Messing Up History at the Daily Mail

UPDATE

Following HonestReporting’s complaints, the Daily Mail has amended its story and corrected all of the errors that we pointed out.

It’s hard to decide whether the errors in a Daily Mail story are the result of sheer ignorance, poor copy editing or a mixture of both.

As the journalist behind the story isn’t responsible for the headline and sub-headers, we chalk up the first error to a simple typo as the 1967 Six-Day War is referenced as having taken place in… 1965!

A second error, however, displays a singular historical ignorance.

Of course, the eastern part of Jerusalem was under Jordanian control from 1948-67 and was not “annexed from Palestine” as the Daily Mail contends. There has never been a  sovereign Palestinian state.

That a backgrounder section entitled “Why is Jerusalem Contested?” correctly states that Jordan took eastern parts of Jerusalem following the 1948 War of Independence demonstrates what a mess the editors have made of the overall story.

While the section does at least get that right, it still manages to butcher the 1947 UN Partition Plan:

In fact, the Partition Plan called for Jerusalem to be an internationalized city. One can only speculate how the researcher behind this section managed to create such confusion.

There is already more than enough historical revisionism connected to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Daily Mail’s carelessness and ignorance has only added to this.

HonestReporting has contacted the Daily Mail to request corrections.