UK Media Watch prompts Guardian correction to false B’Tselem fire claim

Yesterday, the Guardian published an op-ed by Paul Mason, economics editor at Channel 4 News, titled ‘As Mein Kampf returns to Germany, the world is again awash in hatred‘.  In his op-ed, Mason notes the republication in Germany of Hitler’s Mein Kampf to make a larger point about extremism and racism elsewhere in the world, and how social media now creates “thousands of little Mein Kampfs” each week.

Among his most bizarre example within this ‘international scourge of racism and barbarism’ – a list which included the forced starvation of Syrians in the town of Madaya and mass executions by ISIS – was the following:

orig

In addition to the fact that Mason, who testified at the kangaroo court known as the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, cited “race hate towards Arabs” on social media, while ignoring the far worse problem of pro-terror incitement by Palestinians and PA leaders, note how he falsely attributes the fire yesterday at B’Tselem’s offices to arson.  

As we demonstrated yesterday, though the early rumors suggested arson, the Jerusalem Fire Department quickly concluded that the fire was caused by an electrical malfunction. Indeed, the very Guardian/Reuters article embedded in last sentence was correctly updated, to reflect the Fire Department’s conclusions, many hours before Mason published his op-ed.

We contacted Guardian editors to note the error, and they upheld our complaint. The passage in question has been completely removed, and the following addendum added at the bottom of the article.

addendum

We thank Guardian editors on the prompt correction.

 

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