CAMERA Prompts National Geographic Correction on ‘Palestine’ Terminology

CAMERA today prompted correction of a National Geographic article which incorrectly identified the West Bank as “Palestine.” The Dec. 8 article (“The Unlikely Beauty of Broken Glass“), about a glass factory in southern Israel, had originally stated:

A few years ago, [AP photographer Oded Balilty] was on assignment in Yeruham, Israel, photographing a factory that produced concrete bricks for the barrier between Israel and Palestine.

There is currently no sovereign national entity of “Palestine,” and the area in question is more commonly referred to as the “West Bank.” A recent Associated Press article about the same glass factory correctly referred instead to “Israel’s West Bank separation barrier.”

In September 2014, the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post both corrected after publishing an obituary which located West Bank archeological digs in “Palestine.”
 
Following communication from CAMERA, National Geographic editors immediately amended the text, replacing the erroneous reference to “the barrier between Israel and Palestine” with “the barrier between Israel and the West Bank.
 
In addition, editors commendably appended a note to the bottom of the article alerting readers to the change:
For previous National Geographic corrections prompted by CAMERA, see here and here.

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