UK Media Watch prompts Guardian correction to false claim about US and #Israel

In a post yesterday (The Guardian’s Chris McGreal gets it wrong on Israel…again, Sept. 10th) we demonstrated that a claim concerning the US and Israel by the paper’s former Jerusalem correspondent was inaccurate.  McGreal, in a long article published on Sept. 7th, about the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, claimed “the US has exercised its security council veto to protect Israel…more times than the total number of vetoes cast by the other permanent members combined”.  

In response, we cited a UN document clearly demonstrating that the US has exercised its veto on Israel related resolutions only 42 times, while the total number of vetoes by other permanent members is 157.  

McGreal got it wrong.

We contacted Guardian editors, who replied by acknowledging the error and promising a formal print correction within the next few days.  The online edition has already been corrected, and the following addendum added.

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Though we question the significance of the statistical claim in the revised passage, which suddenly found it relevant to note how many times since 1982 the US vetoed anti-Israel resolutions, we nonetheless commend editors on the prompt correction.

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