him that, he'd punched his antagonist in the
nose. I sympathize with Mr. Indyk's sentiments.

This week, in a speech in Winnipeg, as excerpted in the National Post,
Leonard Asper, head of the CanWest newspaper and television chains,
denounced my reporting from the Middle East, linking it to "hints of
anti-semitism in the Canadian media." His father, Israel Asper, made a
similar connection in a speech last year. It's a dreadful accusation, one
loaded with hateful, historical baggage. During my time in the Middle East
for CBC, I heard it tossed at reporters a lot, usually by angry people who
couldn't be bothered to marshal facts in support of their arguments.
Leonard Asper marches in that tradition.

Mr. Asper said many news reporters are anti-Semites, an attitude he
attributes to their 'Marxist' mindset. He then singled me out, and cited a
passage from a story I filed on Hezbollah last year from Beirut.

"Neil Macdonald of the CBC pompously, but dangerously, suggested Hezbollah
was a 'national liberation movement victimized by unfair smears cast around
by supporters of the Jewish state,' '' wrote Mr. Asper. He went on: "No
reference to Israel, just 'the Jewish state.' "

Now, from the transcript of my story, here is the actual quote: "Of course,
what this all really boils down to is the old question of what constitutes
terrorism. Is Hezbollah a national liberation movement, or, as Israel and
its supporters maintain, a murderous global menace? To many people in this
part of the world (the Arab world), to label Hezbollah a terrorist
organization is to choose sides in the defining conflict of the Middle
East."

A perfectly accurate characterization of a bitter debate, I thought. (I did
not use the term Jewish state, and what if I had? Israel proudly calls
itself that). But in Mr. Asper's crusading hunt for Marxists and
anti-Semites in the media, the accuracy of the quote hardly mattered. He
repeated what he wanted to believe I'd said.

Now, Leonard Asper is not a journalist, so perhaps I shouldn't expect him
to get a quote right. But for him to mangle it so thoroughly, and then go
on to lambaste the media for laziness and bias, is profoundly ironic.

I had actually been sent to Beirut to match a National Post story. The
story had quoted Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, as having advocated the
export of suicide bombings worldwide. The Canadian government had been
considering banning Hezbollah based on the Nasrallah quotes. But Hassan
Nasrallah, I discovered in Beirut, had said no such thing. Canadian embassy
staff in Beirut came to the same conclusion. (The Canadian government
eventually found other reasons, perhaps perfectly good reasons, to ban
Hezbollah as a terrorist group).

But it all demonstrated the difference between Mr. Asper's approach to the
Middle East and the CBC's. His paper relied on a freelancer who wrote, from
London, what the Aspers wanted to believe. We maintain a bureau in the
region, and investigated the story first-hand.

I've remained silent for the past year as the Aspers and their editorials
have relentlessly attacked me and the CBC, but enough is enough. This
latest salvo is inaccurate, loathsome, and defamatory. It merits an
apology.

I don't expect one from the Aspers, though. I expect more bullying, more
bombast, more ideological, anti-journalistic nonsense. I used to work for
the newspapers they now own. Several of my ex-colleagues, still there, tell
me they find the Aspers' approach to journalism an embarrassment. But they
cannot speak publicly. Thank heavens I can.

Neil Macdonald, Washington correspondent for CBC- TV News, finished a
five-year tour as Middle East correspondent last spring.

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