CAMERA Prompts Ha’aretz Correction on Prisoner Samer Issawi

CAMERA’s Israel staff has prompted a Ha’aretz correction regarding an article in yesterday’s English edition which wrongly asserted that an Israeli judge and prosecutors agreed with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi when he compared his appearance to that of Holocaust victims. As noted in CAMERA’s Snapshots blog yesterday, the original Hebrew article by Jack Khoury actually stated that the Israelis were shocked by the comparison — a far cry from agreeing with it.

Editors commendably corrected the online text yesterday, and published the following note at the bottom of the article.
 
 
Today on page 2 in the print edition, the following correction appears:
 
 
CAMERA commends Ha’aretz for its prompt and straight-forward corrections of the latest example of Ha’aretz, Lost in Translation. Given the ongoing problem of mistranslations, what steps will Ha’aretz take to put a stop to this phenomenon? How long will the wayward translators continue to remain shielded by their anonymity? Will the English edition begin to identify the translator for each article, or at least name the translator when a correction is needed? Reporters are named (and shamed) in corrections when they err, shouldn’t translators also face the same degree of accountability?

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