The BBC Trust has rapped A History of Syria with Dan Snow after ruling that the BBC2 documentary wrongly implied that Israel started the Six-Day War in 1967.

A complainant said the in-house This World programme, which aired on 11 March 2013, was not accurate when it said: “In 1967, Assad was minister of defence when Israel launched a series of strikes against Egypt, Jordan and Syria.”

The complainant outlined the chronology of events leading to the 1967 war, which was influential in shaping the politics of the Middle East, in an effort to show that it was not started by Israel.

After considering his evidence and its own assessment of Snow’s film, the Trust’s editorial standards committee decided to uphold his complaint.

“The events of the Six-Day War were so important in the history and politics of the Middle East, and remain so today, that, despite the brevity of the reference, more context was required and the need to use clear and precise language was particularly acute in relation to content dealing with conflict in the Middle East,” it said.

“The committee appreciated that this was one line in an otherwise informative and nuanced programme, but concluded that, particularly given the evidence that Jordan launched attacks on Israel before Israel’s forces were engaged, it was not duly accurate to describe the events on 5 June 1967 in the way this programme did.”

Topics