On December 11 Israel’s consul-general in Montreal, Paul Hirschson, posted on X about a Canadian media outlet that seemed intent on not viewing footage of Hamas massacres. “A story about Radio Canada (perhaps CBC too),” he wrote. “We held a private screening in Montreal of unreleased footage of the October 7 massacre in Israel,” he noted. “A few days after sending the invitations I received a mail from someone not invited from Radio Canada. She thanked me for the invite but, she wrote, no one could attend as Radio Canada was busy that day.”
He noted in his post that he later heard that Radio Canada would not come to the screening.
“They want to remain neutral,” he was told. He bemoaned “Radio Canada’s decision to avoid exposure to significant and relevant material on a subject they are giving extensive coverage to.”
On December 13, Hirschson provided an update on X to this story. “Radio Canada would deny they told every journalist in the newsroom not to attend. That’s likely true. I was informed they did tell those attending the meeting at which it was discussed not to attend. The offer remains – should Radio Canada wish, I will arrange a screening for them.”
Why would a major news organization go out of its way not to see original footage of an event?
The story in Montreal is about much more than one news organization or one Israeli diplomat’s attempt to raise awareness about Hamas atrocities. It is about the larger reality in which there have been attempts to deny the atrocities.
Denying the truth
Some of these attempts go to great lengths. For instance, MIT President Sally Kornbluth recently attended a special screening of the footage of October 7. According to a report at Ynet, “Kornbluth said that she faced pressure from some faculty and administrative members to cancel the screening, which was hosted by the MIT Chabad house and Israel’s UN envoy, Gilad Erdan.”
The pressure not to see the truth about October 7 is palpable. It’s part of the denial.I reached out to Hirschson to find out how this happened in Montreal. I’ve known him for years, first when he was a Foreign Ministry spokesman, and later when he was ambassador to Senegal and West African countries. He’s a consummate diplomat, thoughtful and erudite. He’s been in Canada for two-and-a-half years, based in Montreal in the province of Quebec.
Quebec is unique because of its history and being a French-speaking province. Montreal is also unique within Quebec because of its English-speaking minority and because of the universities and diversity in the city.Everything was going swimmingly in Canada in terms of Israel and outreach to the Jewish community and other issues. Then came October 7.
“I was in Israel on October 7 for a week holiday in advance of the Quebec minister of international relations to open the office they had decided to establish in Israel. The visit got postponed. I came back to Montreal, and life has been different since then,” the consul-general said.
There have been many anti-Israel protests in the city. “Some people would call it pro-Palestinian activity. Some people would call it pro-Hamas activity,” he noted. Students at the universities are also antagonistic against Israel. Quebec has also had supportive voices for Israel, both in French-language media and Quebec Premier Francios Legault.
However, the anti-Israel protests grew after October 7 and they have switched their messaging between various themes. First some activists celebrated October 7, and then they shifted to slamming Israel for attacking Gaza. A lot of this messaging appears coordinated globally, such as phenomena like ripping down posters of the hostages, which happened in Western countries. Hirschson pointed out that the first time red paint was splattered on windows in Montreal was the same day red paint was used on the gates of the White House in Washington.
While local protests have a spectrum of activists, there are also many immigrants and descendants of immigrants among the anti-Israel crowd. Language matters in Quebec, and many of the anti-Israel voices speak English and raise English-language banners at demonstrations.
Hirschson, like other Israeli diplomats and officials, has done outreach after October 7 to raise awareness about the atrocities.
“The first people we approached are the media and journalists. We did a screening in Ottawa, Toronto, and here in Montreal. A couple of weeks ago we did the screening. I invited a bunch of journalists,” he recalled. However, one outlet stood out for not attending. “I invited 10 individuals from Radio Canada. Radio Canada is the same thing as CBC but in French.” He said he got a reply claiming the journalists were too busy to attend. “Radio Canada has a reputation of being antagonistic toward Israel. Whether it is true or not, that’s what people know,” he said.
He responded by offering to arrange a special screening time to meet the journalists’ schedules. His efforts persisted, and he eventually did get a long response essentially reiterating the claim that these particular journalists were too busy. But one response also basically said “they won’t gain anything from seeing the documentary.”
Hirschson said this kind of terminology is problematic. “We weren’t offering a documentary; we are showing raw footage. This is 45 minutes of footage that is not cut.”
While the goal of diplomats is usually to avoid conflict and build bridges, Hirschson said he posted about this incident because “this event on October 7 was so evil and extreme that we need to be a little bit different. That was the motivation for putting it [the post on X] out. I put it out in a mild, soft way.” It’s not right, he said.
“I put out a second post yesterday telling everyone what this letter is about. This is the bottom line: They are lying to themselves. It’s bad enough they are lying to themselves. They are a massive organization caught up in a belief system... they are imposing it on a media outlet. This is a partisan crusade.”