“POINTERS for Sharon” (editorial, July 29) points in the wrong direction. To say that if Ariel Sharon takes the “measures” of releasing more prisoners, suspending work on a security fence, taking down more checkpoints, and freezing settlements, then “Palestinian action should be to disarm militant groups” disregards completely the basic imperatives of the peace endeavor the Globe has repeatedly praised.
The road map is not a long or difficult document, yet some in the media have an astonishingly hard time keeping its basics straight. Key written provisos, prepared by an international "quartet" of the E.U., UN, Russia and the US, are regularly cast as irritating "demands" laid down by Israel.
In his July 25 New York Times column, Yossi Beilin refers to the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian situation and progress on the "road map." But rather than elucidating matters for readers, he further complicates the picture with an internal contradiction.
It seems that some members of the media are having a tough time differentiating the terms of the American brokered "road map" from Palestinian unilateral demands on Israel. Namely, while Palestinians have conditioned their cease-fire on the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons (among other demands), the "road map" plan, drawn up by the United States, European Union, Russia, and the United Nations, has nothing at all to say about Palestinian prisoners.
The New York Times has trouble reporting the facts straight about Middle East documents, repeatedly distorting their terms and shifting responsibility — and fault — to Israel. Recent misinformation about the road map by correspondent Steven Weisman is fuel for critics who see the paper increasingly marshaling its news pages to advance an editorial agenda.
In his May 26 article entitled, "Maneuvering Over "˜Road Map' for the Mideast," Los Angeles Times columnist Ronald Brownstein erroneously reported:
Despite dramatic public exposure of the New York Times' questionable policies in handling repeated deceptions by one of its reporters, the newspaper has again misled its readers, this time about the terms of the "Road Map." Instead of reporting the actual terms of the peace plan drawn up by the "Quartet" (United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia), the Times has injected its own language.