Ahmed Aboudouh is a consultant editor at The Independent. He specializes in Middle East affairs. Apparently he doesn’t believe that Jerusalem should be the Israeli capital.
In an opinion piece, that’s his right even though, de facto, Jerusalem is the capital. He does not, however, have the right to unilaterally declare Tel Aviv to be the capital and nor should he be falsely attributing this error.
(A precedent was set in the UK media as far back as 2012 when HonestReporting took on The Guardian, eventually forcing it to change its style guide and the now-defunct Press Complaints Commission to rule in our favor – that Tel Aviv is not the Israeli capital.)
Aboudouh wrote:
Clearly, Israeli TV would never say anything to the effect that another state would be improving its relations with “Tel Aviv.”
This also appeared in the piece:
Likewise, given that the US has officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, there’s no way that Washington “would likely try and limit the diplomatic damage to Tel Aviv.”
We contacted editors at The Independent and they agreed. While they still can’t bring themselves to recognize the reality of Jerusalem as the capital, the inference to Tel Aviv has been removed.
Related reading: Deal With It: Jerusalem is Israel’s Capital
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