Mr Adam Levick and The Irish Times

The Press Ombudsman has decided that The Irish Times made an offer of sufficient remedial action  to resolve a complaint by Mr  Adam Levick, Managing Editor,  CiF Watch, that an article it published about massacres in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982 was in breach of Principle 1 (Truth and Accuracy) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines.

Mr Levick complained that the article, published on 16 January 2014 and headlined “Sharon and Paisley shared a belief that their people were chosen by God,” was inaccurate because it contained  a statement by the author  that  Ariel Sharon, the then Israeli Defence Minister, had  “supervised” a massacre in Sabra and Shantilla  in 1982.   

The newspaper said that the same source cited by the complainant had found that Mr  Sharon and the Israeli Defence Forces were indirectly responsible for the massacres and for failing to intervene once they had commenced.  It said it also relied on more explicit criticisms of Mr Sharon issuing from a UN Commission chaired by Mr Sean MacBride, and said that the author’s opinion on this issue, which had been and continued to be an issue of controversy, was one that he was entitled to express and which was not held by him alone.

The newspaper invited the complainant to submit a letter for publication in which he could take issue with the opinions of the writer of the article.  The complainant declined the invitation.

In matters of political controversy, where the issues involved cannot - even after more than three decades, as in this case  - be resolved authoritatively and to the satisfaction of those involved,  exchanges  in the media between the opinions of the disputants can best be remediated by the kind of offer made in this instance by the publication concerned.  

7 March 2014