How driven by Jew-hatred do you have to be to claim that the BBC is pro-Israel?

This driven: Muslim leaders in feud with the BBC. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

Britain’s most powerful Islamic organisation was accused last night of failing mainstream Muslim Britain after it complained of a ‘pro-Israel agenda’ at the BBC in a Panorama programme on the faith to be aired next week.

In an extraordinary letter obtained by The Observer, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has told director general Mark Thompson that the Panorama investigation of organisations representing Muslims in Britain, will ‘inflame mistrust’.

The letter will be used by critics of the MCB as evidence that it is out of touch amid growing concern that it does not represent moderate Muslims. [Gee. Ya think? —ed.]

A separate Observer investigation into the group has revealed its roots in the extremist politics of Pakistan. Its secretary general, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, and media spokesman Inayat Bunglawala have both expressed admiration for the late Maulana Maududi, founder of the radical Jamaat-i-Islami party, which campaigns non-violently for an Islamic state in Pakistan.

Maududi, a prominent figure in the 20th century Islamic revivalist movement, was a virulent anti-feminist who believed Muslims should struggle to rid their countries of Western influences. The Islamic Foundation, an affiliate of the MCB with close and influential links to the government, was founded by Khurshid Ahmad, a prominent member of the Jamaat-i-Islami.

A second affiliate, the strictly orthodox Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadith, based in Birmingham, practises a form of Islam which demands strict separatism from mainstream society. Its website describes the ways of ‘disbelievers’ as ‘based on sick and deviant views concerning their societies, the universe and their very existence’.