On December 25, HonestReporting Canada liaised with senior editors at the Globe and Mail pointing out errors in a report entitled: “Netanyahu urges Trudeau to condemn possible ICC probe into alleged Israeli war“.
The front-page and above the fold article by Robert Fife and Janice Dickson erroneously stated the following (emphasis added):
The stalled peace process has led Palestinians to use international laws to hold Israel to account for alleged violations of human rights, including the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, controlled by the Palestinian Authority.”
As we told the Globe and Mail, as part of the Oslo Accords which was jointly agreed by the Palestinians and Israelis, the “west bank” was divided up into three sections: Areas A, B, and C. Israel’s “settlements” are in Area C which is under full Israeli civil and security control, and is not controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Only in Area A does the PA have full security and civil control and in Area B, the PA has civil control, but Israel administers security. There is no Israeli civilian presence in areas A and B.
Following our intervention, the statement was amended to the Globe’s online report and it now states the following:
The stalled peace process has led Palestinians to use international laws to hold Israel to account for alleged violations of human rights, including the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”
As well, on December 29, the following correction notice was published in the print edition of the Globe:
While we appreciate the Globe’s issuance of this correction, this correction should have retracted its previous statement which wrongly claimed that the Palestinian Authority controls the areas where Israeli “settlements” are situated.
As well, HRC took issue with this article’s stating the following:
The prosecutor would also like to investigate shootings by Israel Defence Forces of Palestinian protesters on the Gaza-Israel border during demonstrations in the spring of 2018, when Palestinian-Canadian doctor Tarek Loubani was wounded by an Israeli sniper while providing medical care.”
In truth, we do not know for certain that Mr. Loubani was actually providing medical care when he was allegedly shot. Furthermore, there’s no incontrovertible evidence that confirms Loubani’s claim that he was in fact shot by an IDF sniper. These were merely his claims and the veracity of this situation has not been confirmed, but the Globe accepted Loubani’s claims as facts arguing that he was allegedly in medical scrubs when he was allegedly shot. To wit, just because he may have been wearing medical scrubs, that doesn’t mean he was there “providing medical care”. Just because he may have been shot, does not mean it was from an IDF sniper bullet, vs. the possibility that he was accidentally or intentionally shot by Palestinian terrorists. As we all know, the rioting that took place saw several dozen Hamas terrorists killed when trying to infiltrate Israel to carry out a mass attack to murder innocent Israelis situated close by. They used assault rifles, lobbed grenades, kite bombs and molotov cocktails, and had knives.
As the saying goes, in war the truth is oftentimes the first casualty.
