When the BBC Gets it all Wrong

The BBC believe that a blogger called Richard Silverstein had been given a leaked Israeli government document detailing an attack plan on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

According to one of their two articles on the matter, the document “is striking in both the scale and scope of the military operation that it proposes”.

To see both of their articles go here and here.

The only problem is that the document they are referring to is a fake.

I know that it’s a fake because despite the fact that Silverstein says that his source is a “Senior politician” the document has actually come from an Israeli internet forum and far from being an official military plan it is in fact the musings of an armchair pundit.

Whole swathes of what Silverstein calls his own translation of the document are available from Google translate of the actual post here.

See the below sample from Silverstein’s translation of his top secret document:

“The Israeli attack will open with a coordinated strike, including an unprecedented cyber-attack which will totally paralyze the Iranian regime and its ability to know what is happening within its borders. The internet, telephones, radio and television, communications satellites, and fiber optic cables leading to and from critical installations—including underground missile bases at Khorramabad and Isfahan—will be taken out of action. The electrical grid throughout Iran will be paralyzed and transformer stations will absorb severe damage from carbon fiber munitions which are finer than a human hair, causing electrical short circuits whose repair requires their complete removal. This would be a Sisyphean task in light of cluster munitions which would be dropped, some time-delayed and some remote-activated through the use of a satellite signal.”

Now see here for a simple Google translate of the Hebrew post on Fresh:

“Israeli offensive opened a combined action an unprecedented cyber attack, completely paralyzing the Iranian government ability to know what’s going on in his own country. Internet networks, telephone, radio and television, satellite communications and fiber optic and leading to important sites – including underground missile bases and Asfahn Bhorambad – find out of action. Years of careful planning, and intelligence assets landfill command day – worthwhile. Power grids across Iran are paralyzed, and hate sites (transformers of the power grid) suffer serious injuries of arms dissipating carbon fiber fish trough person – creating short in order to fix them requires removing the physical – a task Sisyphean light quenching area arming cluster shared a time delay and some remotely operated via satellite signal.”

Pretty similar?

This isn’t the first time Silverstein has put his name to information that has turned out to be false, his escapades have been detailed by Jewlicious, though it is the first time, to my knowledge, that he has dragged the BBC into his strange, conspiratorial world with him.

It is not surprising to catch Silverstein out in this way, he is generally believed to be a bit of a crank within blogging circles already, the question is what will the BBC do now?

Will they remove the articles and admit that they had been suckered in?