~by Robin Simcox

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Events are currently unfolding in Britain which will almost certainly not penetrate any international newsreels (or any in the UK for that matter), but the importance of which transcends the geographical boundaries of the British Isles. It concerns an organisation known as the British Muslim Initiative (BMI).

The BMI have been accused of being a front group for terrorist organisation Hamas. BMI President Mohammad Sawalha was formerly the head of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), the British wing of the Muslim Brotherhood (of whom Hamas are the Palestinian wing). He has been accused by the BBC in 2006 of being a key political and military strategist for Hamas, and one of BMI’s senior members, Azzam Tamimi, has declared his wish to become a suicide bomber in Palestine.

On 29th June, a rally celebrating Israel’s 60th birthday was held in London’s Trafalgar Square. In response, Sawalha gave an interview in Arabic to the al-Jazeera news channel. This interview was translated by the UK blog Harry’s Place, which describes itself as “an open forum for the democratic, secular, anti-fascist, liberal, anti-totalitarian left”. Their translation of al-Jazeera’s initial transcript showed Sawahla commenting that “We, the Arab and Islamic community, gather here today to express our resentment at the celebrations by the Jewish community and the evil/noxious Jew in Britain”.

Harry’s Place dutifully reported its findings, which is where the controversy begins.

Al-Jazeera physically changed its report, with the word “?????? ” (translated as a variant of “evil”) replaced with “?????? ” (“lobby”). Harry’s Place then received a letter from BMI saying they had “inexplicably grossly mistranslated [Sawalha’s] reference to the Jewish ‘Lobby’” and that unless an immediate apology was issued, they would pursue the matter legally. An al-Jazeera reporter explained that he had made a mistake in his initial report, and Sawalha had, indeed, referred to the “Jewish Lobby”. Al-Jazeera, then, had made the error; Harry’s Place were simply reporting the translation as it originally appeared.

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