The hoax originated from an October 3, 2001 press release from the pro-Hamas group, the Islamic Association for Palestine.
May 20, 2002
http://world.std.com/%7Ecamera/docs/alert/geyer.html
In a recent column (“Now Isn’t the Time for Bush League Moves”),
nationally-syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer included bogus and
inflammatory allegations against Prime Minister Sharon and Israel’s supporters
in America.
First, she writes, “In fact, it [American support for Israel’s actions] led Prime Minister Sharon to tell his Cabinet recently, “I control America.’” CAMERA conducted extensive Nexis and Internet searches, and found that no mainstream news organization reported as true the fabricated quotation.
The hoax originated from an October 3, 2001 press release from the pro-Hamas group, the Islamic Association for Palestine. It said, “An acrimonious argument erupted during the Israeli cabinet weekly session last week between Ariel Sharon and his foreign Minister Shimon Peres during which Sharon reportedly yelled at Peres, saying “don’t worry about American pressure, we control America.’” Notably, in the same press release, a direct quotation changed from “we control America” to “we the Jewish people control America.”
IAP writes, “According [to] the Israeli Hebrew radio, Col [sic] Yisrael Wednesday, Peres warned Sharon that refusing to heed incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and turn the US against us. At this point, a furious Sharon reportedly turned toward Peres, saying “...I want to tell you something clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel, we the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.’”
According to the IAP press release, the statement was reported on Kol Yisrael. However, CAMERA’s calls to Kol Yisrael confirmed that no such broadcast exists.
Geyer’s second problematic claim is: “Look at U.S. television: One minute, you see pro-Israeli ads saying the Arabs are all dogs...” We could find no evidence that any such ad ever appeared on U.S. television.
Since the Sharon “quotation” and the “Arabs are dogs ad” are preposterous on their face, one would have expected Geyer (and editors who publish her column) to verify their accuracy before including such inflammatory statements in her column.
Geyer’s column, which is syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, is known to have appeared in the Chicago Tribune and the San Diego Union Tribune.
CAMERA
P.O. Box 35040
Boston, MA
02135-0001
Phone (617) 789-3672
Fax (617) 787-7853
update@camera.org
http://www.camera.org
++++
[#2 is above. #1 is another story]
Look how one of Islamic Association for
Palestine's own
**manufactured** news item has become an Anti-Zionist /
antisemitic Truth. You read it at IAP first:
Ariel Sharon: "...we, the Jewish people control
America, and
the Americans know it."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iapinfo/message/2132
It is a lie. Now that you you know, will you stop
repeating it?
+++++
http://world.std.com/%7Ecamera/docs/alert/geyer.html
Georgie Anne Geyer Expresses "Regrets" Over False
Sharon Quote
http://world.std.com/~camera/docs/alert/geyer2.html
June 15, 2002
As noted in a previous posting
http://world.std.com/~camera/docs/alert/geyer.html syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer falsely alleged in
her May
10th column that Israeli leader Ariel Sharon had
told his Cabinet he
controlled the United States:
In fact, it [American support for Israel’s
actions] led Prime
Minister Sharon to tell his Cabinet recently, “I control
America.”
In the same column Geyer also falsely claimed that
pro-Israel televison ads say “the Arabs are all dogs”:
Look at U.S. television: One minute, you see
pro-Israeli
ads saying the Arabs are all dogs...
CAMERA pointed out to Geyer’s editors that the
Sharon
“quote” originated on a pro- Hamas website (the Islamic
Association for Palestine), and that it had not been
corroborated by any
reputable media organization.
CAMERA also pointed out that IAP’s alleged
source, a
report on Israel radio, is apparently fictional – Kol Yisrael
denied to CAMERA that it had ever broadcast any such
report.
When CAMERA requested substantiation from Geyer,
the
columnist first asserted that she was abroad and would
have to check
her notes when she got back home in June.
After CAMERA contacted editor
Bruce Dold of the Chicago
Tribune (which ran the Geyer column), he replied:
Ms. Geyer does indeed cite the same sources you
note
[an Islamic Association for Palestine press release that
claimed
Kol Yisrael radio reported the Sharon statement]
on the Sharon quote. If you
have a statement or
confirmation from Kol Yisrael, I’d like to see it. As
for the
second point [concerning the alleged ads], that is not a
direct
quote from an ad, but Geyer’s own interpretation of
the nature of the
content.
When we informed Dold that the Kol Yisrael
reporter
assigned to cover the Israeli Cabinet [where the Sharon
statement was alleged to have been made] stated that
Sharon had made no
such statement, Dold got back to us
with a different story from Geyer, who
now claimed that her
sources were two anonymous Israelis.
Finally, Geyer’s syndicate disseminated the
following
Editor’s Note. It was published June 14 in the Chicago
Tribune
and Sarasota Herald Tribune and will likely be
published by other papers
that ran Geyer’s May 10 column.
Editor’s note: Georgie Anne Geyer’s May 10 column
included a quote from Ariel Sharon, 'I control America.’ This
quote was
widely reported in the Palestinian press but
cannot be confirmed in
independent sources. Geyer and
Universal Press Syndicate regret not having
attributed the
quote more specifically.
While the syndicate thus admits that “This
quote...cannot
be confirmed in independent sources,” it obscured the fact
that Sharon never uttered the words and that the alleged
quotation first
appeared in a press release from the
pro-Hamas IAP. Since IAP said that Kol
Yisrael was their
source and Kol Yisrael denies broadcasting any such
report, there should be no question that IAP was attempting
to
perpetrate a hoax. The syndicate also should have
written “alleged quote”
whenever referring to the supposed
statement by Sharon.
Furthermore, the Editor’s Note implies that the
problem
was one merely of mistaken attribution – that it would have
been
acceptable for Geyer to use the bogus quotation had
she cited “Palestinian
sources.” However, since these
sources have been proven false, by what
conceivable logic
would it be appropriate to publish the quote at all?
Additionally, the Editor’s Note fails entirely to
address the
other major falsehood in Geyer’s May 10 column, her
outrageous claim that “Look at U.S. television: One minute,
you see
pro-Israeli ads saying the Arabs are all dogs...”
Repeated CAMERA requests for Geyer to identify the
specific ad that led to her “interpretation” have gone
unanswered.
Clearly there is no way that her readers could
have understood that she was
“interpreting” rather than
paraphrasing or quoting from a supposed ad. Since
it is
extremely unlikely that any “U.S. television” station would
have
broadcast any such ad, Geyer and her syndicate owe
her readers another
“Editor’s Note” or apology.