CiF Watch, a CAMERA affiliate, has prompted corrections of articles in The Guardian and The Independent which had falsely identified the three kidnapped Israeli teens, Eyal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaar, and Naftali Frankel, as settlers.
One of the three teens lives across the Green Line. As reported in Times of Israel:
The three — Shaar (16) from the settlement of Talmon, Frenkel (16) a dual Israeli-American citizen from Nof Ayalon near Modi’in, and Yifrach (19) from Elad near Petah Tikva — were reportedly last spotted at a hitchhiking post in the vicinity of Hebron on Thursday night.
But, as was earlier noted by CiF Watch, this was the Guardian‘s headline on June 13, the day news of the kidnapping broke:
In addition, the accompanying article by Peter Beaumont and Paul Lewis erred:
According to Cif Watch:
In addition to the factual error, however, what possible moral significance does Beaumont and Lewis assign to the fact that the parents of one of the innocent Jewish teens decided at some point to move to an Israeli community across the green line?
Additionally, we’d like to know where precisely the Guardian is prepared to draw the line in their use of such a loaded term. Would they refer to even young children (including infants) killed by Palestinian terrorists – such as the family members murdered by terrorists during the 2011 massacre in Itamar, including 11-year-old Yoav, 4-year-old Elad, and three-month-old Hadas – as “settlers”?
Let’s be clear: The Guardian’s use of the term “settler” – as an adjective to modify an otherwise factual description of an Israeli who’s been kidnapped, injured or killed by a Palestinian terrorist – represents a political decision which dehumanizes the victim, and serves as a potent reminder of the media group’s egregious bias even when publishing putatively straight news stories about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
In response to communication from CiF Watch, Guardian editors commendably revised the headline and text, and appended a correction noting the change. The headline now reads:
The revised text states:
The following note is appended to the end of the article:
CiF Watch also elicited correction of the June 15 Independent article by Jack Simpson which erroneously reported:
The amended text now reads:
For additional Guardian corrections prompted by CiF Watch and CAMERA, see here. For additional Independent corrections prompted by CiF Watch, see here.