COMMITTEE FOR ACCURACY IN MIDDLE EAST REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
The claim that it’s “totally forbidden” to carry or display a Palestinian flag in Jerusalem is simply false. We confirmed this during a conversation with Israeli Police Foreign Press Spokesperson Mickey Rosenfeld. Further, as we tweeted yesterday, the photographer himself has published photos depicting Palestinians with Palestinian flags.
Cross posted from UK Media Watch In February, following our communication with Guardian editors, an article focusing on a row between Israel and church leaders was…
In February, following our communication with Guardian editors, an article focusing on a row between Israel and church leaders was corrected. The article originally claimed that proposed Israeli legislation (currently on hold) would allow the state to confiscate church land in Jerusalem, when the bill actually targeted land which the church had already sold to private (Jewish) developers. However, on May 1st, the Guardian made the same error, which, after we lodged a new complaint, was corrected.
Contrary to the Indy’s claims, the Knesset hearings made clear that the ‘6.5 million Arabs’ number cited does in fact include those living in east Jerusalem and Gaza – that is, it includes all the Palestinian Arabs living “between the river and the sea”. Our complaint to Indy editors was upheld, and the new language reflects the correct information.
Following communication with UK Media Watch, Times of London corrected a story from that day which erroneously claimed that Syrian air defences responded to an Israeli missile attack over Homs that targeted Shayrat airbase. As we noted in our post that day, it turned out that a false alarm led to Syrian air defense missiles being fired overnight and there was no fresh attack on Syria of any sort.
Though we’ve been very successful at prompting editors to revise language falsely suggesting that Tel Aviv is Israel’s capital, most media outlets nonetheless stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that Jerusalem holds this status.
We contacted editors, who upheld our complaint and amended the passage to note that Tamimi will be released in five months to take into account the time she already served.
Whilst it’s true that MOST of the more than 325,00 Arabs living in the city are permanent residents, thousands are full Israeli citizens. Roughly 7 percent of the city’s Arabs (more than 20,000 people) are Israeli citizens and have the same rights (including the right to vote in national elections) as all other citizens.
The original Telegraph language, alleging that proposed Knesset legislation would allow the government to expropriate “church land”, was changed to note that the proposal relates to land sold by the church, and now owned by private (Jewish) investors.
The Guardian error is an important one, because the erroneous claim that Israel is ‘confiscating church land’ lends credibility to an outrageous statement by church leaders – quoted in the report – which outrageously compares the government’s behavior to “laws enacted against the Jews during dark periods in Europe”.