AFP Adds Key Information on Arab Attacks in Jordan, Jerusalem

Following communication from CAMERA staff, Agence France Presse today added key information about Arab attacks in Jordan and Jerusalem that a previous version of the same article had omitted. The earlier version of today’s article (“Jordan says to bar Israel envoy until shooting probed,” 10:49 AM GMT”) ignored Jordanian findings which confirmed a Jordanian worker had attacked an Israeli. It also completely left out the reason that Israeli introduced new security measures at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount: three Israeli Arabs fatally attacked two policemen.
 
First, the article had originally attributed the fact that a Jordanian carpenter had stabbed an Israeli embassy guard to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, as if the fact could not be independently verified and simply reported without attribution:

The Israeli foreign ministry said the guard shot dead a Jordanian worker who had come to an apartment to install furniture and had stabbed him in the back with a screwdriver.

It’s not only the Israeli Foreign Minister which said the Jordanian attacked the Israeli prompting the Israeli to shoot the Jordanian. Upon concluding its investigation earlier this week, the Jordanian Public Security Directorate stated:

Testimonies of eyewitnesses revealed that during the verbal argument between the carpenter and the son of carpentry owner, the carpenter attacked the Israeli diplomat who responded by shooting.

Why qualify the Jordanian attack on the Israeli as an Israeli Foreign Ministry claim when the Jordanians themselves agree that this actually happened?
 
AFP editors agreed with CAMERA that news consumers should know that Jordanian authorities, along with Israel, confirm that the Jordanian worker attacked the Israeli embassy guard. A subsequent version of the same article (2:25 PM GMT) included the following information which did not appear in the earlier story:

A Jordanian police report released Monday said an argument had broken out with the Israeli complaining the Jordanians were late in delivering the furniture.

The Jordanian worker then attacked the Israeli who opened fire, “hitting him and the landlord who was standing next to him”, it added.

Regarding the Temple Mount crisis, the earlier AFP article had selectively reported: 

Tensions in the region have been high over the past two weeks after Israel introduced new security measures at the highly sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, known to Jews as the Temple Mount. The last of them were removed on Thursday.

The article failed to note why Israel introduced new security measures: On July 14, three Israeli Arabs fatally shot two Israeli policemen. They had stored their weapons on the Temple Mount and fled back to the site after the attack.
 
After CAMERA contacted editors to remind them that they last week corrected a series of captions which likewise noted new Israeli security measures at the Temple Mount but which ignored the deadly attack which prompted those measures, AFP editors again amended. The updated article now refers to the fatal attack which preceded the measures. It states:

Tensions in the region have been high over the past two weeks after Israel introduced new security measures at the highly sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, known to Jews at the Temple Mount, following an attack that killed two policemen. (Emphasis added.)

CAMERA’s timely action and AFP’s quick additions to today’s wire story underscores the value of the organization’s work monitoring and responding to wire stories in the same news cycle as they appear. With this preemptive work, CAMERA helps prevent misinformation from appearing in media outlets around the world.

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