Monday, September 05, 2011

Bad Translation; Worse Political Bias

This report by Chaim Levinson of Haaretz is remarkable for two things:  its bad translation (probably due to a rush job during the night but still, doesn't Haaretz have proofreaders?) and its media bias.

First, the bad translation higlighted in red - I found four and one syntanx goof:

Israel demolishes three illegal houses in West Bank Settlement

A force of some one-thousand police officers descended on the West Bank settlement Migron tonight to enforce a court order to demolish three illegal buildings erected during the past year.

A nightly drama in the West Bank, as a force of about one-thousand police officers demolishes three buildings in the West Bank settlement Migron, 14 kilometers north of Jerusalem. Around 200 settlers assembled and tried to make their way to the condemned buildings, hoping to stop the bulldozers in their tracks.

The incident began an hour past midnight, when approximately one-thousand police officers arrived at the settlement, and started emptying the buildings of their contents. While this was taking place, Regavim, a settlers' advocacy group, petitioned the Supreme Court, asking for a court injunction stopping the demolition. Justice Neil Hendel, who heard the petition, granted the advocacy group a 12-hour stay, halting the demolition.

This pause turned out to be short-lived as a few hours later, the Supreme Court issued another order, this one sanctioning the demolition and ordering the previous injunction void.

The three buildings, built during the passing year, were ordered to be destroyed by the Supreme Court, following a petition issued by Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group. The state initially said it would comply with the court ruling by mid-July, and then later postponed the demolition to an unspecified date during September.

Danny Dayan, the chairman of the Yesha Council of West Bank settlements, who arrived at the scene, said “the decision to demolish the houses was made by the government not the court, thus the responsibility for this futile action lay with the government. It is still not too late for the Prime Minister to reverse the decision.”  Towards the brake of dawn the task was completed, in the places where the day before houses stood, only rubble remains today.

The bias?  Oh, I thought that was more obvious.

Regavim is a settlers' advocacy group

while Yesh Din is an Israeli human rights group.

Pretty simple, is it not.  And subtle.

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