Israel Matzav

Will the Times correct the correction?

The New York Times new Jerusalem bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren, is still a month or so away from arrival in Israel, and already her editors have stirred up another controversy.

In a report on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual lobbying day—in which thousands of pro-Israel delegates flood Capitol Hill to lobby in support of the Jewish state—Rudoren mistakenly stated that AIPAC is an Israeli entity, according to a correction issued by the newspaper.

“Because of an editing error, an article on Wednesday about a large lobbying effort on Capitol Hill Tuesday by delegates to the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee referred incorrectly to the organization, known as Aipac,” reads the Times correction, which is currently appended to the bottom Rudoren’s article. “It is a pro-Israel lobbying group that works in the United States to advance Israel’s interests. It does not work directly for the state of Israel or its government.”

Even the correction misleads the reader, however.

AIPAC is an American lobbying organization and has a structure similar to other large D.C.-based lobbying groups. Critics of AIPAC—and what they call its nefarious foreign policy objectives—routinely demand that the organization register as a foreign lobby because, as they see it, AIPAC is loyal only to Israel.

AIPAC is in no way affiliated with the state of Israel. It is a bi-partisan organization that seeks to bolster the U.S.-Israel relationship in Congress and across America.

“This outrageous ‘correction’ is either a product of fundamental ignorance or purposeful and malicious editorializing,” said Josh Block, who served as AIPAC’s spokesperson for nearly a decade. “We will see if the editors at the NYT have the journalistic integrity and confidence to correct a correction that is not only factually wrong, but a truly insulting and more subtle way of saying something quite pernicious.”

The cartoon above is an anti-Semitic cartoon that appeals to the 'Israel Lobby' paranoids. One wonders whether it adorns the walls of the New York Times' offices.

Labels: AIPAC, Jodi Rudoren, New York Times

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:20 PM