Mr. Mackey - The Map

Robert Mackey has cast doubt as to the authenticity of a map showing the locations of both the IDF and the demonstrators at Bilin village last Friday.  He posted this comment (between 16 & 17):-

Robert Mackey, Reporter, January 7th, 2011, 12:57 am

Thanks, but can you tell us where you found that on the Web and are you sure this is from Haaretz? That newspaper is in Hebrew and this is in English, and I haven't seen any reference to this chronology - stones were thrown first - in any of the reports I've read on Haaretz's English-language Web site.

You'll notice two things:  (a) he casts doubt that stones were thrown first.  in other words, Macjey believes that it is a possibility that the IDF soldiers, without provocation or a first-move act of violence by Arabs, simply fired off tear-gas cannisters;  (b) that becuase something didn't appear at the Wed edition site, it could possibly not exist, which would be a disease of a post-Internet category similar to people believing that phones with fingerwheels never exited.

I had the map posted (here) but the date doesn't appear which, for a doubting Thomas, could be cause for suspicion (although how I could create that map by myself, I don't know).

Unfortunately, it seems I threw out the paper after scanning it.  Luckily, I am also subscribed to the Hebrew edition of Haaretz (don't ask).

So, from Wednesday's edition this past week, here it is, in Hebrew:

The date, for Robert, is January 5, up there in the top left-hand corner.

Exisit.

__________

And catching up on the Shabbat mail, I have discovered that my comment went up and Mackey's response to my words as well:

27.
Yisrael Medad, Shiloh, Israel, January 7th, 20119:00 am
The map appeared in the Haaretz hardcopy edition only. There is a real world where newspapers are still printed rather than onlione editions. I also scanned it and have it in color.

Recommended by 1 Reader .

Robert Mackey, Reporter, January 7th, 2011, 9:00 am
Thanks for your effort to answer my question about the source of the graphic another reader posted a link to, though your sarcasm about print still existing is of course unnecessary when addressing someone who works at a newspaper. My question was about whether Haaretz is published in English as well as Hebrew in a print version. That was a genuine question, not an argument that required a cutting response.


Although it has become common across the Web, I would appeal to all readers to try to avoid adopting a hostile or mocking tone in their comments here..

(Sigh)

We continue:

42.Yisrael Medad, Shiloh, Israel, January 8th, 20115:33 pm

To Robert: I am sorry that my mocking tone annoyed you. I was not aware that you would assume the map was made up or that Haaretz publishes editions in two languages. Or that you would doubt Haaretz's claim that the rocks came first.

To #33: actually, as a result of the Supreme Court's decision, the security barrier is being moved and is under contruction as we write (and as stones are thrown, which means that there is no necessity for stones to be thrown), see: "Israel has begun work to reroute a section of its West Bank security barrier at Bil'in - two and a half years after the Supreme Court ordered the state to return land to Palestinian farmers, Army Radio reported on Thursday. Once completed, the newly routed fence will skirt agricultural land to hand some 700,000 square meters of arable back to the village, long the site of often violent weekly protests." (source: Haaretz - http://www.haaretz.com... from almost a year ago)


Robert Mackey, Reporter, January 8th, 2011, 5:33 pm

I'm afraid you have misunderstood what I wrote in my response to the other reader and to you. I simply did not, as you state, "assume the map was made up or that Haaretz publishes editions in two languages," or "doubt Haaretz's claim that the rocks came first." You seem to have assumed that my attempts to get the the reader who submitted the map with absolutely no explanation of where it was posted online was an indication that I was doubting that Haaretz publishes on paper in two languages (I have since learned that it does so) and assumed that by trying to establish for certain what the newspaper reported that I was actually arguing with the other reader and you. I was not. I am attempting to be accurate and to call a halt to mud-slinging and sarcasm as common features of discussions on this blog.

You are perhaps so used to reading, and writing, blog posts that are essentially arguments that you did not recognize that I was merely making an honest attempt to establish factual accuracy here. People have in the past on several occasions submitted material to this blog in comments threads that was not what they said it was. My reaction, to ask questions and request some sort of verification that this map was what the reader said it was is ordinary journalism in the pursuit of the truth, not sarcastic punditry.

So, all I do is argue?

P.S.

We keep up the dialogue.
^