The New York Times made what some observers are calling the “correction of the year” in admitting the Palestinian Authority does, in fact, pay terrorists’ families.
The original article — now preserved by the Wayback Machine, as noted by the Washington Examiner — took issue with an effort by Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships and a former cable news anchor, to develop a news service that would compete with existing news organizations.
The Times claimed that Facebook’s “Watch” service spread fake news — such as the (entirely factual) claim that the Palestinian Authority pays a stipend to the families of dead Palestinian terrorists:
Once those shows get started, Ms. Brown wants to use Facebook’s existing Watch product — a service introduced in 2017 as a premium product with more curation that has nonetheless been flooded with far-right conspiracy programming like “Palestinians Pay $400 million Pensions For Terrorist Families” — to be a breaking news destination. The result would be something akin to an online competitor to cable news.
Far from a “far-right conspiracy” theory, the practice of paying Palestinian terrorists’ families — and Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons — is responsible for a large portion of the Palestinian Authority’s budget.
As Ira Stoll points out at the Algemeiner, the Times was forced to acknowledge reality in its correction:
An article on Sunday about Campbell Brown’s role as Facebook’s head of news partnerships erroneously included a reference to Palestinian actions as an example of the sort of far-right conspiracy stories that have plagued Facebook. In fact, Palestinian officials have acknowledged providing payments to the families of Palestinians killed while carrying out attacks on Israelis or convicted of terrorist acts and imprisoned in Israel; that is not a conspiracy theory.
Israel’s consul general in New York reacted:
Earlier this year, the U.S. Congress enacted, and President Donald Trump signed, the Taylor Force Act earlier this year. The new law — named for a U.S. Army veteran who was killed by a Palestinian terrorist while visiting Israel in 2016 — will cut U.S. taxpayer funding to the Palestinian Authority as a result of its payments to terrorists.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.