On February 20, 2023, the Toronto Star and other outlets published an Associated Press story with an inaccurate and misleading headline, “Israel promises not to approve additional West Bank outposts.”
CJPME considered this a serious factual issue which misrepresented the content within the article itself, and pressed for a correction. As CJPME wrote to several outlets:
Unfortunately, the headline is factually inaccurate. Israel has not promised that it will not approve any more West Bank outposts. In fact, multiple Israeli ministers have vowed that last week’s settlement expansion and outpost authorization is just the beginning. Instead, as the story itself makes clear, Israel has made a significantly weaker promise to temporarily ‘hold off’ on such activities for the next few months. As the article mentions, this ‘pause’ does not apply to a coming announcement this week to authorize thousands of new settlement units. Further, as it was reported in the Israeli press, Israel only meets once every three months to authorize settlement expansion anyway, a fact which renders Israel’s ‘promise’ completely meaningless.
On February 27, 2023, the Toronto Star updated its headline to accurately state that “Israel promises to pause additional West Bank outposts.”