Updated: Ha’aretz‘s Latest Lost in Translation

By Published On: February 27, 2013

Pal prisoner release shalit second stage.jpg
Palestinians in Ramallah await prisoners released Dec. 18, 2011 as part of the Shalit deal, which saw a total of 1,027 Palestinians go free (photo by Reuters)

Ha’aretz, Lost in Translation” strikes again. For the benefit of less informed foreign readers, Ha’aretz’s English translators are once again injecting erroneous information that does not appear in the original Hebrew.

The English version of an Op-Ed by Zvi Bar’el, in both print and online today, errs:

[Shin Bet chief Yoram] Cohen is the man who decided whether to arrest Samer Issawi last August after he had been released in the deal in which abducted soldier Gilad Shalit was exchanged for 477 Palestinian prisoners. (Emphasis added.)

In fact, as this screen grab of a Dec. 18, 2011 Ha’aretz headline indicates, a total of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were released in the Gilad Shalit deal; 477 in the first stage on Oct. 18, 2011, and another 550 on Dec. 18, 2011.

Pal prisoners released shalit deal.jpg

The Dec. 18, 2011 DPA article in Ha’aretz correctly reported:

The second stage of an Israel-Hamas prisoner swap was completed Sunday, as Israel released 550 Palestinian prisoners into the Palestinian territories and Jordan. . . .

A spokesman for the Hamas armed wing told a news conference in Gaza City that Sunday’s release completed the prisoner exchange, whereby Israel freed a total of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in return for a soldier held captive in Gaza for more than five years.

Unlike the English edition, the original Hebrew version of Zvi Bar’el’s Op-Ed today does not contain the egregious understatement of the number of prisoners that Israel released. Thus, today’s English error is another fine example of Ha’aretz‘s “tailor-made” content for English-language readers.

Update: 11:15 a.m. EST: CAMERA Prompts Ha’aretz Correction on Palestinian Prisoners

We expose the anti-Israel lies so you don't have to. But we can't do it without your help. Join the fight -- Donate now
Tell the World – Share Now!

More from SNAPSHOTS

  • Professor John Quigley Falsely Condemns Israel and U.S. Support in His Syndicated Column

    April 30, 2019

    John B. Quigley In his widely distributed April syndicated opinion piece mainly about ISIS, the Islamist terrorist entity, John B. Quigley, an Ohio State University law professor, argues that claims of an imminent ISIS resurgence [...]

  • New York Times Adopts Erroneous ‘Palestine’ Terminology

    April 17, 2019

    In two recent articles, The New York Times has incorrectly referred to the present day West Bank or Gaza Strip as "Palestine," contrary to Times style. References to modern "Palestine" in the West Bank and [...]

  • The New York Times’ Slow Reaction to Hamas Crackdown on Palestinian Protesters

    April 4, 2019

    The New York Times took a slight jab at Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules the Gaza Strip, in a recent story about Hamas's crackdown on Palestinian protesters who spoke out against its policies in [...]

  • CNN’s Zakaria Deals With U.S. Proclamation Recognizing Golan As Part Of Israel

    April 3, 2019

    Fareed Zakaria hosted an eight-minute discussion of the Golan matter at the end of his weekly (weekend) program, “Global Public Square “ (GPS) hour-long Cable News Network (CNN) broadcast. The broadcast, on both CNN and [...]

  • Is a Fake Twitter Account Outed by NY Times Really Real?

    April 1, 2019

    In the New York Times and Israel's Yediot Ahronot, reporter Ronen Bergman relays charges that a network of fake accounts has been activated to support Benjamin Netanyahu's drive for reelection. An Israeli watchdog group has [...]

  • NY Times Reporter David Halbfinger Editorializes Israel as “Brutal”

    March 6, 2019

    New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger Israel, according to the New York Times, is a brute. A March 3 news analysis piece—not an opinion piece—by the newspaper's Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger uses [...]

  • Diminishing the Horrors of Nazism

    February 28, 2019

    There is an unfortunate tendency by some who possess a pulpit -- whether media or otherwise -- to embellish valid (or invalid) points by flippantly tossing out the epithet "Nazis". For example, MSNBC's Velshi & [...]

  • Palestinian Malevolent Indoctrination Exposed; Mainstream Media Are Indifferent

    February 26, 2019

    Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an Israel-based non-governmental organization, analyzes and presents in English to the world the ongoing inflammatory indoctrination of Palestinians in Arabic particularly via Palestinian Authority (PA) television (West Bank). PMW is a [...]

  • Did WCC Activists Attend A Birthday Party Promoted by Palestinian Extremist Organization?

    February 4, 2019

    The video is a bit fuzzy and grainy. But the footage of birthday party for Shadi Farar, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who spent three years in an Israeli jail on charges of intent to murder, [...]

  • Reuters Falsely Links Jerusalem Embassy, Two-State Solution

    January 9, 2019

    The Jerusalem office park which houses Guatemala's embassy Multiple recent Reuters articles incorrectly report that moving the Brazilian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is a dramatic move away from the two-state solution. For instance, [...]