UPDATE
Following our complaint, The Independent has removed the offending tweet.
The Independent has published a story on senior South African politicians and public figures showing solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike. The article is seriously imbalanced and amounts to nothing more than a means of highlighting a publicity stunt and promoting the Israeli apartheid libel.
Also included in the story is an embedded tweet:
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! #DignityStrikeSA @ the Western Cape Picket. pic.twitter.com/X0ORsphfhE
— #DignityStrikeSA (@fpppsouthafrica) May 15, 2017
The text and the chanting in the video: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” is commonly regarded as a blatant call for Israel’s destruction as it refers to all of the territory from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, which includes not only the West Bank and Gaza but Israel as well.
Is this message an appropriate one to include in an article in a mainstream media outlet with no explanation?
As for the article itself, The Independent gives significant space for a South African minister to compare Israel to apartheid South Africa and even to “note the growing number of South African Jews who have joined this 24-hour fast and are in protest against Israel’s discriminatory policies.” The article fails to follow up on this unverified claim.
Meanwhile, jailed terrorist Marwan Barghouti is described merely as “a popular Palestinian leader jailed by Israel for life for five murders,” while there is no official Israeli voice to explain the favorable conditions in Israeli prisons and how the hunger strike is motivated by internal Palestinian politics.
HonestReporting has contacted The Independent to request that the inciteful tweet is removed.
You can also send your considered comments about the article to The Independent – [email protected]
