Last week the Washington Post published a very long and extensively-illustrated article criticizing Israeli policy on Jerusalem: “Israel Hems in a Sacred City”.
The Wash Post ombudsman responds to criticism of the article today:
[Local Jewish leader David] Bernstein says, among other points, that the article “makes scant reference to the suicide terrorism that has shaken Israeli society to its core and necessitated the building of the fence.”
Foreign Editor David Hoffman, in his written answers to Bernstein about this and other points, says that The Post has devoted many stories to the toll taken by violence and that this story is not only about the security fence but about the ring of settlements, roads and walls surrounding Jerusalem that stretch back decades. To me, that, indeed, is the value of this story.
But my own view is that an article of this length and effort should have reminded readers that 23 suicide bombings in Jerusalem in the past three years have killed at least 163 people, not including the bombers, and wounded 1,200 others, as Anderson himself reported on Jan. 30.
