Night and Day
In the wake of reports last week that on Sunday settlers from Elon Moreh destroyed olive trees belonging to the Palestinian village of Salem, Ha’aretz ran an editorial on Wednesday called “Who will deal with the tree destroyers?” It stated:
In the villlage of Salem alone, some 180 olive trees were torched in May, while 250 trees were choppped down in July and another 200 in October. On Monday [sic], village residents discovered a group of Israelis, whom they recognized as residents of an outpost near Elon Moreh, using an electric saw to cut down dozens more olive trees.
Three paragraphs later, the editorial stated:
Israelis who chop down 200 olive trees in broad daylight, with no interference, and then pack up their tools and go back to their illegal houses in an illegal outpost.
This is what Ha’aretz‘s own news reporters, Arnon Regular and Eli Ashkenazi, had to say about last Sunday’s incident:
Palestinians on Sunday said that settlers cut down more than 200 olive trees in the West Bank village of Salem, near Nablus. The Palestinians told the police that the settlers arrived during the night and cut down the trees using chainsaws.
Ha’aretz has every right to highlight and condemn destructive and illegal behavior, but facts appearing in editorials should at least be consistent with the paper’s own news reports.
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