The BBC’s Arabic news channel has issued more than 130 corrections following complaints of bias and inaccuracy in reports about Israel and Jewish affairs since the beginning of 2021 — an average of more than one every week, the JC can reveal.
The sheer volume of corrections was a signal that recent attempts to “reform” BBC Arabic were a failure, according to a media watchdog, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) Arabic.
Over the course of just two months this year, April and May, the channel published 13 separate stories it later had to correct, including two that described the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70AD as a “Jewish belief” and a “Jewish narrative”, rather than a historical fact supported by archaeological evidence.
The flood of corrections came despite an attempt by BBC management last year to improve editorial standards in its Arabic output.
As the JC first disclosed, Mohamed Yehia, the BBC’s Head of Multimedia Output, sent an email in October to BBC Arabic staff ordering them to observe BBC guidelines on accuracy and impartiality.
His instructions included reminders not to use the term “Wailing Wall”, which carries negative connotations in Arabic; not to refer to all Israeli citizens as “settlers”; and not to describe the entire Temple Mount as the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
But in April and May, BBC Arabic repeated all these errors and had to correct them multiple times.
The corrections were made in response to complaints by CAMERA Arabic.
This year, we want to do more to bless Israel and the Jewish people.
We know that as we bless Israel this year, God will bless us, just as He promised in Genesis 12:3, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Now is the time to bless Israel and the Jewish people.
