Last week, HonestReporting exposed how an article by CNN obscured some basic facts regarding the history of the Second Intifada.
According to the September 2000 entry in the CNN fact sheet about the peace process, “Riots, attacks and suicide bombings end the peace process.”
HonestReporting acted swiftly and asked Twitter users to contact the CNN editors and demand that the piece be revised. Within a matter of days, CNN moved to update the article.
Whereas the original piece glibly referred to attacks without mentioning the Palestinians, the article now states that:
Clashes erupt between Israeli forces and Palestinians following a visit by Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to Jerusalem’s most important holy site, sacred to both Muslims and Jews. The violence escalates to include waves of suicide bombings and becomes known as the Second Intifada, or uprising.”
While this language isn’t perfect, either, it refers to the Second Intifada by name, and makes clear that the extreme Palestinian violence came after the visit by an Israeli politician to a site holy to Jews. Readers are thus far more likely to understand the reality that the Palestinians severely escalated the situation with extreme violence that persisted for years, resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 Israelis.
