Dear Stephen,

I just read the following story on BBC News Online: news.bbc.co.uk

I think it is crucial that the BBC clearly identifies that the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Ghazzah are illegal establishments according to our government and that they are also in breach of international law.
I attended a seminar on Palestine at the weekend where I was given a shocking statistic: the majority of the British public apparently believes that Arabs are occupying Israeli land rather than vice versa. This is truly stupefying.

Therefore, it is imperative that newspapers and the broadcast media regularly remind readers/viewers of historical facts.

yours faithfully,

Mr Inayat Bunglawala
Secretary,
Media Committee,
The Muslim Council of Britain

Response from Stephen Whittle:
I investigated and this is the response:We have added in a line to the latest version of that story to make clear that settlements are illegal under international law. We have a standing editorial policy on this which is to state it where relevant - clearly in this story it is relevant. These are the guidelines for your information:

SETTLEMENTS: Israeli settlements are "illegal under international law" - this is correct and we should make this point where relevant. We should avoid repeating it automatically in every story - that might give the impression we are on some sort of campaign. But where it's important to the context we should spell it out using this exact wording (the wording "illegal settlements" is open to debate). Israel doesn't accept this view, but almost everyone else does. For more on this see our related background primer on the issue: News.BBC

Stephen