Quel Shockeroo--Ceeb Ombudsman Fails to See Animus in Innaccurate "Tweet" About Israel

The Ceeb's Neil Macdonald has never been a fan of Israel; quite the reverse, in fact. So when he tweeted this back in January--"I lived in Israel, the most gun-owning population per capita on earth. Israelis seldom shoot one another. (Let’s not go down the other path)"--someone complained about the inaccuracy of the statement and its inherent animus toward Israel. Long story short, Ceeb Ombudsman Kirk LaPointe agreed that the information re the gun ownership stats was false. However, he

did not share the complainant’s view that the Tweet reflected a larger, negative characterization of Israel or Israelis. The correspondent has a track record of accomplished Middle East journalism.

If anything, the context of this and other Tweets suggested (albeit without ideal data) that high levels of gun ownership did not necessarily correlate with high levels of crime. (In later asserting online there had been violence against Palestinians by settlers, Macdonald was reflecting widely reported events.) I did not conclude the inaccurate Tweet was anything more.

And I conclude that the Ceeb Ombudsman would refuse to acknowledge an in-bred animus toward Israel if it stood up on its hind legs and began to sing "Hello, My Baby" because that's how blind, deaf and dumb he is.