Monday, August 01, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
Palestinian swimmer Mary al-Atrash can't wait to make a splash at the Rio Olympics in August...
The 22-year-old university graduate's preparations have been hampered because she does not have an Olympic-sized pool to train in. There are none in the Palestinian territories and she has to settle for a 25-meter pool.
Use of superior Israeli facilities and training partners in nearby Jerusalem where there are several Olympic-sized pools and many swimmers, has not been possible due to the long-standing conflict with Israel.
Unfortunately, Reuters did not bother to do any fact checks.
Israel's COGAT showed that the story was a lie on July 20, using a Mondoweiss version of the story.
FACT CHECK: Mary al-Atrash CAN train for the Olympics in Jerusalem, if she ever applied for a permit.Reuters wrote its story without asking Israel whether it was true, and it didn't correct it. Which pretty much tells you all you need to know about Reuters' lack of objectivity.
The Olympic candidate, Mary al-Atrash, claimed she cannot train for the Rio Olympics due to “Israeli Restrictions”. However, we found Mary never applied for a permit to train in Jerusalem in the first place.
Rather than investigate the truth, it's a shame that media outlets such as Mondoweiss use these stories to paint Israel in a negative light.
We wish Mary the best of luck at the 2016 Rio Olympics and hope she will come train in Jerusalem upon her return.
(CORRECTION: I originally wrote this thinking that Mondoweiss story was written first and Reuters had copied it, but it was the other way around; the Reuters story was June 28, not July 28 as I had mistakenly thought. H/T Simon.)
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