SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina – When the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7, it brought forth a resurgence in questions and claims about the decades-long, Israel-Palestine conflict. Among them, did Palestinians sell their land to Israelis, thus justifying the current occupation?
The answer — according to experts and records consulted by Öyküm Hüma Keskin, a fact-checker at Turkish outlet Teyit — is complicated. Some Palestinians did sell their land, but the amount of land sold is smaller than many claim. The land sales were also not directly related to the establishment of the State of Israel. For Hüma Keskin’s work, Teyit won the Highest Impact award at GlobalFact 11, the largest fact-checking conference in the world, Friday.
“With this article, we tried to understand one of the most important urban legends about that conflict,” said Teyit Director Emre İlkan Saklıca.
The primary method of land acquisition by Israelis was the Absentee Property Law, Teyit found. The 1950 law enabled Israelis to seize the property and land of Palestinians who had fled the area due to conflict. Before the State of Israel was established in 1948, only 6-7% of registered land was owned by Jews.
“(I)t cannot be said that the establishment of the State of Israel is directly related to the sale of Palestinian lands,” Hüma Keskin wrote, “Because when the State of Israel was established, the majority of the land was owned by Arabs.”
Every year the International Fact-Checking Network hosts the GlobalFact Awards in conjunction with its annual conference, which this year is in Sarajevo. This year marked the sixth edition of the awards, which for the first time included the category Best Research. The IFCN reviewed 113 submissions to select 28 nominees, and more than 240 fact-checkers voted to select the winners.
Here are the rest of the 2024 GlobalFact Awards winners:
Most innovative collaboration
Awarded to the Misinformation Combat Alliance, a team of 12 Indian fact-checking organizations who created a WhatsApp tip line called the Deepfakes Analysis Unit that allows people to submit content they suspect is AI-generated.
The team — which includes fact-checkers from Boom, Fact Crescendo, Factly, India Today, The Logical Indian, Logically Facts, Newschecker, Newsmeter, Newsmobile, The Quint, THIP and Vishvas News — analyzes submissions from across the world and works with other journalists, academics, experts and tech platforms to publish periodic reports on their findings.
The Deepfakes Analysis Unit has analyzed more than 500 audio and visual files for deepfakes and produced more than 14 reports that have served as the basis for other fact checks. They plan to make their database available to researchers and others working in the field.
“We want to be a resource not just for fact-checkers in India but fact-checkers in the world,” said Newschecker founder and Misinformation Combat Alliance Vice President Rajneil Kamath. “We’re happy we were able to create an impact.”
Most creative format
Georgian fact-checking organization Myth Detector won the award for Most Creative Format for “Operation Infektion,” a game it developed to help players learn about Soviet propaganda methods.
The game provides an immersive experience for players, who are prompted to infiltrate the KGB and plan an anti-U.S. information operation. It embeds information on tactics such as the “big lie,” “false flag” operations and the “card stacking technique.”
Players later reach two stages when they have to create and distribute a “fake article,” referencing the infamous 1983 article that sowed a conspiracy theory of the Pentagon creating AIDS.
Tamar Kintsurashvili, editor-in-chief of Myth Detector and executive director of its parent organization, the Media Development Foundation, hopes that players will learn about Soviet propaganda tactics and “identify similarities with current Kremlin-orchestrated propaganda.”
It is a “security challenge for post-Soviet countries and not only for us,” she said.
To reach a wider audience, she said they are planning to launch a large-scale campaign for university students and to translate it into Russian.
“Acknowledgement from (the) professional community is very important (in introducing) this game as (an) important educational resource,” Kintsurashvili said.
Best research
Bagging its second award, Myth Detector won the inaugural Best Research award for “Sexist Language and Gendered Disinformation,” a study that tracked down sources of sexist hate speech and gendered disinformation in Georgia.
The researchers collected and analyzed data from traditional media and Facebook accounts for false and misleading information disproportionately targeting women, gender-nonconforming people and members of marginalized groups such as LGBTQIA+.
They identified sexist and homophobic messages that circulated through these media channels with the goal of mobilizing public opinion on protecting values, identity, the institution of family and children.
Maiko Ratiani, deputy editor of MythDetector, said, “We are trying to share our work in our country, but it’s really important to share this knowledge and experience within the greater community in IFCN.”
