Earlier in the week, we posted about an Aug. 15th Irish Examiner editorial (Irish Examiner View: Palestinians’ absence means Israel and UAE deal is a farce) arguing that the UAE-Israeli peace deal was a “farce” orchestrated by Washington and Jerusalem to shore up Trump and Netanyahu’s political fortunes.
The editorial then added the following, to justify their cynicism:
If that analysis is dismissed as skepticism veering downward towards cynicism then a reminder that the opening of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial in May ended after just an hour when his defence team requested a lengthy delay. That was granted but no resumption date was set.
However, we demonstrated that their claim was patently false. The judge in fact denied requests by the prime minister’s attorneys for delays, the next hearing took place on July 19th, and the evidentiary stage of the trial is schedule for January 2021.
Though editors failed to respond to emails we sent – where we pointed out that the Irish Examiner reported on the July 19th hearing and scheduled January 2021 trial, thus undermining the claim in their own editorial – they published this writer’s complaint as a letter to the editor.
Here’s the letter, which appeared in the Aug. 19 print edition, and which, as you’ll see, includes an editor’s note implicitly acknowledging that, contrary to their editorial’s claim, that the trial did in fact resume after the May hearing.
Whilst the editor’s note acknowledging error is welcome, it’s disappointing that the note wasn’t added to the editorial that includes the false claim.
I don’t see any acknowledgment of their error at all. The editor’s response gives more details without admitting that Netanyahu’s motion was denied, or that they had erred in denying that there was a date set.