French editor objects to article

To the editor in chief of ynetnews.com

Sir,

The article by Diana Bahur-Nir, entitled "Tourism Ministry takes on French Jews" placed on your website, Wednesday, July 13 (and still on it today), shocked me.

First of all, as editor in chief of Actualité Juive, the only weekly independent Jewish paper in France, I just

don’t understand how it is possible that one of your journalists should write an article mostly about me, and my writings without getting in touch with me….It is contrary to the basis journalistic code of ethics.

Mentioning my editorial, she misquotes me several times and translates with an amazing number of mistakes.

I will just mention one or two gems. When I write : "If a certain number of Jews are ready to pay

unbelievable prices to pray at the Kotel," your journalist writes: "How long must we continue to be slaughtered just to pray at the Western Wall?" No comment…

Your journalist also writes, "Ministry ads, along with private companies associated with the ministry,

account for hundreds of millions of shekels annually." Any normal person would know that this is totally

unbelievable. You and your readers have to know that the ministry of Tourism spent 2,500 euros (NIS 13,500) for adverts in our paper since January 2005….

Last but not least, I have no idea where your journalist found that I "eventually apologized for the articles

and promised to write articles painting Israel in a positive light." I never uttered such words. I consider those words totally libellous and they are a moral wrong for me.

The last thing I want to add is that if we devoted the front pages of that issue to tourism, the idea was to

encourage tourism specialists in Israel to face facts and eventually to double the number of French Jewish tourists in Israel.

For a quarter of a century, Actualité Juive has been an unconditional supporter of Israel (everybody in the

French Jewish community can testify) and will always be. Zionism is and will always be one of the pillars of the paper. We won’t accept any accusation based on assumptions far away from the truth. You also have to know that the articles were reflecting the feelings of the whole Jewish community of France, which gave us its total support.

I ask you to publish this right of reply. The article you published was extremely harmful for our paper and

for me. Should you not publish it very soon, I would ask our lawyers to deal with the issue.

Yours Sincerely,

Mr. Serge Benattar

Director and editor in chief of Actualité Juive