Netanyahu knows a rock from Iraq, Wall Street Journal clarifies
Newspaper issues correction after misquoting prime minister talking about how Moses provided water for thirsty Israelites in the desert
Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been talking about biblical miracles. But to a Wall Street Journal reporter, apparently it sounded like he was was discussing Middle East trade.
“An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Benjamin Netanyahu said Moses brought water from Iraq. He said the water was brought from a rock,” the paper said in an appropriately Passover-themed correction issued Wednesday.
The original report was about a decision by the US Environmental Protection Agency to test a process offered by Water-Gen, an Israeli company, that condenses water vapor from the air.
The article quoted Netanyahu speaking in a video clip filmed at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington last month, in which he lauded the Water-Gen technology as going one better than Moses.
“He brought water from a rock,” Netanyahu said. “They bring water from thin air.”
In the biblical story of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, Moses hit a rock with his staff that then gushed out water to quench the thirst of his quarrelsome people.
Friday night is the start of the week-long festival of Passover that celebrates the biblical Exodus.
WSJ: Water from Iraq, Blood from a Tune-Up: The Greatest Correction Ever Told One of the greatest corrections ever will be published in The Wall Street Journal on March 29, 2018 – sort of Erev Pesach. It is in regard to a story published on… https://t.co/eySrnjMBLY Jewlicious pic.twitter.com/WCYBE2RNIn
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