Time Headline Errs on Settlement Growth
When Time.com picked up an AP story about settlement growth, it chose to run its own headline: “Jewish Settlers in the West Bank Surged Since President Trump Took Office, an Israeli Settler Leader Says.”
The headline, though, is wrong, as the text of the AP article itself makes clear.
Citing a pro-settlement activist, the article asserts that “the West Bank settler population reached 435,159 as of Jan. 1, up 3.4% from 420,899 a year earlier. The settler population has grown 21.4% in the last five years.”
In other words, according to the article’s main source settlement growth in 2017 was 14,260, which is slightly less than growth over the prior four years, on average.
If 435,159 settlers on Jan. 1, 2018 represents a 21.4 percent increase over five years earlier, as the article claims, that would mean there were 358,450 settlers at the start of 2013. (That puts the pro-settlement activist and the anti-settlement organization Peace Now essentially on the same page.) The jump from 358,450 to 420,899 between 2013 and 2017 represents an increase of 62,449 (17.4 percent), or an average of 15,612 residents per year — a greater number, and a greater yet percentage, than the supposed “surge” since January 2017.
AP’s original headline, “Israeli settler leader says settlements grew rapidly in 2017,” is somewhat better than Time’s alternate headline, but still wrongly suggests that 2017’s growth was “rapid” relative to earlier years. It was not.
Feb. 23 update: After communication from CAMERA, Time.com corrected the headline. It now accurately notes that “settlements continued to grow in 2017.”
More from SNAPSHOTS
Mahmoud Abbas’ Diatribe Threatening Israel Included Bogus Canaanite Claim
September 10, 2019
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent anti-Israel diatribe that aired on PA TV was monitored and translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Excerpt: "I say to [Israel]: Every stone you have built on our land [...]
CNN Calls House’s Unifying Anti-BDS Vote ‘Divisive’
July 24, 2019
Yesterday, in an overwhelming vote of bipartisan support, the House of Representatives voted 398 to 17 to adopt a resolution opposing the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) campaign. Yet, CNN's headline casts the unifying vote [...]
NY Times Cites Poll, Hides Palestinian Support for Violence
July 9, 2019
The New York Times has struggled to accurately describe polls this year. In January, editor Jonathan Weisman misrepresented Pew polling data to describe a nonexistent surge in Israeli support for the United States under President [...]
CNN’s Zakaria Indulges Palestinian Propagandist Hanan Ashrawi
June 9, 2019
Fareed Zakaria’s weekly Cable News Network (CNN) program (grandiosely named “Global Public Square”) June 9 broadcast included a discussion of the current U.S. Middle East peace plan with guests Hanan Ashrawi (Palestinian Authority official) and [...]
In Robert Bernstein Obit, AFP Inappropriately References His Judaism
May 29, 2019
Robert Bernstein (Courtesy the New Press) In its obituary yesterday for American publisher Robert Bernstein, Agence France Presse inserted an inappropriate reference to the Human Rights Watch founder who later turned on the organization due [...]