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Zionist Concentration in Canadian
Media
Israel Asper (aka Izzy Asper) is the
Executive Chairman of CanWest Global Communications. CanWest
Global owns one of the three national television networks in
Canada as well as 14 daily newspapers in Canada, including
the National Post, which is circulated nationally. Mr. Asper
is Jewish and you could say that his politics run to the
right of Ariel Sharon. In a speech
he for instance denounced what he called the biased
media in their coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He specifically mentioned the "CBC, The New York Times, The
Washington Post, the Associated Press and Reuters wire
services, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, BBC, the British Guardian,
Independent, Evening Standard and Daily Mirror newspapers,
as well as ITV and Sky News networks".
Canwest controls 31% of Canadian Daily Circulation in
it's newspaper division and 25% of the English-language TV
Broadcasting, the largest market share for both.
Upon gaining control of the Southam Newspaper chain,
CanWest instituted a policy whereby editorials were written
centrally and all of their newspapers had to carry them.
Asper, a staunch supporter of the Liberal Party of Prime
Minister Jean Chretien, (he was formerly the Manitoba
Liberal Leader fired the publisher of the Ottawa Citizen for
publishing an editorial encouraging Chretien to resign.
Clearly, concentration of ownership of the media can be
dangerous...particularly when it's owned by someone who has
very strong and clearly defined views.
***
CanWest's Executive Management is made up of 9
people in total, of which I.H. ASPER (Asper,
Israel Harold "Izzy") is the Executive Chairman. Other
CanWest Asper executives include Leonard Asper
(President and CEO) and Gail Asper (Corporate
Secretary).
Below are excerpts from a submission by Israel Asper
himself, to The Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, in which he,
unequivocally, professes his commitment to Zionism (i.e. for
Israel).
(see: http://www.jewishfoundation.org/story/asper_izzy.html)
I.H. Asper
September 29, 1999
Both my grandmother, Golda Zwet (nee
Barsky) and my grandfather, Ben-Zion Zwet, an orthodox
Rabbi, were born in the Ukraine in 1882 and 1879
respectively. My grandfather arrived in Winnipeg in 1913
after working in Regina as the Shohet...In 1929 my father
bought the Lyric Theatre in Minnedosa and it is in
Minnedosa where I was born, on August 11, 1932 and where
my brother Aubrey and sister Hettie and I spent our early
childhood years...In 1945 my family and I moved to
Winnipeg where, to this day my mother and her two sisters
reside, along with my brother Aubrey, myself and my three
children and their families.
I received my Bachelor of Arts in 1953, my Bachelor of
Law in 1957, and a Master's Degree in 1964, all at the
University of Manitoba...I practiced law for 15 years,
specializing in Tax, and wrote a weekly newspaper column
for the Globe & Mail for 14 years...In 1970 I became
the leader of the Liberal Party of Manitoba and sat as a
Member of the Legislature of Manitoba for five years.
Through all of this my wife Babs, whom I married in 1956,
and my three children David (born 1959), Gail (born 1960)
and Leonard (born 1964) were a source of strength and
reminded me of the importance of commitment to family and
community...I founded the Company that is now known as
CanWest Global Communications Corp. - an international
media company with operations in several countries.
In recent years, I have received many gratifying awards
including my induction as an Officer of the Order of
Canada in 1995, my induction as a Laureate of the
Canadian Business Hall of Fame and most recently, my
receipt of an Honourary Doctor of Philosophy degree at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with which I have
been associated for many years. My
family was committed to a Jewish way of life and to
Zionism, and I adopted those values.
My parents drilled the belief into me that no one should
ever leave the world the same as when they entered...I
take great pride knowing that my children will carry on
this family ethic.
Canada's Policy on
Israel...shameful?
THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS:
CANADIAN POLICY:
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
The main principles governing
Canadian policy with regard to the Arab-Israeli dispute: Department of Foreign Affairs and
International Trade
On April 6, 2001 Canada abstained on a UN resolution
reaffirming the inalienable right of Palestinians to
self-determination, including their right to establish a
sovereign and independent state. The resolution passed by a
vote of 48 for, two against (the United States and
Guatemala) and two abstentions (Romania and Canada). The
votes took place at the conclusion of the UN Commission on
Human Rights (UNCHR) annual session in Geneva in which
Israel is an observer and cannot vote (but its UN
ambassador, Yaakov Levy, rejected the vote, saying
Palestinian self-determination is a political issue that can
be resolved only through 'negotiations.'
Canada also abstained on three other resolutions that
condemned Israel for alleged human rights violations. The
most contentious of them expressed "grave concern at the
deterioration of the human rights and humanitarian situation
in the occupied Palestinian territories, condemned the
disproportionate and indiscriminate recourse to force, which
could not but aggravate the situation and increase an
already high death toll, and urged the government of Israel
to make every effort to ensure that its security forces
observed international standards regarding the use of
force." The resolution passed by a vote of 28 for, two
against and 22 abstentions. Israel, of course, dismissed it
as anti-Semitism.
Canada voted against a resolution on combatting "defamation
of religions as a means to promote human rights, social
harmony and religious and cultural diversity." The measure
called on member states to provide "adequate protection
against all human rights violations resulting from
defamation of religions."
Nonetheless, here's how Mr. Asper sees 'Canada's Policy on
Israel' --shameful
Canada's
Policy on Israel is Shameful
by I.H. Asper, O.C., OM., Q.C.
The Israel Report, June 2001
(see: http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/isreport/june01/shameful.html)
Israel, after 53 years of statehood,
remains the only isolated island of democracy, human
rights and rule of law -- a lonely outpost of Western
civilization and its values in a sea of terrorism,
corruption, dictatorship and human enslavement. Countries
like Canada should therefore be in the vanguard of its
support, for mutual economic, military and ethical
reasons.
I was there two weeks ago when the 20 innocent youths
were mercilessly slaughtered, and dozens of young people
maimed and crippled for life in Tel Aviv -- all as an
expression of Yasser Arafat's unwavering, original and
continuing objective of annihilating the state entirely,
by any means, however ruthless, savage, barbaric and
inhumane, and regardless of how long it takes.
Arafat and his brutal Palestinian colleagues are the
voice, the arm and the fist of their terrorist-sponsoring
state partners, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon and Syria, in
their deadly 53-year-old campaign to destroy Israel, as
well as inflict suffering on other democratic nations.
Whether they are aiming their bombs at innocent civilians
in Israel, or blowing up planes over Lockerbie, or
embassies in Nairobi, or office buildings in New York,
they are all cut from the same cloth, using the same
pattern and belonging to the same school of gangster
terrorists. Canada should treat them as such.
It is therefore a dismaying sight for knowledgeable
Canadians to watch our Foreign Affairs Minister, John
Manley, either a prisoner of naïeveté, or
political opportunism, embracing this war criminal,
Arafat, on Mr. Manley's recent visit to the Middle East.
Perhaps we shouldn't blame Mr. Manley for Canada's
shameful and wrong-headed policy on Israel, as
represented by its pro-Palestinian votes at the United
Nations. Perhaps we should simply blame his advisors at
the historically anti-Israeli Department of Foreign
Affairs, who seem bent on re-enacting the pre-war
anti-Semitism of the F. C. Blair Department of
Immigration.
Only Opposition leader Stockwell Day and his former
foreign affairs critic Monte Solberg have had the courage
to tell it as it is; to call a thug a thug, and tell the
truth on who are the bad guys in the Middle East volcano
of violence.
It remains a task for friends of Israel and friends of
the Liberal party to appeal to the Liberal government to
reverse its anti-Israel position in its comments and
votes at the UN.
Our government should know:
1. That Arafat is a pathological liar, who
has always sought and will continue to seek not
justice for his people, but only the destruction of
the state of Israel. Any peace arrangements are only a
temporary stop along the way;
2. That contrary to the Oslo alleged peace agreements
whereby Arafat agreed to end the teaching and
promotion of hatred and the incitement to violence
against Israel, Arafat's schools, mosques, state-owned
newspapers and broadcasters continue to preach
incitement, hatred, and the benefits of martyrdom in
heaven for Palestinians willing to die in his holy
cause of killing Israelis and Jews, wherever they may
be found;
3. That Arafat continues to refuse to account for how
he has spent the billions he's received for
humanitarian aid, including money from Canada, even
though it has been proven that some has been spent
establishing terror-training camps for school
children, and that his personal secret bank accounts
are reported to be in the billions;
4. That contrary to his protestations to the gullible
Western world, including Canada, that the present
uprising was sparked by a provocative visit to the
Temple Mount by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the
initifada had been deliberately planned months before
-- this, from the mouth of his own minister of
communications;
5. That contrary to the Oslo peace agreements, he
emptied the jails of all the captured terrorists, to
encourage and supply them with arms to make their
attacks on Israel from the territory turned over to
him by a compliant Israel;
6. That the most virulent of the roadside shootings,
ambushes and mortar shellings against Israeli citizens
are carried out by Arafat's personal guard force and
militias, entirely within his control.
These and many more facts bear witness to the fact
Arafat has declared war and therefore Israel is entitled
to conduct itself and its defence accordingly, without
the cluck-clucking of sanctimonious Canadian officials.
How long would the government of Canada forbear, and
tolerate, as it demands of Israel, atrocities against
Canadians from bases say, in Quebec? Not a minute -- just
ask the members of the 1970s Trudeau Cabinet, who invoked
the War Measures Act.
No, it is time for a change in Canadian foreign policy.
It is not too late to regain our honour and
integrity.
This is excerpted from a speech
to Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
in Toronto.
[end of article]
So,
Mr. Izzy Asper -and his CanWest media empire (which,
accidentally, shapes the minds of Canadians) is a hardcore
Zionist/pro-Israeli. Big deal -or is it? Isn't the media in
Canada independent/free? Would CanWest's executive
management, ever, actually dictate the editorial policy of
its daily papers? Yes!
The Star reveals
CanWest's Zionism!
On 23 December, 2001 Toronto Star writer Bill Schiller
adequately revealed CanWest's Zionist agenda. In his
article, he makes it clear that CanWest's holdings are
barred from critisizing Israel, that its owners are
self-proclaimed Zionists and that their publisheres are
systematically prohibited from speaking favorably about
Islam/Muslims.
Dec. 23, 2001
Aspers
flex their media muscle
`Go CanWest young man or go to hell'
by Bill Schiller
FEATURE WRITER
(Toronto Star, www.thestar.com)
MONTREAL — Collecting their newspapers from their
porch steps one morning this month, employees of the
Montreal Gazette found a little surprise waiting
inside.
There, for all to see, was a speech given the day before
in Oakville by David Asper of CanWest Global
Communications — the paper's owner — attacking
his own employees as "bleeding hearts" and "riff-raff"
who engaged in "pathetic politics" and "childish
protest."
But the stinger was yet to come.
Arriving at their downtown offices that day, these same
employees found a company memo reminding them it was "a
privilege" to work for Mr. Asper's company.
The slightest misstep, the memo warned — even
"gossiping" — could lead to dismissal.
CanWest would not brook any more carping from reporters
about a company policy forcing "national" editorials
— written in Winnipeg — on its 14 major papers
across Canada. The reporters say the policy is ill
conceived and does not serve the interests of individual
communities — especially Montreal, where "national"
issues are always complicated by local circumstances.
Across town at the French language daily La Presse,
respected columnist Nathalie Petrowski crystallized the
Asper message for her readers with all the magic of a
Madison Avenue merchandiser: "Go CanWest young man," she
wrote, " — or go to hell."
Inside the Gazette's newsroom, that message remains a
tough sell.
"They're bullies," says one writer, asking anonymity.
It wasn't always this way of course.
Just last September, Gazette publisher Michael Goldbloom
angrily left the paper, warning obliquely of troubles to
come under the Aspers, who last year bought the Gazette
and the Southam newspaper chain from Conrad Black.
Goldbloom told an interviewer he disagreed with
increasing control coming from Winnipeg, home to Izzy
Asper, sons David and Leonard and their CanWest Global
empire.
"The Gazette is more than a business," Goldbloom said.
"It's a paper that knows its community."
But this month, CanWest effectively announced it knows
what's best for its papers' communities — at least
on national issues — and introduced a new policy
compelling all of its daily papers to run identical
editorials sent from Winnipeg once a week.
In the new year, the editorials will run three times a
week in every paper.
And local editorial boards won't be able to write
editorials that disagree with the company line.
With CanWest owning 14 daily newspapers, the National
Post, 126 community newspapers and the Global television
network, which reaches 94 per cent of English-speaking
Canada, serious concerns have been raised about the
influence a single company will now have on Canadian
opinion.
This week, the debate spilled into the Quebec National
Assembly, where Liberals and the Parti
Québécois joined together in a motion
expressing their deepest concerns.
Once again, as in the days when Conrad Black controlled
the Southam newspaper chain, debate over concentration of
media ownership has moved back on to the national agenda.
Each time it returns, the concentration grows
greater.
With almost no reporting on the issue to be found in the
pages of the Gazette, readers have taken their concerns
— and their wrath — to the Letters to the
Editor page.
There, readers have described David Asper's Oakville
speech, in which he defended his company's "national"
editorials as "petulant," "smug" and "self-serving."
"CanWest is making a mockery of freedom of the press in
this country," reader Pierre Home-Douglas wrote with
alarm from Dorval.
Asper might claim that CanWest is pursuing a "drive for
excellence," he added, but "...what I have seen is a
relentless drive for profits."
And 20-year subscriber Jack Zylack of Beconsfield worried
about the way the Gazette was playing certain
stories.
"In recent months, we have noticed a shift in coverage of
issues, especially with respect to balance," Zylack wrote
last week.
Interviewed by phone, Zylack said he was referring to
"coverage in the Middle East."
The concern is legitimate.
On Aug. 11, the Gazette carried a Southam News editorial
in the wake of a vicious, anti-Israeli terrorist attack
in Jerusalem.
"Howsoever the Israeli government chooses to respond to
this barbaric atrocity should have the unequivocal
support of the Canadian government," the editorial
urged.
"Nothing is excessive," it added, with a vigour some
might regard as breathtaking.
Asked whether the Gazette would ever carry material
critical of Israel in its news columns, Southam News
chief Murdoch Davis, who writes and oversees all such
editorials from Winnipeg under the new plan, says the
paper could carry such criticism.
What about editorials?
"No," he replied definitively.
"Why?" he was asked.
Davis began to hedge.
"Let me back up," he said hastily, insisting he'd
"misspoke."
Some criticism of Israel could be allowed in the
newspaper chain's editorial pages, he said. But over all,
Southam supports Israel.
Israel (Izzy) Asper, patriarch of the family and
principal of CanWest Global , is one of Israel's
strongest supporters in Canada. He has accused Ottawa of
being "anti-Israel," and has publicly called Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat "a pathological liar" and "war
criminal."
In an interview last week, Murdoch Davis insisted that in
his "own personal view" Arafat was not a war criminal. He
noted, however, that he had yet to write an editorial
about him under the new plan.
But if the experience of Gazette television critic Peggy
Curran is anything to go by, readers have reason to worry
about content being altered to dovetail with the
proprietors' views.
Curran wrote a column earlier this year on a documentary
aired on Canadian TV that was critical of Israeli forces
for targeting media working on the Palestinian side. The
column was held, painstakingly discussed with Curran,
then changed.
The action sent waves of anxiety through the newsroom.
"If they'll go after the TV critic, they'll go after
anyone," one reporter said.
Gazette editor-in-chief Peter Stockland contends it was
only routine editing to ensure balance.
"It is a factual error to say the Curran column was
altered," he said, adding it just needed something
"inserted."
Presumably, Curran pressed the keys that made the changes
to indicate the program wasn't necessarily truth, but "a
point of view" documentary.
Curran wouldn't return The Star's calls for this article,
but in a CBC radio interview before the threat of job
dismissals was posted, she openly complained.
"Usually criticism is criticism and you're allowed to say
what you want," she said. "I can't think of another
occasion when this has happened to me."
She worries about the "chill" the experience will have on
herself and others. "Whether you know it or not," she
said, "you start censoring yourself."
Curran isn't the only one who has seen her copy delayed,
changed or killed under the new owners.
Terry Mosher, nationally acclaimed editorial cartoonist
who goes by the pen name Aislin, has also had worked
killed — one cartoon mocking the company's policy of
Winnipeg-written editorials for all.
"For the time being, drawing anything on the subject of
the Aspers and the whole business is strictly forbidden,"
he says. "Of course" it encroaches on his principles as a
journalist, he says.
With the "Gazette Affair" one of the top stories in
Montreal, Mosher penned a cartoon of an apartment dweller
anxiously waiting in the pre-dawn dark for his paper.
"Where's The Gazette?" he asks. "I can't wait to read
their enticing editorial view from Winnipeg."
It was axed.
"This is about control," says Mosher. "It's probably a
new milieu for these Asper people. I don't know how well
they understand that it's a very different situation with
newspapers as opposed to television stations and
networks."
Mosher also emphasizes the "nervousness" throughout the
newspaper chain over homogenization — "You know, `Do
we really need more than one TV critic?' That kind of
thing."
But to date, only Montreal journalists have taken a
stand. A call to other Southam newsrooms elicited fear
and requests for anonymity.
"Nobody here has blinked," said a longtime Ottawa Citizen
journalist. "Why? Conrad Black already changed the
editorial board, directed the newsroom and dictated the
front page ... people here do their job and go home."
With the threat of dismissal in the air, many prefer not
to speak. Respected Gazette columnist Don Macpherson,
whose original column on the company's "national"
editorials was altered, according to colleagues, was
polite but terse on the phone.
"I can't comment," he said. "I know you'll
understand."
William Marsden, a multi-award winning journalist who,
before the threats were issued, described the situation
to the Paris daily Liberation by saying, "C'est la
Pravda!" is now a tad more circumspect.
Responding to management's memo in which "primary
fidelity to the employer" was stressed, Marsden said:
"The way journalists keep their integrity and can
continue to pursue the truth is not by loyalty to the
owner but to the truth — and the delivery of that
truth to the public... You can't do that as a journalist
if the No. 1 loyalty is to his or her boss.
"Of course I'm glad they pay me," he says. "But I'm loyal
to one thing and that's the reader."
Salam Elmenyawi, chair of the Muslim Council of Montreal,
used to write for the Gazette as a member of the
Editorial Board of Contributors, a group representative
of Montreal's broad community.
In a letter dated Aug. 14, three days after the Gazette's
"Howsoever" editorial on Israel, Elmenyawi received a
letter from then Editorial Page editor Peter Hadekel
informing him the Board of Contributors had been
terminated, but he'd be welcome to contribute "two or
three" pieces a year.
Elmenyawi recently asked the Gazette if he could write on
the new anti-terrorist Bill C36. His letter has gone
unanswered.
"I don't expect I'll be writing anything for the Gazette
anymore," he said in an interview. "I suspect the Muslim
approach and point of view is no longer welcome."
Colleagues say Editorial Page editor Hadekel recently
asked to be reassigned. His request was granted.
Last week, the Canadian Association of Journalists, the
International Federation of Journalists and the
Federation of Professional Journalists of Quebec issued
statements supportive of Gazette colleagues.
And Quebec Communications Minister Diane Lemieux called
the crisis "an extremely concrete illustration" of the
dangers at the heart of corporate media
concentration.
Back in the Gazette's office, editor Peter Stockland was
cautious but confident the conflict would blow over.
"Media frenzies come and go. They all have their
shelf-life."
How had implementing a policy in Montreal of running
"national" editorials affected his own journalistic
principles?
"I have no idea what that question means," Stockland
said.
The question was asked again.
"Again, I don't know what that question means. Affected
what principles? What are we talking about?"
The Gazette editor was asked if he wished to lay out and
explain his principles.
He laughed.
"This isn't about me," he said.
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