Who Gets the Facts Wrong? NBC or Netanyahu?
Oct. 20 Update: NBC Corrects: Netanyahu Didn’t Spread False Information on Pisgat Zeev Victim
In a highly skewed article last week “about the swirl of conflicting information” concerning the Oct. 12 stabbing in which two Palestinian teens, cousins Ahmed and Hassan Manasrah, critically wounded two Israelis, one of them 13, NBC News charges Prime Minister Netanyahu of contributing to the misinformation (“Dispute Over Viral Video of Shot Ahmed Manasrah Sums Up Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”). Cassandra Vinograd, Lawazej Jabari and Paul Goldman write:
Israeli President [sic] Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the sea of misinformation and misinformation — but himself got the facts wrong, saying a Jewish child had been killed of injured — in an impassioned speech telling Palestinian authorities to “stop lying” and inciting violence.
“An Arab boy fatally wounds a Jewish child and after that the security forces stop and prevent him fro continuing on a stabbing spree and he becomes a martyr supposedly executed unjustly?” Netanyahu told the Knesset. . . .
It’s NBC — not Netanyahu — who is getting the facts wrong. First, Netanyahu is Israel’s Prime Minister, not President. Second, Netanyahu did not say “An Arab boy fatally wounds a Jewish child.”
In his Oct. 13 address to the Knesset, he said (see Hebrew speech here) an Israeli youth was critically wounded, not killed: “An Arab youth critically wounded an Israeli youth. . .”
Unfortunately, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided an incorrect English translation of Netanyahu’s speech, and NBC exploited that error to falsely cast Netanyahu as the purveyor of false information. Indeed, on her Facebook page, Cassandra Vinograd bemoans “the misinformation on both sides.”
Meanwhile, the article does not at all mention Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ false claim that Israeli police shot dead the 13-year-old perpetrator, Ahmed Manasrah. Read here for Vinograd’s explanation as to why.
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