BICOM

According to the Times, the BBC Trust has upheld a complaint which alleged that a 2011 report about the Six Day War was misleading and biased.  The BBC Trust is the independent governing body of the BBC and is tasked with ensuring high-quality output. It received a complaint over a five-minute report on Radio 4’s Today programme in 2011 regarding the legacy of the 1967 Six Day War. The report, by Kevin Connolly, appeared to suggest that as a result of the war, Israel continues to control land three times its pre-1967 size. However, the largest single territory captured in 1967, the Sinai Peninsula, was returned to Egypt as part of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

The complaint also noted that Connolly’s report gave the misleading impression that Israel is not willing to trade land for peace. Such a concession on land has been a key feature of Israeli peace treaties with both Egypt and Jordan and continues to be a major part of Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

The Times says that the BBC Trust has upheld the complaint on both points. Quoting an advanced copy of the findings, the report says that the ruling concluded “The combined effect of the two breaches meant that due weight had not been correctly applied, as the item left the incorrect impression that Israel had not handed back territory since 1967. Consequently, there had been a failure to observe due impartiality.”

In 2009, complaints over accuracy and impartiality led to a BBC Trust investigation into reports by Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East editor. The investigation upheld several of the complaints against Bowen’s reports.