This letter is a response to Jeffrey Golberg’s article in the Atlantic of May 21, 2915,
of which selected portions have been widely quoted and which may be viewed in full here
From Maurice Ostroff May 27, 2015
Dear Jeffrey Goldberg,
I greatly admired your investigative journalism as the only reporter who did some serious fact-checking before publishing your story about the infamous video that was incorrectly blamed for the attack on US diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt.
AP’s false report said that Sam Bacile who identified himself as an Israeli Jew was responsible and claimed that the film was financed by more than 100 Jewish donors. But your admirable fact-checking revealed that Sam Bacile was an alias for Nakoula Basseley, an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian living in the US with no ties to Israel.
It is therefore sadly disappointing when aspects of your reports depart from your usual high standard. I refer for example to your excellent hour-long interview with President Obama, published in the Atlantic on May 21, 2015 which was tarnished by a few inaccurate statements relating to President Obama’s spat with Netanyahu. Because of the inordinate length of your report, I will deal in this letter with only one aspect and I will refer to others in a subsequent letter.
Unfortunately the media, to which the president is exposed, too often distort facts, as in the above mentioned infamous video and more recent headlines incorrectly reporting that Pope Francis had described PA President Abbas as an angel of peace, whereas, according to Italian media, the Pope actually said
“May the angel of peace destroy the evil spirit of war. I thought of you: may you be an angel of peace.”
It is understandable that inaccurate press reports may have led the president to misunderstand Netanyahu’s pre-election remarks about Arab voters as portraying Arab-Israeli citizens as an
“invading force that might vote and must be guarded against”.
BUT as an experienced journalist you must be aware that Netanyahu said nothing of the sort and nothing to justify the president’s warning
“if Netanyahu’s seemingly flawed understanding of the role Israel’s Arab citizens play in its democratic order, the consequences could be profound”.
I didn’t vote for Netanyahu but I object to inaccurate reporting about anyone, including the Israeli prime minister. If you check what Netanyahu actually said in Hebrew, you will surely consider it unremarkable that in an electioneering speech he urged citizens to vote Likud in order to close the gap with Labor because Arab voters [who would not vote for him] were being driven to the polls in buses in large numbers.(He didn’t use the word “droves” as widely reported incorrectly). Certainly there was no hint of an invading force or of denying the vote to Arabs as suggested in some reports and implied by the president.
I believe you neglected your duty to draw attention to the above harmful misconceptions and I trust that you will correct them even though, in your May 18 article in the Atlantic you contributed to the misunderstanding of what Netanyahu actually said by alleging “..he screamed, the Arabs are coming!” You will find no suggestion of screaming in the above video of the speech.
In a fair world, Netanyahu’s electioneering call on his supporters to go to the polls would be less remarkable than First Lady, Michelle Obama’s urging African Americans in 2014 to vote for Democrats REGARDLESS OF THE MERITS OR DEMERITS OF THE CANDIDATES when she told “NewsOne Now”
“.. a Democratic ticket is the clear ticket that we should be voting on, regardless of who said what or did this. That shouldn’t even come into the equation.”
Nor was Netanyahu’s electioneering call on voters any more remarkable than Ed Miliband urging “voters tempted to vote for the Scottish National Party to remain with Labour to get Prime Minister David Cameron out of Downing Street” and “the Conservatives campaign against the dangers of a Labour-SNP deal.
This letter is being publicized as will the considered reply I hope to receive from you
