IRIS Exposes 2 Anti-Israel New York Times Falsehoods

Note: This widely circulated story is not one about Times errors. That's how it started, but it turned into one about an attempt to push an entirely revisionist definition of "Jerusalem" that has no basis whatsoever in fact, law or history. The Times refuses to even clarify that this is the contention of one party to the conflict.

In today's New York Times, Jerusalem "buearu chief" [sic] Steven Erlanger presents two anti-Israel falsehoods. Here is the first:

During the first gulf war, in 1991, she says, the Israelis, under the threat of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons and Scud missiles, handed out gas masks - but only to the guests, not to the Palestinian staff of the hotel.

Here are the facts:

During the Gulf War in 1991, Israel distributed gas masks to every Israeli citizen [i.e. Jewish and Arab] but not to the local Arab population of the West Bank and Gaza. After a petition to the Supreme Court, the court ordered the army to distribute gas masks to the local population, as well.

Here is the second distortion:

But the Israeli security barrier - a large concrete wall through most of Jerusalem - just makes her angry.

Here is a map of the security barrier, which largely follows the border of Jerusalem as it stood when Israel regained the territory during the 1967 Six Day War. It appears there are two very small areas where the barrier enters the boundaries of Jerusalem at all, in each case to keep an Arab population area contiguous. It is therefore not fair to speak of the security barrier going "through Jerusalem" at all. Rather, it will enclose Jerusalem on three sides when complete.

Here are some past quotes from Erlanger. When reading the first, consider that the formal definition of philanthropy is "love of humanity."

On Hamas: "the Islamic group that combines philanthropy and militancy"

On Arafat: "heroic history"

On Abbas: "intelligent, proud, committed to nonviolence -- is admired by Israel and the United States"

On Israeli complaints to Abbas about terrorism: "may seem self-serving"

Update (Oct. 31): An extremely interesting correspondence with the Tmes has been going on in reaction to the errors I exposed here. Read the whole thing, but Here is a paraphrase of the highlights of this parody (text in quotes below are verbatim) of the correspondence between an attorney reader of the Mediacrity blog and Deputy Foreign Editor Ethan Bonner:

Reader: It is not true, as your article asserts, that there is "a large concrete wall through most of Jerusalem." It goes around it. Here's the map as evidence.

Deputy Foreign Editor: "There is indeed a tall concrete wall through large parts of Jerusalem."

Reader: No it goes around. "That's, of course, different from "through Jerusalem", and the difference is probably correction worthy"

Deputy Foreign Editor: "you can't possibly be serious."

Reader: "But it looks to me that the" barrier "largely tracks the Jerusalem municipal border...which would make the wall not 'through Jerusalem', am I wrong?"

Deputy Foreign Editor: "while most of that wall does indeed follow the municipal boundary, some of it...do not. [sic] from the point of view of palestinians living in those areas, the barrier feels very much like it is going through their city?

To sum up, first the point was denied out of hand. Then it was accepted (with the minor exceptions I had originally specified), but apparently the New York Times has changed its definition of "Jerusalem" from the actual boundaries of the city to what local Arabs "feel it is."

The Deputy Foreign Editor ignored the second falsehood I hed reported. Read the whole exchange at Mediacrity. Kudos for following up on this story so tenaciously.

Update (Oct. 31): Why is the New York Times obstinately refusing to correct an obvious mistake? Why is the "paper of record" admitting that it is throwing out historical borders as evidence in favor of what the barrier "feels like from the point of view of the Palestinians?"

I realized the explanation must be that this New York Times "error" represents a long-running Arab disinformation campaign. Here are a few of the many sites spreading this myth:

Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign: The Wall Weaving through Jerusalem

The Wall that is Slicing through East Jerusalem

Here is a map stating the same fiction:



Here's another "map of the wall cutting through occupied East Jerusalem."

One may wonder if the Arabs have had a different definition of "Jerusalem" when it was controlled by Jordan from 1949 until 1967. This is not the case. The areas that these sites above claim as Jerusalem were not included then, as this map shows. As an example, one of the above sites mentions the "Abu Dis area in Jerusalem." Both historical maps above show that Abu Dis was always considered outside of Jerusalem. Additionally, the small pieces of two neighborhoods (Shuafat and Kafr Aqab) that the Deputy Foreign Editor compained were cut out of Jerusalem were clearly not part of Jordanian Jerusalem.

Let me restate the facts: the security barrier encircles Jerusalem along its municipal border (as much as possible) to separate it from the West Bank. That is the formerly Jordanian territory from which most of the suicide bombings and sniper fire directed at Jerusalem have emanated. The "paper of record" has dropped factual evidence as a standard and essentially now claims to be the "paper of feelings." This is a euphemism for the "paper of propaganda."

Update (Nov. 3):
TimesWatch has more on Erlanger's biased reporting.

Update (Nov. 15): Other media sources are running the same anti-Israel error:
"The concrete wall through Jerusalem carves out Arab enclaves in the city" (Oct. 18, Guardian)

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