Though we’ve been posting about the Guardian’s shameful promotion of a report by the NGO B’Tselem, smearing Israel with the false charge of apartheid, their coverage also included an article by their Jerusalem correspondent that contained a clear factual error.
Here’s the relevant sentence from the article (“Israel is a non-democratic apartheid regime, says rights group”, Jan. 12):
In 2017, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia became the first UN body to accuse Israel of apartheid, a crime under international law…
As we pointed out to Guardian editors, that report, accusing Israel of apartheid, was withdrawn by the UN shortly after it was published and removed from their website. The official responsible for its initial publication also resigned.
The Guardian editor upheld our complaint, and added this new sentence concerning the UN report:
The UN’s leadership did not support the publication of the report, which was later removed from its website.
The following addendum was added below the article:
The “Grauniad” is well aware that the impact of an initial degrading report – whether it is lies, fakes or omissions – is never counteracted by a later “Correction” – because readers have moved on. That is why the BBC continues to slag off Israel with its versions of facts – in the safe knowledge that, if it is forced to “correct” afterwards, the intended damage has been done.