Over a month ago now, on the afternoon of Saturday, 24 March 2007, I woke up late and sat with my bowl of cereal in front of the TV and tuned in to BBC1’s Football Focus. With England playing Israel hours later in Tel Aviv in a crucial European qualifier, I wanted to find out the latest team news.

As I tucked into my cornflakes, I heard the presenter introduce the next segment on the show “Israel in Focus”….nothing too bad about that. but as the video rolled, the presenter Damian Johnson cut to camera and said “While Tel Aviv is the country’s youthful beating heart, Jerusalem the capital is its historic soul”

As I chewed my cornflakes and thought about what had just been said, I knew that Jerusalem isn’t the capital of Israel, it’s Tel Aviv why would the BBC make such a school boy error? Could standards at the BBC really be slipping that badly?

See past ALERT for more details:

Under UN Security Council Resolutions (237, 242 & 405) East Jerusalem is considered by the international community to be illegally occupied by Israel, declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital is an attempt to change this status, and is thus a violation of these Security Council resolutions. Israel's capital is recognised as Tel Aviv pending a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.

MPACUK brought you this ALERT not just because the BBC has made a false claim, but because the false claim is about somewhere that is so dear and significant to Muslims, our religion, our history, and to our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Within Jerusalem the third holiest Mosque in Islam, Masjid Al-Aqsa, is situated. It is the second oldest Mosque in Islam after the Ka'ba in Mecca, and third in holiness and importance after the Mosques in Mecca and Medina. Masjid Al-Aqsa was the first Qibla (direction to which Muslims face when praying). It is the only site in the world where all the Prophets (peace be upon them all) performed Salah at one given time led by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The ensuing campaign to ask the BBC to apologise for their mistake was one that was taken with gusto, and was undersigned by Azam Tammimi, Arab Media Watch, Dr Naseem and Friends of Al-Aqsa. See our Open Letter here:

We have kept you informed of the steps we have taken and achieved. Thus far the BBC has sent many emails to individuals and to MPACUK who spoke up on the issue to apologise for the erroneous claim albeit privately. The BBC has to keep a record of all complaints made, which shows that the complaints the ALERT generated have been taken onboard by the BBC.

The BBC have really felt the pressure exerted via this dedicated campaign and the BBC have been forced to remove the statement from their written article whereby there was an inadvertent referral to Jerusalem being Israel’s capital – part II SUCCESS!!! MPACUK applaud all who have persevered with us in this media Jihad. This proves that via effective, democratic means (in this case media lobbying, aka media Jihad) one can make a difference to counter negative, bias or misleading reporting in relation to the Mid East conflict and actively defend those who cannot defend themselves.

Unfortunately this campaign is by no means over. MPACUK have received a disappointed and meaningless response to our open letter we sent to the BBC production team – another private apology with ZERO acknowledgement to our reasonable request for a correction on their website where the video with the misleading statement still remains!

We at MPACUK will not let it slide. The BBC have totally ignored our complaint for a correction so our concerns have not been addressed at all and therefore this mistake is being continuously perpetuated, with their full knowledge indicating their lack of concern for the need to be accurate in relation to this politically sensitive issue and thereby continuing to be publicly in breach of their own guidelines.

If a number of people have pointed out their error and they continue to let the video be aired with the error intact and no correction on their website, they are being negligent and for this reason MPACUK will be escalating the matter to the Editorial Complaints Unit. We will keep you updated with our progress.

As a public broadcaster the BBC receives a huge amount of money from all of us, with the television license fee increasing to £135.50 this year to support the BBC’s unique position in broadcasting, a fee which will eventually rise to £151.50 by 2012.

Many of you may think, “Well, what’s writing an email going to achieve, it’s not going to achieve anything”

Wrong….
We all know that there is a sizeable Muslim community here in the UK, (and may I hasten to add all those people of conscience, regardless of religion) if we take a very conservative number of Muslim households, which would equate to:

1 000 000 Muslim households X £135.50 license fee = £135 500 000

That’s right…
Can you believe that any organisation would not sit up and take notice when its patronage contributes a staggering 135.5 million pounds every year so that it can continue to operate.

To put it simply, we pay for the BBC and we have a right to hold the BBC to account to any mistakes they make.

We still need you to complain…
Well done to all who have inundated the BBC with complaints. However, we cannot rest on our laurels, now is the time for all of us to double our efforts. As MPACUK are escalating this to the ECU, we ask you to continue lobbying the BBC and complain about the incorrect claim that has been made concerning the status of Jerusalem requesting both an apology and a correction.

To make a complaint via the internet click on this link.

Or call the BBC directly on 08700 100 222

Please remember the clip was televised as part of BBC Sport coverage called ‘Football Focus - Feature: Israel in Focus’ on BBC1 at 12.10BST on the 24th March 2007.

Points to consider when complaining:

*Tel Aviv is the capital city of Israel, not Jerusalem.
Demand the BBC issue a public apology and correction on their website and not just leave the matter with a private apology – the offensive erroneous mistake was made publicly and hence an apology must be issued publicly.

*Informing, educating, trust, independence, impartiality and honesty are the foundations of the BBC, according to their own purpose and values, which means the BBC are in breach of their own guidelines.

*Please remember if making a telephone complaint, to ask for a reference number for the complaint you have just logged.

*BCC all emails to info@mpacuk.org

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