In fact, part of the supposed “evidence” had been lifted from fictitious material on a blog, translated from Hebrew into English and presented to Mr Silverstein as the views of top-level Israeli officials.
Following criticisms of the article, a BBC spokesman said: “This was an analysis piece looking at Richard Silverstein’s claims which have become part of the public debate about the wisdom of launching an attack against Iran.
“The piece is caveated throughout making it very clear that this is what Mr Silverstein believes, but that it is impossible to verify if it is an Israeli cabinet paper of some kind or not.”