Imagine my shock when I heard on Fox News this morning that Yasser Arafat had admitted to making "mistakes." Amazing. Impossible. Completely out of character. But what, exactly, did he say?
Reuters and AP, at least, have two different versions.
"There is nobody immune from mistakes, starting from me on down. Even prophets committed mistakes," said a confident-looking Arafat at his West Bank compound in his first speech to lawmakers since the troubles began.
AP:
"It's true there were wrongs and unacceptable practices by me and many others. Even the prophets commit mistakes,'' Arafat said.
Interestingly enough, the lengthy report by Arafat's own official news agency, doesn't include either of those quotes. In fact, by WAFA's account, this is as close as he comes to acknowledging that any of the mistakes were actually his:
He did not deny some mistakes that should be set right. "It is a stand that requires us to confirm our braveness by recognizing our mistakes, if be, and our firm determination by correcting these mistakes and setting them right," he said.
[ . . . ]
Some people have misused their positions and were unfaithful in their jobs. The process of building up the institutions was not followed up as should be. Not enough effort was exerted into furthering the rule of law and the activation of the judicial system and into consecrating the principle of accountability. We started now to deal with all these shortcomings, Arafat said.
These quotes were also in the AP report. But I'm completely missing the mea culpa, the first person singular here. Gee. Is it possible that the "prophets" quotes were only intended for Western publication?
Of course, what most of these stories fail to mention is that Arafat devoted the first half of this speech to bashing Israel. But that's certainly not news.
Meryl has more on the selectivity of the news coverage.
