It Can't Be True - An Israelite Said It

Tory MP and Times columnist Michael Gove (followed by a host of bloggers) picked up Georgeous George's views on MEMRI, the organisation which provides translations of Arabic-language media.

It's not that their translations are inaccurate, apparently - but they are a bit .. well, Israeli. Know what I mean ?

Fron the Any Questions transcript :

GRAFFY - Well I think we first need to recognise and appreciate the fact that we do live in a multicultural society, that we have Muslims who are members of the House of Commons, we have Muslims that are members of the House of Lords, we have Muslims that are senior civil servants, we have a new Haj information unit, that's allowing and helping for those making pilgrimage to Mecca. All of these things are important in bringing the Muslim community as part of the British community. But what does concern me is when we read, for example, that 13% of British Muslims thought that the attacks on 9/11 were justified. Now there is a vacancy of leadership somewhere and that needs to be identified. How these people are being brainwashed, how it's happening, is there a council that can be working with mosques to identify preachers who are giving messages of hate, can we change the messages that are given to young people? If you've never seen it before I encourage you to check out memri.org m-e-m-r-i which is translations of Arab newspapers.

GALLOWAY - It's an Israeli - Israeli organisation.

GRAFFY - Well it is a translation - the Middle East Media Research [CLAPPING] - you can check it out yourself, it is translation of Arabic programmes.

GALLOWAY - It's an Israeli translation.

GRAFFY - And you will see - from Arabic into English and you'll hear that the head of the London Centre for Islamic History when the attacks first happened said that he questioned whether it was done by the intelligence agency of another Western country hostile to Britain, some Zionist Americans that overshadow the G8 summit, but basically said if it was indeed al-Qaeda that carried out this act it was a great victory for it. And it's not from someone in Saudi Arabia, this is from London.

GALLOWAY - According to the Israelis.

GRAFFY - No according from a translation.

GALLOWAY - It's an Israeli website, why don't you be honest with people.

GRAFFY - Why don't you be honest that it is a translation from al-Jazeera ...[Talking over]

DIMBLEBY - Can I ask you both - can I ask you both to pause, it is conceivable and we're not going to resolve it here that it is both on an Israeli website and it's an accurate translation. Let's leave that for the moment ...we can't resolve that at this moment.



UPDATE - MEMRI is based in Washington DC. It has a branch (and a Media Center, whatever that is) in Jerusalem, also branches in London and Berlin.