"To my surprise, the piece was generally received as a successful debunking of Hersh. I was baffled. Wasn't anyone paying attention? The piece was obviously a joke. In an essay about a reporter's poor sourcing and thin evidence, what was Sivan's sourcing and evidence? "Sharp-eyed reporters in Beirut read the article in astonishment"; and... that's it. Nothing else. (Alistair Crooke told me that "For the record - if this matters now in the way articles on the Middle East are written - I have never met Robert Fisk, nor spoken to him, and Sy did not quote him in his 5 March article. He quoted me and what I said to him was subsequently twice 'fact-checked' by the New Yorker staff to ensure that there was adequate sourcing.")
Sivan must have been wagering that once Hersh's critics picked up on it, a new 'fact' about the Middle East would be generated despite being based on poorly-sourced gossip."