In early July, CAMERA’s BBC Watch highlighted a false claim in a BBC Persian article about the death of Elie Wiesel, and called on the media giant to correct its error. The error has now been corrected.
The BBC claimed in its July 2 article that, during the 2014 conflict between Israel and Hamas, Wiesel charged Israel with genocide:
Two years ago, Elie Wiesel, together with 300 Holocaust survivors, criticised Israel because of its attack on Gaza, and accused the Israeli government of genocide.
Wiesel made no such accusation. He did, though, criticize Hamas during that war for its use of human shields.
And in fact, it was precisely because Wiesel went after Hamas that a group calling itself the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) published an advertisement — the statement cited in the BBC Persian story — attacking Wiesel and charging Israel with a “massacre.” (It does not, however, accuse Israel of genocide.)
Following communication from BBC Watch, the erroneous paragraph has been amended and a footnote has been added to the article that reads:
“Clarification: In the first version of this article it was written by mistake that Elie Wiesel was a signatory to a letter that accused the government of Israel with genocide. Hereby the mistake is corrected.”