Another Erekat Whopper

By Published On: November 27, 2005

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Recall the whoppers that Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told in the spring of 2002 about Israeli operations in Jenin? That the Israelis killed 500 Palestinians there and in Nablus? That Israel was burying Palestinians in mass graves and hiding the bodies of women and children?

When all these claims turned out to be lies, the media continued to use him as a credible source, quoting him and publishing him.

Today, the International Herald Tribune ran an Op-Ed by Erekat. Not one to disappoint, Erekat slipped in an itsy-bitsy falsehood:

Israel is a nuclear power boasting the fifth-largest military in the world . . .

Israel’s army is not even the fifth largest in the Middle East, never mind the world. Egypt, Syria, Iran, Morocco and Turkey all have larger armies than Israel’s (Anthony H. Cordesman, “The Military Balance in the Middle East, p. 11). And the armies of China, the United States, India, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan, Vietnam, France and Germany are all larger than Israel’s(Cordesman, “Trends in Western Military Efforts, 16).

CAMERA notified the IHT that NPR corrected the very same error last year. Let’s see if the IHT will do the same.

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