Dr David Abrahamson and The Irish Times

The Press Ombudsman has decided not to uphold a complaint by Dr David Abrahamson that an article published in The Irish Times on l6 January 2014 was in breach of Principle 2 (Distinguishing Fact and Comment) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines.

Dr Abrahamson complained that the article, headlined “Sharon and Paisley shared a belief that their people were chosen by God”, contained a statement that Ariel Sharon, the then Israeli Defence Minister, was responsible for  “supervising” a massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982. This, he maintained, was a breach of Principle 2 because a Commission of Inquiry – the Israeli government’s Kahan Commission – had concluded that although Sharon had shown lack of foresight to prevent the bloodshed, those responsible were the Christian Phalangists.

The newspaper responded that a UN Commission chaired by Mr Sean MacBride had said that Israeli forces were directly responsible, and that argument had continued over the thirty years that had elapsed since the events concerned about the degree of culpability that should be attached to Mr Sharon and the Israeli Defence Forces. The opinions in the article, it maintained, were precisely that – opinions – and were not offered by the newspaper as a statement of fact as one would find on a news page. It offered to publish a letter from the complainant criticising the article and taking issue with its views – an offer which the complainant declined.

In matters of controversy, statements are frequently made in a context that plainly reflects a writer’s opinion that they are true. As such they are, in circumstances in which they cannot be either objectively verified or refuted, plainly unconfirmed, and to all effects, unconfirmable opinions, not opinions reported as facts in the sense in which a publication normally reports what it believes to be facts to its readers.

The Press Ombudsman is not the arbiter of irresolvable matters of public controversy about political, scientific or other matters on which sharp differences of opinion are held and expressed, but of the interpretation and application of the Code of Practice. Contributors to such controversies are entitled, in the spirit of the Code of Practice and in the light of the support of the Code for the freedom of the press, to a reasonable latitude in the expression of their views on such matters, however contestable they may be.  In these circumstances the complaint is not upheld.

5 June 2014

The complainant appealed the decision of the Press Ombudsman to the Press Council of Ireland.

Click here to read the Decision of the Press Council of Ireland