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This is cross posted at the blog of CAMERA, Snapshots.
As we point out in our recent article about the leaked Palestinian Authority documents, the Guardian — one of the two media organizations that publicized the documents — falsely claims that the documents “reveal” Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state. A Guardian headline reads: “Palestinian negotiators accept Jewish state, papers reveal.”
But the article itself says no such thing. Rather, it quotes a Palestinian negotiator telling his Israeli counterpart, “If you want to call your state the Jewish state of Israel you can call it what you want.”
Far from being a revelation, this echoes a formula that has been publicly and repeatedly invoked by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. (For example, Abbas has said: “You can call yourselves as you like, but I don’t accept it and I say so publicly.”) And the very document cited by the Guardian actually shows the Palestinians repeatedly refusing to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state, rejecting “two states for two peoples,” and even seeming to reject the very idea of a Jewish people. Lest there be any doubt, in the following meeting between the negotiators the argument about recognition of Israel as the Jewish state continued, with the Palestinians continuing to adamantly insist they will not offer such recognition.
Plus ça change…. The newspaper, in fact, has a history of falsifying Palestinian positions regarding Israel.
On June 21, 2006, the Guardian headline “Hamas performs about-turn on Israeli state” was followed by the subhead “Document recognises Israel’s right to exist.” A version of the article published the next day was even more egregiously wrong: “Climbdown as Hamas agrees to Israeli state: Negotiator says group recognises right to exist”
And a few days later, the same author, Chris McGreal, penned a piece entitled “Hamas takes step to recognise Israel.”
Hamas, of course, never accepted any document that recognized Israel’s right to exist, and its vocal rejection of Israel’s right to exist has continued unabated.
It was no surprise to those who follow the organization, then, when a Hamas leader, in language typical of the organization, described Israel in October 2006 as a “cancer that must be pulled out by its roots.” But what a surprise it must have been to Guardian readers when the newspaper acknowledged in a December 2006 headline, “Hamas: we will never recognise Israel.”
H/T Elder of Ziyon:
More and more, the story of the Palestine Papers is not what may have been revealed in the negotiations but, rather, the Guardian’s capacity to distort almost any nugget of information in a way which confirms their worldview.
In “Papers reveal how Palestinian leaders gave up fight over refugees” written by Ian Black and Seumas Milne – another perfect example of what Melanie Phillips aptly termed the Guardian’s tendency to try to seem “more Palestinian than the Palestinians” – was this:
[Tzipi] Livni told Palestinian negotiators in 2007 that she was against international law and insisted that it could not be included in terms of reference for the talks: “I was the minister of justice”, she said. “But I am against law – international law in particular.”
Except that, as the following transcript shows, the document clearly contradicts this characterization of Livni’s’ remarks.
Livni opens the meeting: I would like to suggest that we will continue according to what I tried to at the beginning of the session yesterday, but unfortunately while doing so we ended up in some sort of a discussion. At the end of today’s meeting the minimum that is required is some sense of the six or seven points that you stated that need to be in the document. Just [a] list [of] what is agreed or not agreed. Put aside the core issues for now, just have a list of agreed and not agreed, in points. If we have this agreement… let’s not include the areas of disagreement now.
Ahmed Qurei: We can finish tonight the subjects – the preamble. What are the components. Not the language or the nice words etc. We should focus on three things in the preamble. One is the terms of reference [“TOR”]. The three core elements in addition to the [nice] language. One is the TOR. Second is the 2 state solution. Third is the Roadmap [“RM”]. Is there anything to be added to the preamble?
Livni: No – it’s ok. And what we called before some good words. The basic idea of where we are going. End of conflict, [the goal is] to find a way to do so… something like this.
So if you want to summarize the positions, this is something we did in our former conversation. When it comes to the TOR we want reference to 242, 338, the RM and other agreements agreed between the two sides. You added, and this is the problem, the API [Arab Peace Initiative], international law, 1515, 1397, and 194. And we wanted the three principles of the Quartet.
[more discussion of what should be included in the Terms of Reference and Preamble for the document]
Qurei: International law?
Livni: NO. I was the Minister of Justice. I am a lawyer…But I am against law — international law in particular. Law in general.
If we want to make the agreement smaller, can we just drop some of these issues? Like international law, this will make the agreements easier.
Livni’s “I am against law” remark is merely signaling that she does not want any reference to legal issues, or international law, in the joint (ceremonial) statement, so that a final peace agreement will be easier to achieve.
In other words, the Guardian buried the lead of this particular story which should have read something like: “Document shows Tzipi Livni flexible, and committed to achieving a peace deal.”
Beyond burying the lead, the Palestine Papers reveal the Guardian doing what they do best: burying facts which contradict their preconceived conclusions.
Dramatic developments took place last week in Lebanon as Hizbollah brought down the government whilst the Prime Minister was out-of-town: just the latest in its continued attempts to prevent the conclusions of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon from being implemented.
It is, of course, too early to predict and foolish to speculate what will happen in long- beleaguered Lebanon, but there is one scenario which can be placed right at the bottom of a list of possible outcomes, and that is the likelihood of a war between Israel and Lebanon. Unless Hizbollah deliberately leaves Israel no choice – for example if Israeli civilians are targeted as was the case in 2006 – there is no reason that these latest internal Lebanese developments should lead to cross-border conflict
It therefore seemed rather strange that CiF should choose to publish an article by Nicholas Noe on January 14th which totally ignores the internal aspects of the current crisis in favour of an elaborate hypothesis detailing why, if conflict does break out, it will be anyone and everyone’s fault except that of Hizbollah.
This isn’t the first time that Noe has predicted similar doom and gloom on the pages of CiF; in fact lately he appears to get wheeled out whenever there is some sort of crisis in Lebanon in order to promote the anti-American and anti-Israeli line. Noe’s impressive ability to ignore the objective facts at hand in favour of almost superstitious speculations may be somewhat easier to comprehend if one takes into account that he’s the founder and editor-in-chief of ‘Mideastwire’, and also runs Arabic language courses for foreign students in Beirut, the highlight of which are visits to Hamas and Hizbollah HQs.
“When Amtissal signed up to learn Arabic in Beirut, she was in for a bonus: class trips to the offices of Hezbollah and Hamas, both classified as terrorist organizations by her native America.
“It was an amazing experience,” the U.S. media studies graduate told AFP. “We saw the difference between television and reality.”
For 21-year-old Andrew Waller, the Beirut Exchange was a golden opportunity to hear the voices of groups he had only read about.
“Meeting Hezbollah was an experience I really treasure,” said Waller, an economics student at the University of Exeter in Britain.”
As Israelinurse noted, in her CW piece on Dec. 22, “The Guardian continues to ignore the escalation in southern Israel”, the Guardian has all but ignored the deteriorating situation along Israel‘s border with Gaza.
The situation includes:
- Islamic Jihad, previously non-operational, has linked up with Hamas.
- There have been more attacks upon IDF patrols along the international border.
- An increased number of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are being laid along the fence which marks the border.
- A rising number of mortar attacks have been carried out both on the IDF and civilians living in the communities surrounding the border.
While largely failing to report on these significant developments, the Guardian did see fit to publish an AP story, on Dec. 26, about Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman stating that violence in Gaza is a serious impediment to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. (As if such political observation is in any way controversial.).
The story did note, that:
The latest diplomatic spat [between Israel and the Palestinians] came as violence along the Israel-Gaza border simmered. After days of accelerated Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel and Israeli airstrikes in response, Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians early today.
All in all, this is not a horrible passage by Guardian or AP standards.
But, the photo they chose to accompany the story speaks volumes about Guardian’s coverage of the Middle East.
True to form, the Guardian simply couldn’t resist using an AP photo of wailing, inconsolable friends and relatives of the dead terrorist. As the article itself mentions the increase in rocket fire emanating from Gaza as a cause of the tensions, one would think that a photo illustrating that dynamic (or photos of damage done by previous barrages of missiles onto Israel’s southern communities) would be considered.
The narrative by which the jihadists and Islamists (sorry, “militants”) are perpetual victims is simply irresistible to the photo editors who, clearly, know their customers quite well.
Honest Reporting has released its annual “Dishonest Reporter” awards, noting the worst anti-Israel bias throughout the year in the press.
The Guardian was one of the recipients due to this memorable photo, which accompanied the headline:
Eyewitness: Palestinian youth run down
Honest Reporting (which wrote an expose back in October persuasively arguing that the incident reeked of a set-up) noted in their recent Dishonest Reporters report:
When David Be’eri’s car came around the bend, AP, Al Jazeera and EPA camermen (among others) just happened to be “in the right place at the right time” too. Photographers and stone-throwing kids fed off each other’s presence, giving new meaning to ambush journalism.
A Guest Post by AKUS
Having a friend who grew up in Sarajevo I was drawn to a Guardian article about the Kosovo elections, not normally something of great interest to me -Former US diplomat backs Albanian nationalist in Kosovo elections – in the hope of learning a bit more about a conflict that has always left me completely confused about who was doing what to whom.
Leaving the politics aside, I noticed that, curiously, the Guardian inserted quotation marks around the misspelled word “massacre” in the sub-header:
Perhaps this ‘massacre’ was not a massacre but something else?
The article included a picture of William Walker, with a caption that once again placed quotation marks around the word:
Now there was a bit more detail – at least 39 villagers were killed in a ‘massacre’. Unless killing 39 villagers is not a massacre.
However, the first paragraph in the story continued in the same way:
The reason I found this curious was because the Guardian, led by the Theobald Jew Suzanne Goldenberg, was at the forefront of reporting the imaginary “Jenin massacre” in the English-language press. The lie they promulgated continues to circulate on the Internet.
Earlier this week I had the privilege of hearing Khaled Abu Toameh – West Bank and Gaza correspondent for the Jerusalem Post and a contributor to many other major news outlets, as well as the Hudson Institute – speak at an event in Jerusalem on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Today I read the Guardian editorial of December 16th on the same subject. The contrast between Mr. Abu Toameh’s well-informed, intelligent analysis of the situation and the trite offering served up by the Guardian could hardly be more stark.
The anonymous writer of this editorial has managed to persuade him or herself of the existence of “Palestinian leaders who recognise Israel” but neglects to supply their names. The editorial claims that “Fatah has still legitimacy”, but fails to address the subject of the considerably limited extent of that legitimacy. It claims that “the Palestinian leadership will continue weak and divided” as though the internal tensions between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are a product of failed attempts to make peace. There even seems to be contained within the editorial the bizarre implication that Israelis engaged in building projects in Judea and Samaria do not finance them themselves; how else are we to understand the inclusion of this rather spiteful and puerile suggestion:
“The cost of each new housing unit built in occupied territory should be deducted off US aid.”
True to form and tediously predictable, the editorial pronounces the death of the peace process all because those inconsiderate Israeli Jews won’t agree to do again something they already did –freeze building – and for which last time they saw no benefits. Of course expecting the Guardian to take the Palestinian Authority to task for twiddling its thumbs for almost the entire duration of the last building freeze is like expecting Lady Gaga to show up to a gig in a twin-set and pearls.
It’s just not in keeping with the Guardian world view to acknowledge that the lack of progress in the peace negotiations could hinge upon the pesky fact that the majority of the Muslim world does not accept Israel’s right to exist within any borders. Neither can it acknowledge that the current leaders of the Palestinian Authority are simply incapable of making the necessary compromises (just as Arafat wasn’t at Camp David a decade ago), or that even if some sort of agreement were reached, they are unable to deliver the goods, as Mahmoud Abbas has no support from, and no control whatsoever over, at least half of the Palestinian population, let alone a legitimate mandate to make the politically painful compromises necessary to achieve a real and lasting peace.
No – this editorial is intent solely upon apportioning blame in a tediously predictable manner rather than providing its readers with any real insight as to why peace between Israel and the Palestinians remains elusive. Little wonder then that people who are interested in what really goes on in the Middle East continue to rely upon sources such as Khaled Abu Toameh for a realistic view of the situation based on many years of intimate knowledge of all the parties concerned, the ability to analyse what the players say in their own languages and liberty from an anachronistic political agenda.
The Guardian is not even pretending to engage in real reporting or offering objective analysis anymore; it long ago abandoned brave, honest journalism in favour of the coward’s choice of becoming a propaganda mouthpiece, as this latest dismal editorial offering shows only too well.
CiF Watch has previously reported on the Guardian’s manipulation of photos in the service of desired narratives, and demonstrated that images don’t necessarily need to be photo-shopped or cropped (what’s become known as “fauxtography“) to mislead or distort.
Here is part 3 of an illuminating photo expose by the media watchdog group Honest Reporting:
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Wire service photographers use clever photographic techniques to present a false impression that enhances images of Palestinian “suffering”.
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The use of bars in such images is a widespread method of portraying Palestinians as “prisoners” of Israeli occupation and brutality.
What could be more symbolic of suffering and mistreatment than the image of small children behind bars? Particularly in reference to Gaza, which is regularly portrayed as a vast ‘open air prison’.
For example, The Independent chose to illustrate the story below with an image from AFP/Getty. The caption:
Children join the protest in Gaza City yesterday as Palestinians demanded an end to the siege.
This is but one example of how wire agency photographers resort to using camera angles and staging techniques to present a distorted (and worse) picture of a given situation.
In the example above, it is clear that the photographer used this technique to project an image of Gazan children imprisoned. However, the sequence of photos taken from the same scene at the time illustrates how the effect was achieved.
What we see above is a tiny group of Palestinian children arriving at what appears to be a pre-planned photo-op outside the Gaza industrial area presumably organized by Hamas. The photographer either willingly colludes with Hamas or is used.
Next, the children have been positioned behind a gate to give the effect of a prison.
However, using a great deal of skill to get the right position with the right lens from the right angle, the photographer manages to create an impression of many more than the five or so children in the actual shot.
The same children appear in the remaining two images from the sequence, again highlighting how the entire event was staged. The same technique of shooting from below and to the side is employed to give the impression that there are actually more people involved than the reality.
This is a guest post by Bataween of Point of No Return
Saeb Erekat, where have you been? We have missed your jovial, suntanned, American-accented appearances on TV. Was your finest hour not during the second intifada, when you claimed that 500 Palestinians had been massacred in the Israeli assault on Jenin in 2002? It was then you cemented your reputation for being ‘economical with the truth’.
So welcome back, Saeb. I see your latest article for CiF, on Dec. 10th, marks the 62nd anniversary of the passing of UN Resolution 194, which you misinterpret as promoting the ‘right’ of return of the Palestinian Arabs displaced during Israel’s war of independence. There is no such right. True to form, you are back with a whole new set of half-truths and omissions.
UN General Assembly resolution 194 calls for Palestinians to return to their homes. This General Assembly resolution was non-binding, unlike Security Council resolutions such as UN resolution 242. In fact all 15 paragraphs were a blueprint for a truce. Only article 11 of Resolution 194 deals with refugees, and does not specify ’Palestinian’ refugees. The resolution was equally designed to apply to the Jews expelled from their homes in Jerusalem, Gush Etzion and other regions overrun by the Jordanian Arab Legion in the course of the war. It could also have applied to the thousands of Jews already fleeing pogroms in Arab countries. More about these later.
Erekat omits one other crucial piece of wording: Those refugees wishing to return to their homes must agree to ‘live in peace with their neighbors’: one surmises that even the drafters of UN resolution 194 would balk at the re-admission of a hostile irredentist population. Article 11 also states that those who do not wish to return would receive compensation from governments and authorities. The plural wording includes Arab governments.
Sixty two years will have passed without this historic resolution being implemented despite being upheld by the UN with nearly universal consensus.
It would surely embarrass our friend Erekat to admit that the resolution fell short of universal consensus because Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraqi, Saudi Arabia and Yemen themselves voted against UN resolution 194. Those Jews driven out of the prospective Palestinian Arab state and from Jerusalem were also deemed refugees, worthy of compensation. The Arabs did not relish their burden of responsibility for them. The Arab states also feared that voting in favour of the UN resolution would confer recognition on Israel as a Jewish state. Not a lot seems to have changed in sixty-two years. Last week on November 27, the Fatah Revolutionary Council (remember, they are the moderate Palestinians) concluded its fifth convention with a declaration refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Palestinian displacement continues to this day. It is not politic for Erekat to mention that Israel did make a substantial repatriation offer during the 1948 negotiations. The government said it would accept 100,000 refugees in a general settlement. This offer the Arab states rejected.
Israel bears responsibility for the creation of the Arab refugees. A moot point, at best. The Arabs rejected the plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state - UN Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947. The Arab refugees were a by-product of the Arab decision to go to war: five Arab armies invaded the newborn state of Israel as soon as it was declared. The Naqba is the catastrophic failure to win that war. The Zionists did not require the expulsion of the Arabs, as the Jewish state allocated by the Partition Plan would already have had a slight Jewish majority. The war saw only a few proven cases of expulsion, notably in Lydda. Most of the land which was to become Israel was state or miri land. The Palestinians did not own ‘90 percent ‘ of the land.
Today Palestinian refugees number more than 7 million people. It is a curious phenomenon that a baby born in a ‘Palestinian refugee camp’ (actually a permanent township) in Lebanon is entitled to call himself a refugee without ever having been to Palestine. Unique among refugees, four generations of Palestinians have been living off international largess as clients of the UN agency dedicated exclusively to their needs, UNWRA.
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Mr. Elliot,
Regarding Mya Guarnieri’s recent post at CiF, Israeli rabbis’ racist decree strikes at the soul of Judaism, CiF Watch seeks a correction pertaining to the last sentence in the following passage:
“It could be argued that those who signed the proclamation – a group of men who are distorting Judaism to the point that I refuse to acknowledge them as rabbis – are extremists, that they don’t represent the majority. Even if that is true, it doesn’t change the fact that many are government employees. And, so far, the state has done nothing to put them in check.”
Also, note the sub-title:
“Telling Jews not to rent houses to Arabs is religious fascism. So far, the state has failed to intervene.”
As I pointed out in my post at CiF Watch yesterday, government officials have, indeed, acted and quite emphatically condemned the rabbi’s bigoted remarks before Guarnieri’s story went to print. – a fact which Ms. Guarnieri should have been aware of.
As your own correspondent, Harriet Sherwood, noted in her Dec. 2 piece, Denounced as a traitor: The Holocaust Survivor who rents rooms to Israeli-Arabs:
- “Now an Israeli cabinet minister is calling for Eliyahu to be removed from his post. Avishay Braverman, the minister for minority affairs, last week lodged a formal complaint with the justice ministry, saying Eliyahu’s “continual incitement against the Arabs in the Galilee harms the fabric of relations between Jews and Arabs and does not serve the interests of the state”.
The Israeli paper, Ha’aretz, reported the following on Dec. 7, the day before Guarnieri’s story appeared:
- Prime Minister Netanyahu emphasized that “Such things cannot be said, not about Jews and not about Arabs. They cannot be said in any democratic country, and especially not in a Jewish and democratic one. The state of Israel rejects these sayings.”
- Education Minister Gideon Saar also related to the rabbis’ letter, saying that “the Torah commands one to have good relations with Gentiles.”
Also, on Dec. 8, the day Guarnieri’s story was posted, this was published at Ha’aretz:
- Israeli President Shimon Peres harshly condemned the rabbis’ petition, stating, “the state of Israel is composed of Jewish citizens and non-Jewish citizens, and we all have the same rights…this fundamental right is engraved in our Declaration of Independence, as well as in legislation forged in the Knesset.”
We seek a correction from Ms. Guarnieri, noting that her initial claim regarding Israeli government silence over the remarks in question was not accurate.
Please also note that, in the absence of a correction to the piece within 24 hours, we are prepared to file an official complaint with the PCC – which states the following:
- The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.
- A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and – where appropriate – an apology published.
We look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
A. Levick
Managing Editor
CiF Watch
adamlevick@cifwatch.com
On September 30, 2000, a couple of days after the start of the 2nd Intifada, The New York Times, AP and other major media outlets published a photo of a man — bloodied and battered — crouching beneath a club-wielding Israeli policeman. The caption identified him as a Palestinian victim of the recent riots — with the implication that the Israeli soldier was the one who beat him.
The victim’s true identity was revealed when Dr. Aaron Grossman of Chicago sent a letter to the Times, noting that the man in the image was Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago (and Dr. Grossman’s son). He, and two of his friends, were pulled from their taxi while traveling in Jerusalem, by a mob of Palestinian Arabs, and were severely beaten and stabbed. In the letter, it was noted that picture could not have been taken on the Temple Mount because there are no gas stations on the Temple Mount and certainly none with Hebrew lettering, like the one clearly seen behind the Israeli soldier – who was attempting to protect his son from the mob.
In response, the New York Times published a perfunctory correction which identified Tuvia Grossman as “an American student in Israel” — not as a Jew who was beaten by Arabs. The “correction” also noted that “Mr. Grossman was wounded” in “Jerusalem’s Old City” — although the beating actually occurred in the Arab neighborhood of Wadi al Joz, not in the Old City.
In response to public outrage at the error and the half-hearted correction, The New York Times reprinted Tuvia Grossman’s picture — this time with the proper caption — along with a full article detailing his near-lynching at the hands of Palestinians rioters.
The photo of a bloodied Tuvia Grossman became a symbol in the struggle to ensure that Israel receives the fair media coverage that every nation deserves – and launched Honest Reporting, a site which has become a truly indispensable media resource in the ongoing fight against the demonization of the Jewish state.
Recently, Honest Reporting released a superb report on how Reuters, AP and AFP/Getty misuse imagery to distort coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Part 1 of HR’s study focuses primarily on images originating from Israel and the Palestinian territories – as well as Reuters’ questionably cropped photos taken on board the flotilla vessel, Mavi Marmara.
HR noted:
The pictures [used in the study] were published during a period of intense public dispute between Israel and flotilla organizers over which side was responsible for the violence that ended in the deaths of nine flotilla passengers and injuries to seven IDF commandos. Israeli officials produced video evidence of soldiers being attacked viciously as they boarded the Mavi Marmara ship. Weapons were found on board the ship despite flotilla activists claiming to be unarmed.
The first example in HR’s report deals with a photo, published in a Turkish newspaper. Notice the flotilla activist holding a knife in the lower right corner:
The same photo, originally released by Reuters, has been cropped so that the knife, and potentially evidence of the intentions of those on board the ship, is removed
Open this link to see the rest of Part 1 of this excellent expose by Honest Reporting.
Harriet Sherwood
November 25th marked six months since Harriet Sherwood’s arrival in Jerusalem to take up her new role as the Guardian’s foreign correspondent in Israel. This presents an appropriate opportunity to review her performance so far and determine whether she has lived up to her own expectations as set out in three ‘mission statement’ articles she wrote before and after her arrival.
In an article from 2006 Sherwood, whilst filling the role of Foreign Editor at the Guardian, laid out her vision for reporting from Jerusalem, stating that
“The first thing we need to be absolutely sure of is the purpose of our news reporting from the region. Our correspondents are there to give our readers accurate information about Israel-Palestine. We are not there to bat for one side or the other, but to report on the situation on the ground as we find it.”
“We should aim for balance in our overall coverage, not in each individual story; it’s the batting average that counts.”
On June 14th 2010 Sherwood once again wrote about her aspirations; this time from the point of view of a foreign correspondent on the ground:
“…..the Guardian must be bold, distinctive, thoughtful and original as well as, of course, covering the “news”, ie reacting to events. Foreign correspondents – expensive assets – should be encouraged to spend a large proportion of their time in the field, finding things out, talking to people, reporting what they see.
They shouldn’t spend all their time covering the same ground as everyone else; and they shouldn’t be chained to their laptops, essentially rewriting news agency material.”
By September 27th 2010, Sherwood was writing about “the realities of reporting in the field”:
“And the wire services do provide comprehensive, rapidly updated and usually accurate coverage of the main news events on a given day. So a correspondent’s role is surely to go beyond that, to dig out the stories that aren’t immediate “news”, to provide context and analysis, to allow those whose voices are routinely drowned out by the big “players” to be heard.”
In order to be able to quantify Sherwood’s ‘batting average’ there is no way other than to plough through the 138 or so relevant articles she has published since her arrival in Israel both in the Guardian and its sister paper, The Observer.
I categorized them into four groups:
1) Articles which present Israel in a balanced, realistic and objective manner.
2) Articles which present Israel in a non-balanced, pejorative and subjective manner.
3) Articles which present both sides of a story.
4) Articles with a positive slant, exclusively about Palestinian-related subjects.
Excluding several articles which were not relevant to the analysis due to their subject matter, the results were as follows:
Category 1) – one article
Category 2) – 79 articles
Category 3) – 36 articles
Category 4) – 11 articles
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A guest post by AKUS
“Liar, liar, pants on fire” is an old schoolyard chant. Daphna Baram, the Israeli-hating descendant of the illustrious Baram family, was caught with her pants brightly burning in today’s Guardian.
In a rare admission of wrong doing, the Guardian was forced by pro-Israeli readers of the article to acknowledge that, once again, the editors had not checked the facts behind an article published on CiF – in this case, the article A shared story offers hope to Israel that Baram raced to publish:
• This article was amended at 14.10 on October 29. The earlier version stated, on the basis of an Israeli newspaper report, that the book is being used in Palestinian Authority schools. That statement was removed at Daphna Baram’s request after readers questioned its accuracy.
Readers not only questioned its accuracy – they cited chapter and verse from the Palestinian Authority that completely contradicted her and the report from the “Israeli paper”. That paper was, of course, Ha’aretz, where it ran on October 11th with a follow-up on the 25th. The comments on the thread show Ms Baram gradually shifting in her chair as her pants feel increasingly warm.
At first, she holds herself out as a paragon of truth, justice and the Guardian way:
Too true, Daphna, too true … but then comes the first crack in the façade by in a comment by a reader, “yossistern”, who actually … reads … checks … and then comments, since he is not fooled by … you:
This was published by the blog of Honest Reporting, Backspin
For a more professional assessment of the photos of Silwan stone-throwers being run over by an Israeli car, I talked to veteran photographer and imagery advisor David Katz. He offers four reasons why the incident reeks of a set up.
(The video Katz refers to is here.)
1. The Location
Silwan’s isn’t really the most tense place. Photographers waiting for stone-thowings would be more likely to go to places like Bilin or Hebron. You wouldn’t hang around Silwan unless you knew ahead of time that something was going to happen.
Also, the only photographers who can safely work in Silwan are the ones who are already known to the locals. Newcomers wouldn’t be allowed to operate, and would be in physical danger. I’ve seen it.
2. The Photographers’ Positions
When photographers are getting ready for something, but they’re not sure how it’s going to play out, they tend to position themselves close together. Here, the photographers are more spread out at different sides of the action. It seems everyone wanted to get their own unique position.
Israel has security cameras around Silwan, so there may be CCTV footage of what happened before, during, and after the stone-throwing. If there is, there are a few things I’d watch for. At what point did the photographers position themselves? The other cars parked there: were they deliberately put there? At what point was the back window hit? If other cars were allowed to safely pass before the stone throwing, it would shed light on whether they were targeting the driver [the driver, David Be'eri, is the director of Elad, which advocates for Jewish families living in eastern Jerusalem], or whether they just happened to get him.
If the stone throwing were really spontaneous, the kids should’ve been throwing from above. It’s safer for them, and they can do as much damage, if not more. But that’s less photogenic.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Guardian admits use of misleading quotes in Palestine Papers report
February 14, 2011 in Uncategorized | Tags: Clarifications, Comment is Free, Distortion, Guardian, Just Journalism, Palestine Papers, Tzipi Livni | by Adam Levick | 1 comment
H/T Just Journalism
Buried in their “Corrections and Clarifications” section, the Guardian has acknowledged the following about a January 24th “Palestine Papers” report about former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in a box titled “What they said…”
The Guardian continues:
The wording “MAY” have been misleading?!
Falsely characterizing the words of an Israeli leader, who was merely musing on how the Palestinians themselves may view Israeli settlements, in a way that not only makes it seem as if such views are her own, but, indeed, represent official Israeli policy, is much more than misleading. Its journalistic malpractice, and represents more evidence confirming our view that the story of the “Palestine Papers” was not about the notes themselves but, rather, about a newspaper whose rigid ideology informs almost every aspect of their journalism – where facts and quotes are always subservient to an overtly anti-Israel political agenda.
(See previous CW post on another highly misleading characterization of Livni’s words in a separate “Palestine Papers” story in the Guardian, here)
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