The Telegraph not only joined the herd of independent media voices suggesting that Israel is moving dangerously right (‘US voices unease over birth of the ‘most right-wing government’ in Israel’s history, May 27), but included a straight-out factual error in their report.
Here’s the concluding paragraph, in reference to the inclusion of Avigdor Lieberman as the country’s new defence minister:
Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party will become the most centrist element of a coalition that will represent an alliance between the religious right and the nationalist right.
Leaving aside the fact that the left-right paradigm in Israel is inherently problematic, the current coalition includes Kulanu – a party almost always characterized as centre or centre-right, including by the Telegraph in previous reports. So, it is not accurate to describe right-wing Likud as “the most centrist element” of the coalition.
We contacted Telegraph editors alerting them to the error, and received a prompt reply letting us know that the passage will be corrected.
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UPDATE: Shortly after this post was published, Telegraph editors removed the false claim from the article.