In 2021, after nearly 18 years of translating the Arabic media, Mideastwire.com’s core editorial team - Nicholas Noe, Mirella Dagher, Zeina Rouheib, Mohamed-Dhia Hammami and Ibrahim Jouhari, launched our Value Checking effort. Mideastwire.com's original purpose has therefore expanded: To reliably translate key articles appearing in the Arabic media but also to regularly provide objective, fact-based Value Checks in Arabic and English for some of the pieces that we think our subscribers, as well as the public at large, will benefit from in furthering their own understanding of the Middle East and beyond. Indeed, as in most other parts of the global media-scape, the Arabic media also suffers from misinformation, a lack of context and poor transparency, especially when allowing readers to easily understand the sources for various claims.

Our Value Checking Mission

Date: February 24, 2022


Did a former top US official say Lebanese officials were attempting to trade sanctions relief for a maritime boundary agreement?


Lead Fact Checker: Marlene Khalife

Feedback Contact: info@arabmediafactcheck.org

Fact Check Assessment: False

On February 24, 2022, a number of Lebanese news sites carried a genuine video interview with the former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, David Schenker. The official party website of the Lebanese Phalange, however, carried part of the video, originally aired via the French page of the Ici Beyrouth website. In their version of the footage that was then heavily spread via social media networks in Lebanon, Schenker seems to assert: “Somehow, elements of the Lebanese government want to include a package here for the border demarcation that includes the de-listing of [Lebanese politician opposed to the Phalange party] Gibran Bassil as corrupt. I cannot imagine that the American administration would agree to that type of horse-trading, but we'll see where it goes. Hochstein said he's going to wait for another couple of weeks but then he's going to disengage."


The original video, without the Phalangist edits, shows that Schenker was not directly accusing “elements” of the Lebanese government of attempting to use ongoing, indirect US-mediated border negotiations between Israel and Lebanon in order to remove a corruption designation. In fact, Schenker says: “The other thing that we heard in the rumor mill, and of course Lebanon is brimming with rumors, is that somehow, elements of the Lebanese government…” The full, non-edited portion in question can be viewed at minute 13.14 of the complete interview.


Although the news website Al-Modon subsequently carried a report about the truncation of the video, the Phalange party kept their edited version online.


Fact Check Assessment: False


It should be noted that while Schenker did have some harsh words about the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Gibran Bassil, during the interview, and while he did charge that Bassil was engaged in corruption, along with other Lebanese officials who were also subjected to the American sanctions, Schenker did not say that Bassil or “elements” of the Lebanese government were seeking to swap Bassil’s sanctions for concessions over Lebanon's maritime borders.

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