Haaretz Lied About Rihanna Giving Nod To Palestine During Israel Concert- Retracts Story

The singer Rihanna has been at the center of quite a bit of controversy during her recent Middle East tour. It started in Abu Dhabi where she was tossed out of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque for taking some "inappropriate" selfies before her scheduled concert there, and then posting the photos on her Instagram account.  She's actually covered from head to toe, but that wasn't enough to stop the usual suspects from becoming offended.


Then she pissed off the Boycott Israel crowd by performing in Israel, so much so that the ultra liberal Haaretz newspaper felt the need to fabricate a story. In an article titled “All Rihanna sees ‘is Palestine’, but Israelis didn’t seem to care,” Haaretz claimed that in her song "Pour it up" she switched the lyrics from "All I see is dollar signs" to "All I see is Palestine," and that "she just kept inserting calls of “Tel Aviv!” in every song – never once saying the word Israel.”  Problem is, Michael Dickson of StandWithUs was at that same concert, and although she did keep throwing in "Tel Aviv"- since that's the town she was playing in, and that's usually what musicians do, mention the town not the country- he never heard her say "Palestine."  But it wasn't just Haaretz, The Huffington Post picked up on the Haaretz story and posted it there, titled: "Rihanna's Tel Aviv Concert Includes Nod To Palestine." Dickson, troubled by what he read, wrote a piece for The Times of Israel regarding what seemed to be a complete fabrication, mentioning he had tried contacting Haaretz for either a back up of the claim or retraction, and was being ignored.  Then a video of the concert surfaced which clearly shows she did NOT, after all, give a nod to Palestine, and this eventually led to a retraction by Haaretz and Huffington Post, along with a change of title on Haaretz, but not on Huffpo.

Shameful for HuffPo to not even do due diligence by checking out the video before reporting on the story, and even more shameful for Haaretz to have posted an outright lie.

Here's Dickson's thorough rundown including the video and updates.

Honest Reporting's 2012 Dishonest Reporter Award Announced

And Honest Reporting's 2012 Dishonest Reporter award goes to none other than:

Gideon Levy, of Haaretz

Yes. For those of you who might not know, Haaretz is an Israeli paper, albeit uber liberal.

 [snip]

While Haaretz is entitled to fulfill its role as a critical domestic judge of Israel and its government’s policies, what happened when it published a story that was — quite simply — dishonest?

Gideon Levy’s front page article ”Most Israelis support an apartheid regime in Israel,” backed by a survey, made headlines around the world:

Israeli back discrimination against Arabs: poll (Sydney Morning Herald)

Israeli poll finds majority would be in favour of ‘apartheid’ policies (The Guardian)

Israelis approve discrimination if West Bank annexed: poll (AFP)

Levy regularly demonizes the Jewish state to foreign audiences and in his own newspaper columns. He regularly goes beyond legitimate criticism of Israel, crossing red lines and allying himself with those who refer to Israel as a racist “apartheid state”, promote boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and wish to see the very destruction of Israel.

Full article here.