Ynet Did Not Say Abbas Responsible for Israel’s Local and International Advances
The Claim
Ynet News published an article saying that without President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel would have been able to make these local and international advances.
The claim does not specify what these advances are.
News posted on
Emerging story
Accounts and pages on Facebook have recently circulated information all attributed to Ynet news. The posts claimed that the Israeli news outlet published a piece that stated, without President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel would not have been able to make ‘all these advances’ on local and international levels.
This photo is a screenshot of the alleged information circulated by one of the Facebook pages that made a claim.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar investigated the circulating and found it fake. Misbar could not find the claimed news article on the said news outlet. Misbar’s team undertook a thorough search of all published material by the news outlet that mentioned President Mahmoud Abbas from the beginning of last week until Oct. 31, 2021. The team found a podcast published on Oct. 25 this year on who the next PA president would be. The podcast was titled: “Heirs: Who will be the next chief?” Its main guest was Elior Levy, an Israeli journalist.
The podcast discussed how the Palestinian Authority is economically and politically weak and that President Mahmoud Abbas is losing popularity among the Palestinian public. According to Elior Levy, the podcast also mentioned that he’s still in power only because the security forces and Israel are helping him maintain his authority through security coordination.
On Oct. 25, the news outlet also published an article under the title, “Just before the budget, ideological battles in the coalition undermine its stability.” In the report, the Israeli minister of Jerusalem Affairs Ze'ev Elkin criticized members of the political party Meretz, which is part of the coalition government, because they met with President Abbas in his Ramallah headquarters.
On Oct. 27, the news outlet published another report under the title of: “Americans angry over settlement construction: Secretary of State in a tense conversation with Gantz,” which mentioned President Abbas. The report said that Gantz had met with Abbas at the end of last August and promised a series of measures to strengthen the PA in the face of opposition movements.
President Abbas was also mentioned in a statement by Israeli minister Issawi Frej, written in response to Israeli minister Ze’ev Elin’s inquiry about his visit to President Abbas.
