CiF Watch prompts Guardian correction to Ashrawi claim regarding 'Jews only' homes

On Nov. 29, we published a post titled ‘Hanan Ashrawi lies at ‘Comment is Free’ about homes for Jews only in Jerusalem‘.

We focused on Ashrawi’s implicit claim, in her ‘Comment is Free’ essay (Supporting Palestine at the UN today is a vote for peace in the Middle East, Nov. 29) that new homes being planned for the eastern section of Jerusalem were being built for Jews only.

Here are the first two paragraphs from the original, unrevised version of Ashrawi’s piece at CiF:

After arguing in our post that Ashrawi’s claim (that new Israeli homes in eastern Jerusalem would be reserved for ‘Jews only’) was false, we also contacted the Guardian’s readers editor to point out the error.

On Dec. 21, the Guardian published this correction.

As we pointed out in our post, the overwhelming majority of land in Israel is owned by the government, and administered by the Israeli Land Administration (ILA). The ILA leases the land out to all Israeli citizens (Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Druze, etc.), legal Israeli residents (including Arabs living in eastern Jerusalem) or foreigners who would qualify for citizenship under the ‘law of return’.

Ashrawi was slyly attempting to con CiF readers into believing that new homes in eastern Jerusalem would be leased to residents based on a discriminatory policy in order to buttress her broader narrative of Israeli racism.

However, as we learn continually from reading the Guardian and ‘Comment is Free’, the mere lack of evidence is not a serious impediment to those wishing to advance preconceived conclusions of Israeli guilt.