Postmedia Network says it’s looking into complaints by Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) that an editorial published Aug. 24 in the Vancouver Sun, one of the newspapers owned by the media giant, contained what IJV is calling a “libellous attack” on the group.

Postmedia’s senior vice-president of content Gerry Nott said he and the company’s lawyers are investigating the matter after it received a letter from IJV’s lawyer Aug. 26 complaining about “the way the group was categorized.” The letter arrived the same day the editorial was republished in the online editions of the Calgary Herald and Ottawa Citizen.

The editorial, which Postmedia pulled from the newspapers’ websites later in the day on Aug. 26, urges federal Green party Leader Elizabeth May to insist that resolutions like the one Green members passed recently to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, as well as another that aimed to revoke the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund but was broadened to include other groups, have no place in Green party policy.

The editorial said the latter resolution was introduced by IJV member Corey Levine and describes IJV as “an anti-Israel group that uses the fig leaf of Jewishness to lend support to Iran, deny the Holocaust, participate in anti-Semitic Al-Quds protests, encourage terrorism against Israelis and promulgate lies about Israel’s history, society and policies,” and as a “marginalized group… expounding extreme anti-Israel and anti-Jewish views.”

IJV said these statements are false.

Nott said that prior to IJV’s complaints, the Green party had complained about several inaccuracies in the editorial and that the Sun made changes online.

After receiving the letter from IJV’s lawyer, “We saw that various versions existed [on the various different Postmedia newspaper websites] and we said, ‘Forget it. Let’s knock it down ‘til we figure this out,’” Nott said.

On Aug. 25, IJV posted a statement on its website saying it had been defamed by the Sun’s editorial, whose aim was “to bully the Green Party of Canada into reversing its support for the non-violent Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and its agreement around challenging the Jewish National Fund’s scandalous charitable status.”

The post also outlines IJV’s demands that the Sun “publicly apologize, refrain from printing any further libel against IJV and give us an op-ed to state our reasons for supporting the two Green party resolutions critical of Israel’s policies.”

The IJV statement was updated the next day to reflect that Postmedia had deleted the editorial.

IJV campaigns co-ordinator Tyler Levitan told The CJN his organization hasn’t heard back yet from Postmedia, but he expects its demand will be met.

“If they don’t comply with our demands, we’ll have to seek some sort of [legal] action to address it… We’re considering that… We haven’t made any decisions yet,” he said.

Levitan said the Sun editorial took issue with the Green party’s resolutions for being “critical of what Israel is doing to the Palestinians” and used that as an opportunity to “smear IJV.”

He said the Sun never contacted IJV to ask the group about its opinions.

Regarding the paper’s claim that IJV “expound[s] anti-Israel and anti-Jewish” views, Levitan stated: “Our views are neither. We criticize Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians… In my view, it’s anti-Semitic to equate Jews with the State of Israel. To criticize the State of Israel is not to be anti-Jewish. When you claim that, you equate Jews with Israel, and that’s a dangerous equation.”

Levitan added that the term “anti-Israel” is “a rhetorical device to create fear… When someone criticizes the policies of Canada, you don’t hear that person called ‘anti-Canadian’… The whole attack on the BDS movement is a way to distract from… how Israel is moving to the far right and imposing a brutal occupation over millions of people.”

He said the Citizen responded to IJV’s complaints, saying it receives “bundles of articles from Postmedia and it was out of their control what was on their website.”

“We’re looking into whether the Ottawa Citizen should be held responsible for publishing [the editorial] on its website,” Levitan said.