Television presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk today said the BBC had "given way" to a lobby demanding his resignation by suspending his talk show following the row over his article about Arabs.
Mr Kilroy-Silk said he had hoped the BBC would have "kept the programme going and dealt with the criticisms".
And he thought the BBC had reacted "differently" to the row than it otherwise would have done because of the imminent publication of the Hutton report.
BBC chiefs have suspended the 61-year-old's daytime discussion programme, Kilroy, from today while it conducts an investigation into his remarks. The BBC said it would not comment further until the investigation was concluded.
The presenter caused a furore last week after describing Arabs as "suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors" in a column in the Sunday Express.
Speaking on Tonight with Trevor McDonald, which is to be broadcast at 8 p.m. tonight, Mr Kilroy-Silk admitted he was in a "difficult position".
However, he insisted his views did not encroach on his "impartiality" as a talk show host and that he "would have preferred" the BBC to have reacted differently.
"I was sad that the BBC had felt \ necessary to take the programme off the air, they said then for the Monday, I have learned since through the press that apparently it is for the whole of this week, because that seemed to me as if they had given way to a lobby and to people who are demanding my resignation," he said. - (PA)