The Spectator’s Notes | 10 January 2009

Although television coverage of the Israeli attacks on Gaza is extensive, it is uninformative. The BBC, in particular its reporter Jeremy Bowen, seems to be in thrall to the images it can project. But, by its Charter, the BBC has a duty to educate, and what is missing in so much of the coverage is context. What is Hamas? What does it believe? Why is it not reported that the Arab press carries numerous attacks on Hamas for exposing the Palestinian people to suffering? Why is Hamas, despite being a Sunni organisation, close to Shi’ite Iran? What are the politics of the situation on both sides? Why, in short, is what is happening happening? The rise of Hamas adds to the idea, much loved by the BBC, that the authentic leaders of Muslim societies today are all political Islamists — the intellectual model being that of Sinn Fein: terrorists as the people who make peace. As a result, we are told about very little else. Just before the end of the year, for example, Bangladesh, which has one of the largest Muslim populations in the entire world, returned to democratic rule. British officialdom, notably the Muslim adviser to the Foreign Office, Mockbul Ali, and the Muslim Contact Unit of the Metropolitan Police, have liked to say that Jamaat Islami, the party of political Islamism in Bangladesh, can help control militancy in this country, where the Bengali population is extensive. Its extremist leaders have been invited here. Mosques like the East London Mosque, which furnishes the current leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, are close to Jamaati elements. In the Bangladesh elections, though, Jamaat was left with only two seats in the 300-seat parliament, and the secular Awami League was victorious. Virtually no attention from the BBC. Perhaps they would say faraway elections among dark-skinned people are boring — but then let us not hear their self-justifications about their unique educational role.