Following CiF Watch post, Guardian corrects false claim in Peter Beaumont report

Roughly two hours ago (11:00 Israeli time), we posted about an April 2 report by the Guardian’s incoming Jerusalem correspondent Peter Beaumont which falsely claimed that Israel’s reluctance to release the final 26 pre-Oslo Palestinian prisoners was due to Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians first recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

We noted that this claim was contradicted not only by every other MSM report we were able to find, but by Beaumont himself.

Here is Beaumont’s claim in the April 2 report:

Now, here’s a passage from a report by Beaumont on March 31, dealing with the same topic:

As we noted, both can’t be correct.

CiF Watch (and another media watchdog group) contacted Guardian editors shortly after our post was published, requesting a correction, and (though we haven’t received a reply yet from the paper) we noticed that (at roughly 12:45 Israeli time) the report was corrected.  

Here’s the addendum at the bottom of the article:

…

UPDATE at 2:30: Guardian editors contacted us to explain that the error (per the addendum above) had been rectified.

Related articles

• Guardian Group editors fail to correct false claim on Sabra and Shatila massacre (cifwatch.com)
• What about ‘Palestinians want to kill us’ don’t well-meaning critics of Israel understand? (cifwatch.com)
• Peter Beaumont continues in Guardian tradition of callously ignoring Israeli terror victims (cifwatch.com)
• Execution, Inc.: Quick tutorial for Peter Beaumont on an Iranian moderate’s first 100 days (cifwatch.com)