CNN has corrected a number of items in its feature, “10 Things to Know Before Visiting Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.” That piece was the subject of a CAMERA rebuttal, entitled “10 Things CNN Needs to Fix in ‘10 Things To Know.'”
An editor’s note appended to the feature now points out that it “has been revised to fix some inaccuracies.” Those changes are to CNN’s credit. However, a number of the false assertions remain uncorrected, and should be corrected.
The changes include the following:
• Israel’s security barrier had been described as an “8-meter-high (26 feet) wall of concrete … built to keep Palestinians from moving freely between the West Bank and Israel proper,” which “Israelis believe” has stopped suicide bombers.
The story now explains that the barrier is 8-meters high “in places,” and that it “includes concrete barricades, gates, barbed wire and patrol roads.” Indirectly acknowledging admissions by senior Palestinian terror leaders that the barrier has thwarted their attempts at attacking Israelis, CNN now states more straightforwardly that the barrier “has reduced the number of bombing attempts.”
And improving on language that had initially suggested the barrier was “built to” stymie Palestinian movement, it now simply describes the fact that the barrier has “kept Palestinians from moving freely between the West Bank and Israel proper.”
• Rather than miscast Jews as relative newcomers to the Negev by claiming the Bedouin are the region’s “original inhabitants,” the article was amended to more accurately describe the Bedouin as “some of the oldest inhabitants” of the Negev.
• A map of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip with the label “Palestine” applied to the West Bank (seemingly as a city name) has been removed for the Web page.
Still, factual errors and distortions remain, including the false claim that the Western Wall is “the last structure remaining from the Jewish Temple,” the anachronistic claim that the Al Aqsa mosque, a structure that was built after the Quran was written, is mentioned in the Quran, the reference to “biblical Palestine,” and the assertion that “the international community deems Israel’s presence in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as an illegal occupation.”
Matthew Teller, originally named as the piece’s author, is now listed as a contributor.