Though the Guardian’s Nov. 5th report about the Israeli Supreme Court’s ruling on Human Rights Watch regional director Omar Shakir was – as we detailed in yesterday’s post – full of distortions, we lodged an official complaint to their readers’ editor over one egregiously misleading claim.
The claim in question was in a sentence within the article attempting to provide context on the broader effort by Israel to fight BDS:
In its most high-profile use, Israel blocked in August two US congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, from a planned trip to Palestine and Jerusalem.
As we noted to editors, the Guardian itself reported on Aug. 16th that the Israeli prime minister subsequently decided to allow Tlaib to visit the West Bank on humanitarian grounds – so she could visit her family. Though the congresswoman rejected the prime minister’s offer, the claim that Israel “blocked” her entry is not accurate.
Our complaint was upheld, and this new sentence was added to the article:
Israel later agreed to a request by Tlaib to visit on humanitarian grounds on the condition that she did not express her views on the boycott. Tlaib rejected the offer.
This post originally appeared at CAMERA’s UK Media Watch.