THE BBC GOES NATIVE: AN ANALYSIS OF BBC ARABIC Part I

By Trevor Asserson and Deena Pinson (bbcwatch)

1^st part of 2
(Trevor Asserson is a British solicitor and was a senior partner in one of the world's largest law firms. Deena Pinson is an academic and a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.)

I: INTRODUCTION

The BBC has been broadcasting for some years in Arabic on radio. In March 2008 it will commence broadcasting in Arabic on television. This is likely to increase the impact of the BBC in the Arabic speaking world.

Our study of BBC Arabic radio broadcasts shows what a baleful influence that has been, providing the Arab speaking world with a 'respectable' platform for terrorist organizations, rogue states and those who hate the USA and Israel. We believe that BBC Arabic Television will follow the same pattern.


II: METHODOLOGY

We decided to conduct a study of BBC Arabic during the 2006 War between Israel and the Hizbullah in Southern Lebanon because the war presented a sizeable body of material about a single unfolding story.

We recorded, translated and transcribed the BBC's principal news analysis program, Hadeeth Al-Sa'a, for a period of four weeks from 19 July to 20 August 2006. We analyzed views expressed by the invited program guests whose selection we believe is the weather vane of BBC attitudes.

We categorized all program guests, based on what they said, as either neutral or likely to encourage support or antipathy for one of the warring parties. In order to lend depth to the categorization, we graded their attitude as mild (1) or forceful (2). We also graded the likely impact of an individual guest based both on his status, the institution he represented and the nature of his argument and the manner of its conveyance. The aggregate words spoken multiplied by the attitude and impact grades provided a 'weighted word' count.

Our detailed findings are set out in the attached table at Schedule I.1 We set out in Schedule II a summary of views expressed by individual program guests together with selected quotations which we think indicate principal views held by the person quoted.

We have not considered the time given to individuals. What they say, rather than the speed at which they say it, appears to us to be a more sensible measure.


III: BBC OBLIGATIONS

The BBC has an obligation to be fair and impartial. It fails time and time again, as our earlier reports have shown. The Independent Panel, set up by the BBC to analyze its Middle East broadcasts, recognized the systemic problem within the BBC and recommended that it set up a 'guiding hand' to monitor its programs to ensure that it achieves its obligation of due impartiality.2 The BBC refused and instead set Jeremy Bowen in charge of its Middle East broadcasts, despite there having been questions raised as to his impartiality.

The BBC guidelines explain that:

".due impartiality does not require absolute neutrality on every issue or detachment from fundamental democratic principles".3

The BBC has always ignored our calls for it to explain how it interprets those words. In fact the BBC appears to ignore them. Thus it refuses for example to use the word 'terrorist' to describe the blowing up of a school bus full of children, because it wishes to remain "neutral".4 This refusal was maintained notwithstanding a call from the Independent Panel to use the word terrorist more widely.5

Hizbullah is listed by the UK government, amongst many others, as a "terrorist organisation." This is the same UK government through whose laws the BBC was born and is sustained. Hizbullah is armed and trained by Iran, a country whose President has called for the total destruction of Israel.6 This is a public call for genocide. Israel has a free press; an independent judiciary; and representative forms of Government. Iran and the Hizbullah do not. If the BBC had remained attached to democratic principles it should be more ready to give air time to the dilemmas of a democratic Israel than to its undemocratic enemies.

In fact we identified 17 spokespeople for Hizbullah and Iran amongst program guests and only 5 for Israel.7

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the BBC has in fact become detached from democratic principles and has become a proactive participant in the war of ideas, reflecting back to the Arabic speaking world some if its nastiest views.


IV: OVERVIEW OF FINDINGS

We found that, excluding 'neutral' guests, some 82% of program guests were pro Hizbullah and some 18% pro Israel.8 Our analysis of weighted words produced identical results - 82% weighted words pro Hizbullah and 18% pro Israel.

In terms of attitudes to the 2006 War, our findings are alarming, but given our previous reports, unsurprising. The airtime given by BBC Arabic to the pro Hizbullah position outweighed that given to the pro Israel position by a ratio of some 4.5 to 1.

What was more surprising was the very marked anti American sentiment which we detected. Many program guests expressed blatantly and viciously anti American positions, examples of which are set out below. While this unto itself may be acceptable and even desirable in a free press, the latitude afforded to these guests in sharing their sentiments, the highly evident disproportion in the representation of such views and the relative absence of challenge of these views in a manner which would conform with journalistic principles of impartiality and balance prompt serious concern.

In addition we came across a number of quite extreme statements. For example we were told that the bombing of an electricity station was a "crime" which is "unprecedented historically"9 and we learn that it is US policy "to crush the Palestinians completely and to take all of their lands."10 When comments as extreme as this go uncorrected and unchallenged, the BBC appears to have tossed its moral compass into the waves and completely to have lost its bearings.

What emerges is a BBC which is providing a solid and respectable platform for anti Western ideologues. Many of these people have respectable sounding titles and doubtless - on television - will be smartly turned out. However their words will support people seeking to undermine the social values of those who built the BBC and who continue to pay for it.


V: ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USA

The following is a selection of some of the statements made by various program guests, indicating their attitudes towards the USA. The identity of the speaker and date of the interview are in the endnotes, together with a reference to the page in Schedule II where the full quotation can be found.

When reading these words it should be remembered that they were broadcast by the BBC, the incumbent national UK broadcaster, during a period when the UK had soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting shoulder to shoulder with the USA against a threat of Islamist terrorism which had brought bloody death and destruction to the streets of both London and New York.

While some of the statements are by themselves innocuous, taken together they amount to a campaign to delegitimise and demonize the USA in the eyes of the Arabic speaking world.

".[we] are doubting their [America's] sincerity and respect"11

"America has to change its politics and speak honestly"12

"That [Bush] government wanted to have complete control over the world"13

".the world, which is controlled by the US"14

".the main side of this conflict is the US"15

"As we all know on the Arab street, if your enemy is Israel or America, you are on the right side"16

".the problem is not with Israel; it is with the American Government.American politics is a failure that has no logic"17

"This talk about the war being that of Iran and Syria is nonsense. However, it is true that this is an American war; that was stated clearly by Condoleezza Rice"18

"Hizbullah has been leading this fight with dignity and justice. the positions of Europe and America center on their own obsessions . their war on terror. and they have considered Hizbullah a terrorist group, which is, of course, wrong"19

".there is a kind of vision in the American government.to crush the Palestinians completely and to take all of their lands"20

".the Americans constantly talk about breaking the hearts and minds of the Arabs and Muslims"21

"This new [American] strategy.is totally contrary to the principles of human rights"22

Trevor Asserson and Deena Pinson

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