Palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi has been sentenced to eight months in prison after a military court approved a plea bargain in which she admitted to assaulting an IDF soldier in addition to three other offenses.
Unsurprisingly and with significant help from the Tamimi family propaganda machine, the case has generated significant international attention and resulting criticism of Israel.
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We found two media outlets that omitted some significant information from their coverage. Tamimi’s sentence will include time already served since her arrest four days after the incident, meaning she is slated to be released in the summer.
Neither The Independent nor ABC News Australia included this information, leaving readers to assume that Tamimi’s eight month sentence would be starting from now, further contributing to the poor optics that this case has resulted in for Israel.
The case of ABC News was particularly concerning given that its story was sourced to both Reuters and AP, which had included the relevant information about the sentence in their coverage. Why would ABC News edit the information out of its copy?
Following complaints from HonestReporting, The Independent added the following:
“With time already served taken into account, Tamimi will remain in prison for a further five months.”
ABC News Australia also amended its text from this:
to this:
While the amendments to these stories are welcome, a question mark remains concerning so many reports we saw in the international media. Why were the actual terms of the plea bargain that Tamimi accepted omitted by most of the mainstream media?
Was it a reluctance to acknowledge that their oh so innocent and heroic Palestinian icon had actually admitted to the aggravated assault of an IDF soldier, incitement to violence and disrupting soldiers on two other occasions?
