Presspectiva’s Amiur Exposes Haaretz Publisher’s Bias
For years now, CAMERA has been documenting Haaretz biased mistranslations for its English-language readers in a feature called “Haaretz, Lost in Translation.” An article by CAMERA Israel Director Tamar Sternthal, entitled “Distorted Haaretz English Translations on the Israeli Political Agenda.” explains how CAMERA and its Israeli branch, Presspectiva, have brought the problem to the Israeli public’s attention.
Presspectiva Editor Hanan Amiur exposes the extent of Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken’s anti-Zionist bias in an article published on “MIDA”, an Israeli news magazine focusing on the media. In the article, “Haaretz Publisher Amos Schoken: If Palestinian Stabber is a Terrorist, IDF Soldier is a Murderer,” available both in Hebrew and in English. Amior writes about his own communication with Schocken:
Presspectiva asked Amos Schocken, publisher of Ha’aretz, to explain why the paper has systematically concealed from readers of the English edition the fact that the Palestinian who was shot was a terrorist. In response, he referred us to two news items published in the English edition in which the Palestinian was, in fact, described as an “attacker.” He also added a more comprehensive explanation: “In many cases, the raw information in Hebrew reaches the editorial staff of the Hebrew and English editions at the same time, and then, the English edition translates it, and each edition edits the item separately. The result is that there are differences in both the wording of the item and the headlines.”
Schocken also added a surprising comment, noting that if he has an issue, it is with the editors of the Hebrew edition, who he believes are not sufficiently even-handed in their reporting. “Perhaps the presumption of innocence makes it necessary to be careful about reporting in this way: If they write ‘soldier,’ then they must write ‘Palestinian.’ If we ignore the presumption of innocence and write ‘terrorist,’ then we should write ‘murderer.’”
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