Mahmoud Abbas “is not a partner for a permanent-status agreement in which at the end there is recognition of the State of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people,” Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon told Channel 2 on Saturday night.
Ya’alon argued, ahead of Abbas’s Monday meeting with President Obama, that the Palestinians don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist here and therefore will not agree to end the conflict, end all demands and recognize Israel as a Jewish state – before predicting that “a peace agreement will not happen in [his] generation”.
Though the story received wide coverage, the Irish Times chose an especially interesting photo to illustrate their story centering on Ya’alon’s comments and recent White House talks:
There’s one problem with the photo of Ya’alon. The caption conveniently fails to note that the rockets in the background – evoking the malevolence befitting such a right-wing ultra-Zionist – were not Israel’s. The EPA photo was taken on March 10 during an IDF presentation of an Iranian shipment of advanced Syrian missiles seized on the Klos-C container ship, which were intended to be delivered to Gaza.
The Press Council of Ireland prohibits not only misleading or false claims or reports, but the use of photos which would leave an erroneous impression, and the photo of Ya’alon used by the Irish Times would likely lead most readers, consciously or unconsciously, to incorrectly assume that the rockets behind the menacing defense minister were the property of the IDF.