In an article titled "The World is Closely Watching" columnist Diana Mukkaled of the London Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat [1] wrote about the recent controversy surrounding the BBC Panorama program on extremist Muslims in London. The producers of the program were assisted by MEMRI.
The following are excerpts from the article:
"The members of the Muslim Council of Britain were outraged at the BBC after the broadcasting of the popular program, ''Panorama'' last week which tackled the failure of the council in its supervision of 400 mosques and Muslim organizations in Britain to curb extremists. The ''Panorama'' special dealt with interviews with Islamic leaders in Britain who expressed their support for suicide operations against Israeli civilians yet condemned the London attacks. The episode also discussed the Islamic view of Christians, Jews and Hindus and the reality that some Muslims consider members of other religions as atheists.
"The BBC program was full of questions that preoccupy Europe today, who are the enemies living among us, why do they label others as infidels and why do they hate us? …
"What was interesting about this particular Panorama episode was the battle between the journalist John Ware and British Muslim leaders concerning their viewpoints of suicide operations and non-Muslims… The same familiar face frequently features on our Arab screens. There remains the belief that "We are the believers and the people of paradise and they are the unbelievers and the people of hell". Such is a language that is present on a daily basis and hardly any [Arab] broadcasting channels are free of such dispute. Yet within the minds of those who propagate these acts, lies the belief that the world will not heed their message when repeated in Arabic on Arab broadcasting channels.
"These very people, however, will use different terminology when speaking in English on foreign television networks.
"For this reason, when they are confronted with what they have previously argued in Arabic, they seem confused and frantically search for other arguments, which was exactly the case on the Panorama special.
"However, the world is closely watching. There are western institutions that specialize in translating material that is used by all forms of Arab media. The majority of programs are recorded and later broadcasted, therefore when a Muslim cleric features on some broadcasting channel referring to Jews as "grandchildren of monkeys and pigs," it is inevitable that such words will reach millions of people around the world. Such a portrayal of these extremist attitudes causes the Muslim and Arab immigrants and their children in the west to pay the price for such words.
"The accusations that British Muslims have made against the BBC of having a Zionist agenda are easily refutable in comparison to the statements made by Muslim leaders themselves. The problem does not lie in what the BBC said, but rather in what we say."
[1] The English version was posted on the Al-Sharq Al-Awsat website on August 30, 2005 http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=1465.
