Jerusalem----May 31......BBC Television World News this morning stated repeatedly that the Israeli coastal city of Netanya was located in the West Bank. The story, relating to the Palestinian terror car bomb attack on an Israeli school, was the second piece to be aired during the 09:00 and 10:00 news reports. The Israeli story, reported by BBC night editor Steven Gerbus, appeared to be accurate and balanced - beyond putting an Israeli city in the territories. The Israel News Agency alerted both the Government Press Office and the Army Spokesperson's Office regarding BBC's misinformation.

The INA spoke with the BBC's Jerusalem bureau this morning for a clarification and was told that it was a "mistake".

As a former Television news reporter, this editor cannot understand this "mistake".
The copywriter of this BBC report was obviously either totally ignorant about the Middle-East or biased towards the PA. But assuming that this was an innocent mistake - then how did this report get past the BBC assignment editor, the BBC editor who filed the story to London and the BBC editorial team in London which finally aired the report? One would think that the BBC has a professional and seasoned editorial team in place which checks their stories for accuracy. It is a frightening thought that the BBC with it's tremendous audience reach and respect is airing stories written, filed and aired by one person! And if this one person is ignorant enough not to know where Netanya is (perhaps assuming that the West Bank is all the land stretching to the Mediterranean) then what should we assume about any or all BBC reports coming out of Israel?