BBC Q&A backgrounder on ME talks includes inaccurate information

As readers may have already noticed, many of the Israel-related articles appearing on the BBC News website in recent months have carried an appendage of links to past articles under the heading “Mid-East crisis”, usually at the side of the report fairly near the top and again below it. Here are just a few recent examples:

ME crisis

Curiously, that set of links appears to be a default appendage even in the cases of reports pertaining to the Gaza Strip, which is of course ruled by a regime not taking part in the current talks between Israel and the PLO as Hamas is not a member of the latter body and rejects any negotiations outright.

The first of the links appearing under that “Mid-East crisis” heading is titled “Q&A: Israeli-Palestinian talks” and it leads to a backgrounder from August 2013. There, BBC audiences are informed that:

“In Jerusalem, the Palestinians will be represented by senior negotiator Saeb Erekat and senior Fatah official Muhammed Shtayyeh. Israeli Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni and prime ministerial aide Isaac Molcho will represent the Israeli side.”

Q&A art

Other recent articles (such as this one dated January 15th and this one from January 14th) have included the following side-box which also includes a link to that Q&A article from August 2013:

I P talks sidebox

However, according to numerous sources in the Israeli, Palestinian and international media, Muhammed Shtayyeh resigned from his role on the PLO negotiating team in early November 2013 and his resignation was accepted by Mahmoud Abbas on November 21st.  

Clearly, over two months on, that out of date and now inaccurate information should not be part of current articles and needs to be removed from backgrounders still being promoted to BBC audiences. 

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