Kerry Meeting, Relocated in Translation
Netanyahu and Kerry meeting Friday in Jerusalem (AFP/Getty photo by Jacquelyn Martin)
We have taken media outlets to task in the past for referring to Israel’s capital with the erroneous shorthand of “Tel Aviv.”
The Boston Globe and, more recently, the Washington Post have both commendably corrected that error. For instance, the Post corrected March 30, 2012:
A March 21 A-section article about President Obama’s annual message to the Iranian people incorrectly referred to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel. Israel designated Jerusalem as its capital in 1950, although many countries maintain embassies and other diplomatic missions in Tel Aviv because of the Palestinians’ competing claim on Jerusalem as their capital.
Unsurprisingly, Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat is undeterred, and continues to use Tel Aviv as a shorthand for Israel’s capital. (It is problematic when CNN paraphrases Erekat’s statement about Tel Aviv, without quotation marks, and without indicating that, in fact, Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.)
But today’s English edition of Ha’aretz, in print on page-one and online, takes the Tel Aviv-as-Israel’s-capital problem to a whole new level by relocating a Jerusalem meeting Friday between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Kerry to Tel Aviv. Ha’aretz reports:
In fact, the meeting took place in Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv. As reported today by Michael Gordon in the International Herald Tribune, which in Israel is published and distributed together with the English edition of Ha’aretz:
Mr. Kerry then flew by Jordanian helicopter to Jerusalem, where he met Friday afternoon with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. . . .
Mr. Kerry’s meeting on Friday with Mr. Netanyahu was held int he Yitzhak Rabin suite of the David Citadel Hotel.
The David Citadel is in Jerusalem. Ha’aretz‘s Hebrew version of this article does not contain the misinformation about Tel Aviv, making this the latest case of “Ha’aretz, Lost in Translation.”
Update: 7:15 a.m. EST — Online Article Corrected
In response to communication from CAMERA, editors have corrected the online version of the article, which now appears as follows:
Stay tuned for news of a print correction.
July 1 Update: Ha’aretz Corrects: Netanyahu, Kerry Met in Jerusalem, Not Tel Aviv
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