Here’s today’s story in The New York Times on the negotiations for peace. Buried in the 12th paragraph is the following sentence about Jonathan Pollard, who spied for Israel and is serving life in prison, and whose release Israel is using as a bargaining chip to freeze the growth of the settlements.
Mr. Pollard is a heroic figure in the settlements; winning his release would be a coup for Mr. Netanyahu and could allow him to justify extending the freeze.
This sentence begs for more reporting and explanation. Pollard’s treachery in the 1980s apparently compromised — and may have caused the deaths of — American agents in the old Soviet Union. Why do these “settlers” regard a man who betrayed the United States as a hero? Let’s send someone out to interview them.
You have to continue nearly to the end of the story, to paragraph 20, to learn that the
. . . settlements are widely regarded as illegal.
What does “widely regarded” mean? By Palestinians? Arabs? Other unnamed people we may not entirely trust?
Why not say the simple truth, “The settlements are illegal under international law, a fact accepted by the United States and every other nation on earth other than Israel?”
These two examples do not exhaust the errors and slants in what is purportedly a news article. Is it any wonder that busy Americans, who don’t have the time to do extensive research, are confused?
