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Monday, September 26, 2011

Fact checking the detractors of the fact checkers of Abbas


AP issued a "fact check" of Abbas' speech on Friday.

Roi Maor of +972 magazine pretends to demolish AP's arguments, using his own bizarre definitions of "facts."

It is too tedious to list each of the three texts here, but if you are interested, follow the links. Here is my response on the 972mag site::



Abbas was wrong that the Pals live "under the only occupation in the world." Maor changes the definition in order to argue, but in fact there are quite a few. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_occupations

Abbas didn't use the term "prisoners of conscience" but "political prisoners." Some are indeed political, some are terrorists. Both AP and Maor are wrong here.

Abbas said that Palestine is the Holy Land and specifically mentioned the (purported) Muslim and Christian history there, deliberately excluding the older and uncontested Jewish ties to the land. it was obviously not an oversight. AP is correct, Maor is wrong.

AP is accurate in saying that the Palestinians rejected two peace offers. Maor doesn't prove otherwise, merely claiming it is "inaccurate."

AP accurately notes that the conflict predates settlements. Maor ignores this.

So while AP wasn't perfect, Maor is being quite deceptive in his tendentious argument against it.