Yesterday, the leader of Israel’s ruling Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, gave up on her attempts to form a new governing coalition in Israel. She called instead for general elections, tentatively scheduled for February 17.
The election campaign was barely 2 hours old, however, before the Associated Press began falsifying the record of Likud opposition leader and election frontrunner Benjamin Netanyahu’s previous tenure as prime minister.
The AP’s misinformation made it into just about every story on Israel from around the world today. I have already seen it in newspaper websites in America, Europe, Australia and Africa.
Indeed the following AP sentence is to be found in at least 100 newspapers in America alone. For example, here in The Las Vegas Sun:
“Peacemaking foundered during Netanyahu’s three-year tenure as prime minister in the 1990s, and his election would likely spell the end of the current peace talks.”
Not true. From 1996-99 Netanyahu withdrew from large parts of the West Bank and transferred it to Palestinian Authority control. His successor, Labor Party leader Ehud Barak, did not withdraw from one inch. Netanyahu also signed the Hebron and Wye agreements. Barak signed nothing.
Are the big news agencies, never going to provide us with accurate, impartial reporting when it comes to Israel?