His Excellency Boaz Modai, Ambassador of Israel, and The Irish Times
On Tuesday 9 September The Irish Times published an article under the heading “Dream of Gaza seaport alive despite decades of delay and waves of negotiation”. The article described how plans to build a deep-water sea port in Gaza proposed more than twenty years ago remained on the drawing board. Delays were attributed to the slowness of negotiations between the Gaza authorities and the Israeli authorities and to the impact of the various military conflicts that have broken out over the two decades.
His Excellency Boaz Modai, Ambassador of Israel, complained to the editor of The Irish Times stating that the article was “one of the very worst in terms of falsehood, inaccuracy and distorted journalism”. He opened his complaint by criticising references in the report to a conflict between the Romans and the Jews over Gaza which had taken place in 66 AD as “underhand anti-Semitism”. He asked what had this to do with a port two thousand years later? He then challenged the claim in the article that the first intifada (Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories) had been in 2000. This the Ambassador said was incorrect, the first intifada had been in 1987-93. His next criticism of the article referred to the choice of Gideon Levy as a commentator. The Ambassador claimed that Mr Levy was “totally removed from the mainstream of Israeli thinking”. His main criticism was reserved for the comments attributed to various Palestinians quoted in the article. He argued that these should have been challenged or qualified and that as this had not occurred the article was an example of “despicable ‘leading’ journalism”. He concluded by saying that the article was “riddled with hearsay, outrageous accusation, inaccuracy and pure venom against the people of Israel”.
The editor replied to the Ambassador and acknowledged that the author had made a mistake in her reference to the first intifada, and said that this had been corrected in the online edition soon after publication. He defended the reference to events two thousand years ago as it illustrated that the existence of the proposed port had been “contentious for some time”. He defended the inclusion of the comments in the article by Gideon Levy but said that there was nothing in the article to indicate that the reporter agreed with Mr Levy’s opinions. The editor went on to defend the inclusion of comments about the Israeli destruction of Gaza made by the Gazan people interviewed in the article.
At this stage the Ambassador made a formal complaint to the Press Ombudsman’s Office claiming that the article published on 9 September breached Principles 2 (Distinguishing Fact and Comment), Principle 3 (Fairness and Honesty) and Principle 8 (Prejudice) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines. He argued that the article breached Principles 3 and 8 because, he said, the reporter wanted her readers to think that Jews “have a historical penchant for destroying Gaza” and this had, he suggested, an anti-Semitic implication. He added that the failure of the author to distance herself from a remark attributed to one Palestinian that “the Israelis enjoy our suffering” was a breach of Principle 2, and that it also incited hatred against the population of Israel collectively, which was in breach of Principle 8.
During conciliation the editor pointed out that he had already corrected an inaccuracy in the online edition. He also said that the writer of the article referenced the Jewish assault on Gaza rather than others which had occurred simply to illustrate that Gaza has had issues with its Jewish neighbours on and off for some time. He also said that it was not for the reporter to “distance” herself from remarks made to her, and that the person making the remark complained about was criticising only those Israelis who supported the military action against Gaza. He offered to meet the Ambassador to discuss the concerns that he had expressed but this offer was turned down by the Ambassador.
As the complaint could not be resolved through conciliation it was referred to the Press Ombudsman for his decision.
I can find no evidence of any breach of Principle 2 of the Code. What was reported were the comments of those interviewed by the reporter. Readers will clearly have understood that these represented the viewpoints of the people of Gaza. There was no reason for the reporter to distance herself from the comments she reported. She was not endorsing those comments, she was simply reporting them. The absence of any “distancing” by the reporter did not cause any failure to differentiate between comment and fact.
Equally I find no evidence of any breach of Principle 3 of the Code in the inclusion of references to events two thousand years ago. I cannot know the reasoning behind the decision of the reporter to include references to disputes over two millennia ago but the explanation provided by the editor that these references were included to show that a dispute about a port in Gaza had existed for a long time seems plausible. In any case Principle 3 refers to the requirement for fairness and honesty in the procuring and publishing of news and information. The Principle refers to the method of obtaining and not to the actual meaning of the words included in the published article.
To sustain an argument that Principle 8 has been breached it is necessary to argue that the State of Israel can be coterminous with a race, religion, nationality or ethnic origin. It is my view that the State of Israel does not conform to any of these groups and therefore I can find no breach of Principle 8. To accept that the State of Israel can be defined by race, religion, nationality or ethnic origin is to ignore the multiplicity of races, religions, nationalities and ethnic groups that are found in Israel. It is also to deny the distinction between the State and its people. One can be critical of a State’s activities and policies without in any way being critical of its people. An accusation of anti-Semitism about a reporter is a serious matter and if found to be true could possibly be a breach of Principle 8. However, I can find no evidence of anti-Semitism in the report published on 9 September.
18 February 2015