Deutsche Welle Corrects Two Key Locations: Israel’s Capital and the Jewish Temples

January 4, 2023

In recent days, German public broadcasting service Deutsche Welle has commendably corrected two basic facts concerning key Israeli locations: the nation’s capital is Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv, and the ancient Jewish temples were indeed located on the Temple Mount. 

First, an English-language Jan. 2 subheading and tweet had wrongly referred to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel, using the common journalistic practice of referring to a nation’s capital city as shorthand for the country’s government. The inaccurate wording in both was “Tel Aviv has not yet commented on the incident.”

Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv, is Israel’s capital.
Numerous media outlets have corrected this very point in the past, including Deutsche Welle’s own Arabic service last August, The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, Newsweek and The Guardian, among many others. 

Following CAMERA’s contact with Deutsche Welle, along with many on Twitter calling out the media outlet for the error, editors commendably changed the subheadline to refer to Jerusalem as opposed to Tel Aviv. In addition, the German news agency commendably tweeted: “As many of you rightly pointed out in the comments, Tel Aviv is pretty unlikely to comment on the incident as it is not the capital city of Israel.”

Separately, Deutsche Welle today commendably corrected an English-language article yesterday which misreported the location of the first and second Jewish temples on the Temple Mount as a question of belief, while in actuality it is a matter of archeological fact. The article had stated: “Until its destruction by the Romans in A.D. 70, the Second Jewish Temple was believed to have been located [on the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary” (“Why Jerusalem’s holy site is in the spotlight once again, emphasis added).

There is no archeological dispute about the fact that the Jewish temples were located on the Temple Mount. As The New York Times was compelled to acknowledge in a 2015 correction:
An earlier version of this article misstated the question that many books and scholarly treatises have never definitively answered concerning the two ancient Jewish temples. The question is where precisely on the 37-acre Temple Mount site the temples had once stood, not whether the temples had ever existed there.
In addition, Reuters also corrected this very same point in November. 

The Temple Mount on a stormy day (Photo by A. Sternthal)

The denial of the historical fact that the Jewish temples once stood on the Temple Mount is an anti-Israel talking point. Once again, Deutsche Welle moved quickly to set the record straight after CAMERA’s Israel office reached out. The amended text now accurately states: “Until its destruction by the Romans in A.D. 70, the Second Jewish Temple stood here.”
In addition, a note appended a correction to the bottom of the article alerts readers to the change: “Correction: A reference to the location of the Second Jewish Temple has been amended.”
The German media outlet was not alone in correcting this point today. Times of Israel had also originally reported yesterday, “The Temple Mount is believed by Jews to be the historic location of the two Jewish Temples . . . ” (“Ben-Gvir visits Temple Mount for first time as a minister, despite indicating he’d delay,” emphasis added.)
In response to communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, the Israeli media outlet also quickly corrected, amending the text to more accurately report: “The Temple Mount is revered by Jews as the historic location of the two Jewish Temples, making it Judaism’s holiest site.”

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