Chris McGreal

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Chris McGreal is a reporter for The Guardian who frequently covers Middle East issues.

1 Career
2 Controversy over "Worlds Apart" article
3 Controversy over "The new anti-Semitism" and "Rising UK anti-semitism blamed on media" articles
4 References
5 External links
- 5.1 Articles by McGreal

[edit] Career

Chris McGreal started in journalism with the BBC, covering Mexico and Central America. In 1985 he moved to The Independent, and then to The Guardian in 1992. He reported from Johannesburg, South Africa for ten years, and then became The Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent in 2002. He won the National Print Journalist of the Year (British Press) award from Amnesty International in 1995, and the Martha Gellhorn Award, given for work that " penetrated the established version of events and told and unpalatable truth", in 2004.[1] In 2006 he moved back to South Africa as correspondent for the Guardian.

[edit] Controversy over "Worlds Apart" article

In a controversial Guardian special report published in 2006, McGreal, who has covered both apartheid South Africa and Israel in his career, compared the two and alleged numerous similarities, citing the United States Department of State's annual human rights report for 1999.^[1] Among other claims, McGreal alleged that Israel's Population Registration Act is similar to an apartheid era South African Act of the same name. The latter categorized South Africans according to racial definitions in order to determine who could live in what land. McGreal alleges that the Israeli act "serves a similar purpose by distinguishing between nationality and citizenship. Arabs and Jews alike can be citizens, but each is assigned a separate 'nationality' marked on identity cards(either spelled out or, more recently, in a numeric code), in effect determining where they are permitted to live, access to some government welfare programmes, and how they are likely to be treated by civil servants and policemen."^[2]

Extensive responses to McGreal's allegations were offered by several media watchdog organizations, including the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America,^[3]^[4]^[5] the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre, ^[6] Engage,^[7] and Honest Reporting,^[8] which viewed his claims as false and defamatory. The Guardian's letters editor reported that "more than 100 letters on the subject had been directed at the page, with roughly three endorsing the decision to deal with the subject, to every two against, most of the latter rejecting any apartheid analogy." ^[9]

[edit] Controversy over "The new anti-Semitism" and "Rising UK anti-semitism blamed on media" articles

Although describing McGreal as "The Guardian's usually excellent reporter" and as an "otherwise excellent Jerusalem correspondent" Arab Media Watch, a media watch organization, has organized campaigns complaining to The Guardian about two Chris McGreal articles about European anti-Semitism. The organization claimed that McGreal's 2003 article "The 'new' anti-semitism: is Europe in grip of worst bout of hatred since the Holocaust?", consisted of "paragraph after paragraph of baseless allegations by Jewish and Israeli leaders against Europe's Muslims, stating that their existence, growth and influence on the continent is a threat to Jews".^[10] It also described McGreal's 2005 article, "Rising UK anti-semitism blamed on media" as "one-sided".^[11]