Sam Kiley has begun his new job as the Indy’s world affairs editor by publishing two pieces which both include factual errors about Israel. As we noted here yesterday, Indy editors upheld our complaint about a piece by Kiley published on Dec. 10th which contained a wildly inaccurate claim about the percentage of women and children killed in Gaza.
Additionally, we observed that a separate Indy piece by Kiley (“The House of Assad has finally fallen – but chaotic Syria could still be torn apart“, Dec. 9) included the following misinformation:
Israel doesn’t want a stable Syria, as the Jewish state has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967, and captured more in 1973.
While it’s narrowly true that, by the end of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the greatly outnumbered Israeli forces fought back against the invading Soviet-armed Syrian army and eventually took control of more of the Golan than they captured in the Six Day War, they didn’t hold on to that additional territory for long.
Israel’s 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria included Israeli withdrawal from that new territory, as well as from about 60 sq. km. in the Quneitra area captured in 1967. So, by 1974, Israel was in control of less land in the Golan than it had following the 1967 war.
We complained about this error to Indy editors.
I echo my late cousin’s remark to everything said to him ………….
“WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ?”
– and this applies to a wholly antisemitic rag such as the Indy.