Ha'aretz twists poll, Guardian and JC follow but JC then has second thoughts


By Jonathan Hoffman
October 23, 2012
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Ha'aretz's resident Israel-hating columnist Gideon Levy has deliberately fed the international media a skewed and biased reading of a poll, in order to promote his treachery.

As always the Guardian quickly picked up the non-story:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/23/israeli-poll-majority-aparth...

So did the JC under the deadline "Israeli Jews against giving up West Bank" by Anna Sheinman. The story began "The majority of Israeli Jews would support apartheid measures in Israel if the West Bank were to be annexed."

But a JC editor must have quickly realised that the story was twisted - and it was taken down.

Here is Honest Reporting's demolition of Ha'aretz's compete and utter disgusting distortion of the poll:

http://honestreporting.com/haaretz-creates-non-existent-apartheid-state/

Postscript:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-new-israeli-apar...

It goes without saying that the Independent has picked up the story completely uncritically

Even Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times tweeted that the poll was a 'push poll' - in other words, a poll with questions designed to elicit the responses that the biased pollsters want.

Postscript:

Here was the JC's second take on this story:

http://www.thejc.com/news/israel-news/88058/shock-%EF%AC%81ndings-aparth...

COMMENTS

zaheerayin

Wed, 10/24/2012 - 12:55

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-1 points

I do so wish this election would come and go. It's wearing me out!

suzanna

Wed, 10/31/2012 - 15:12

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0 points

However much you try to hide the truth imagine if a poll was to reveal the following:

42% (of Norwegians) object to their children going to the same schools as Jews

33% (Of French) object to French Jews having the right to vote

49% (Of Italians) want the state to treat Catholics better than Jews

42% (Of Belgians) would not want to live in the same building as a Jew

These are the percentages of Israelis who agree on the above regarding fellow citizens who happen to be Arabs. Nice.

happygoldfish

Wed, 10/31/2012 - 16:13

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-1 points
ha'aretz also has had second thoughts …

see ha'aretz's oct 29th analysis 'Apartheid’ poll: Errors that traveled round the world

btw, does anyone know where the original poll results can be found?

suzanna

Wed, 10/31/2012 - 16:49

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0 points

And others have their opinion consolidated:

http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/4520-poll-confirms...

Real Real Zionist

Wed, 10/31/2012 - 17:17

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1 point

"ha'aretz also has had second thoughts..."

That is not Haaretz having second thoughts, that's an opinion piece by a freaking employee from BICOM!!!

zaheerayin

Wed, 10/31/2012 - 18:41

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1 point

What a tangled web they weave....

joemillis1959

Wed, 10/31/2012 - 19:18

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0 points

b?

happygoldfish

Wed, 10/31/2012 - 19:50

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if honest people want a reliable poll, they go to an organisation whose business is conducting polls, and ask them to write the questions

but the goldblum questions were written by what gideon levy himself calls "a group of academia-based peace and civil rights activists"
as a result, their questions were not only unclear, but were designed simply to achieve the answers they wanted

(and there are the further problems that the original hebrew questions have apparently not been directly translated, and neither the english nor hebrew versions are anyway available for inspection)

suzanna: … imagine if a poll was to reveal the following:
42% (of Norwegians) object to their children going to the same schools as Jews

suzanna: first, we don't know what the question was (it isn't in any ha'aretz article), and second, we could easily get a similar result in almost any country if we asked the right question

in many countries, most parents send their children to religious schools … in a survey, would northern irish protestants who send their children to protestant schools answer that they would object to those schools admitting catholics (and vice versa)?

it's not difficult to word a question so that jews who choose a jewish school would answer that they don't want non-jews there

and of course, we're not told whether the question said "would you prefer" "would you mind" "would you object" …

suzanna: … 42% (Of Belgians) would not want to live in the same building as a Jew

(are you being deliberately misleading, suzanna? even in ha'aretsz, it was "with arabs", not "with an arab")

again, we don't know what the question was … it would be easy to word a survey in england designed to get people of one race to answer that, given a choice, they would prefer to live in a building with people of the same race

suzanna: … 33% (Of French) object to French Jews having the right to vote

if british people were asked "if britain annexed china, should the chinese be given the vote (for westminster)", then of course most would answer "no!" …

that doesn't mean that the british think chinese people shouldn't be allowed to vote!

the goldblum question was almost identical

the simple fact is, the questions should have been written by independent experts, not by people who wanted particular answers

Real Real Zionist

Thu, 11/01/2012 - 11:41

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0 points

Keep wriggling happy as is the wont of goldfish.

First an honest person would not wilfully represent an op ed by a BICOM researcher as a back track by Haaretz.

Second an honest person would not transplant answers of one question as answers to another. Something like a third said that Israeli Arabs should not be able to vote in elections for the knesset. That was a different one to the hypothetical " if Israel were to annexe...." question.

"if british people were asked "if britain annexed china, should the chinese be given the vote (for westminster)", then of course most would answer "no!" "

They would ?…

"(are you being deliberately misleading, suzanna? even in ha'aretsz, it was "with arabs", not "with an arab") "

And the difference is ?

I have seen a list of the people that set the questions and the questions but I can't remember where. I will find it. My recall is that the style was a kinda multiple choice and the respondents were asked which was closest to their position, opinion.

Real Real Zionist

Thu, 11/01/2012 - 11:55

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0 points

For example re the seperate roads question. I think it went like this

which of these is closest tou your position

A ) It is a good thing.

B) It is a bad thing but necessary.

C) It is a bad thing and should be stopped

Something like that.

BTW Dialog are an organisation favoured by BICOM in the recent past. As recently as the announcement of Israeli elections in January.

happygoldfish

Thu, 11/01/2012 - 12:31

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Real Real Zionist: First an honest person would not wilfully represent an op ed by a BICOM researcher as a back track by Haaretz.

as you know, headlines are written by the newspaper sub-editors, not by the author of the article itself

the headline was 'Apartheid’ poll: Errors that traveled round the world … this clearly justifies my description that ha'aretz "has had second thoughts"

(and of course the headline of the original article was also written by a sub-editor … ha'aretz subsequently admitted "CLARIFICATION: The original headline for this piece, 'Most Israelis support an apartheid regime in Israel,' did not accurately reflect the findings of the Dialog poll." )

Real Real Zionist: Second an honest person would not transplant answers of one question as answers to another.

no, an honest person would accidentally transplant answers of one question as answers to another, if you hadn't provided a link or otherwise made it clear which question you were referring to , and would then admit his mistake

Real Real Zionist: I have seen a list of the people that set the questions and the questions but I can't remember where. I will find it. My recall is that the style was a kinda multiple choice and the respondents were asked which was closest to their position, opinion..

Real Real Zionist: … I think it went like this …

you think it went like that?

yes, i've seen something like that too, but i don't think it claimed to be the actual question (not even a translation of it!)

when you've found it, then quote it, and provide a link

until then, all we know is that the questions were written by people who wanted particular answers …

(gideon levy: "The questions were written by a group of academia-based peace and civil rights activists.")

Real Real Zionist

Thu, 11/01/2012 - 12:57

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you think it went like that?
yes, i've seen something like that too, but i don't think it claimed to be the actual question (not even a translation of it!)
when you've found it, then quote it, and provide a link

Sure sure I am not trying to make anything of this, like I said just a recollection.A hazy one.

I do know that headlines are written by sub editors whose job it is to come up with attention grabbing headlines relative to the content of the article.That doesn't mean concurrence with the content. YOU claimed that that added up to a back track by Haaretz. I suspect you hoped it wouldn't be noticed who had written it ( encouraged by the article being behind a paywall. )

"until then, all we know is that the questions were written by people who wanted particular answers "

We do ? How ?…

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