When an Iranian professor was given airtime on the Today programme, Mishal Husain allowed him to spew out a vile rant
October 1, 2024 12:42
The timing could hardly have been more exquisitely pointed.
Yesterday three leading Jewish communal organisations - the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council, and the Community Security Trust – came together with the Chief Rabbi to endorse a report accusing the BBC of being “institutionally hostile” to Israel, broadcasting “inaccurate” coverage of the war with Hamas.
The report, compiled and edited by the former director of television at the BBC, Danny Cohen, says the corporation has made a series of “false and damaging claims about Israel’s conduct of this war” and has thus fuelled “the flames of antisemitism that have spread across the world”.
The Jewish groups endorsed his report with statement rightly pointing out that the BBC’s coverage has “led many British Jews to conclude that the BBC has become, in practical terms, institutionally hostile to Israel…The evidence presented in this report goes far beyond what might reasonably be attributed to errors made in the fog of war. These are not academic errors. They have real world consequences. Inaccurate media reporting on the conflict contributes to the delegitimisation of Israel in the public sphere, which in turn fuels anti-Jewish hatred, and has made British Jews and Jews around the world less safe and secure in their communities.”
So how did the BBC react to this damning accusation?
It did not just revert to its usual form, as outlined in the report. It went much further. This morning its flagship news show, the Today programme on Radio 4, chose to give coverage to an Iranian government apologist, Prof Seyed Mohammad Marandi of Tehran University, to broadcast a series of grotesque antisemitic slurs – and to refuse to interrupt, let alone question, him as he offered listeners his vile Jew hate.
After the usual accusation of genocide – a word now shockingly diminished in meaning after having been adopted by anti-Israel fanatics across the globe to describe Israel’s military operation in Gaza – Marandi began with a boilerplate Iranian regime rant (prompting some gentle questioning from presenter Mishal Husain), starting with the idea that there are no such things as Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut: “The Israeli regime will say what it says and the Western media will justify it. The Western media will say these are Hezbollah strongholds. Whenever one hears the word stronghold you can tell it’s Israeli propaganda. These are homes, these are neighbourhoods. They have destroyed parts of southern Beirut, a city like London. It’s like saying on 7/7 they bombed a British regime stronghold.”
Do I need to point out the warped sickness of this argument, given that what happened in London on 7/7 was Islamist terrorism of the exact sort funded and enabled by the Iranian regime?
Marandi had, however, only just begun – and Husain then sat back and listened as he launched into his stream of Jew hate.
Bear in mind as you read this that not once did Husain interrupt him in this section of the interview, let alone pose a question. The entire screed was broadcast without pause: “Just as the UK supports this Holocaust in Gaza, just as it supports slaughter of the Lebanese and just as it justifies whatever action the Israeli regime takes, we have no doubt they will be with the Israelis until the very last Palestinian.
“Because we are all Amelek – we are inferior, they are the chosen people, they are your allies and it’s basically an extension of the Western empire over the last few hundred years – the civilising mission. Wherever the West has gone, they are civilised and that justifies the destruction of the uncivilised and the barbarians, so this is basically a repeat of history and the only solution is resistance.
“The only way forward is resistance because there is nothing that will stop this Israeli regime because that is the nature of the regime…it believes in ethno-supremacism, it believes they are the chosen people, they have exceptional rights and therefore they have exceptional rights to the whole region. It’s not just Palestine, it goes beyond the borders of Palestine.”
At which point Husain did indeed, at last, engage with the Iranian professor – a penetrating, coruscating response to his repetition of classic antisemitic themes. Not. This was Husain’s response, in full: “Prof Morandi, thank you very much.”
The contrast is striking. Whenever an Israeli spokesman is interviewed, they are treated as if they are a war criminal, constantly interrupted and often unable to make even basic points as a result. When an Iranian propagandist is given airtime, he is allowed to spout untrammelled antisemitic memes – and the BBC’s response is to say “thank you very much”.
Well, thank you, Mishal Husain. It’s as if you set out to prove yesterday’s report didn’t go far enough.
