ABC’s ear-bashing over ‘anti-Israel’ reports
MICHAEL Danby has taken the ABC to task over two separate reports he described as anti-Israel and lacking in context. Danby blasted the national broadcaster over a report late last year on an Australian citizen who was jailed in Israel for spying on behalf of Hamas. The introduction to the report began: “Israel considers Hamas a terrorist organisation.”
MICHAEL Danby has taken the ABC to task over two separate reports he described as anti-Israel and lacking in context.
Danby blasted the national broadcaster over a report late last year on an Australian citizen who was jailed in Israel for spying on behalf of Hamas. The introduction to the report began: “Israel considers Hamas a terrorist organisation.”
“ABC TV viewers’ prospective concerns were minimised by saying that it was only Israel that considered Hamas to be a terrorist organisation,” Danby said in Parliament this week.
“Absent was context: any reference pointing back to Australia’s position, which in fact accords with that of Israel … The clear inference of the story’s introduction was that only another country regarded Hamas as a terrorist organisation.”
Danby said the reason, as explained to him by ABC executive Mark Maley, was, “As the Australian government was not involved and made no representations to the court or to the Israeli government, it was not necessary to report its views on Hamas or on any other matter.”
Maley could not be contacted for comment.
A recent decision by the ABC’s Four Corners to interview UK newspaper The Independent’s journalist Robert Fisk also drew Danby’s ire. The Federal Member for Melbourne Ports took exception to Fisk’s assertion that Israel and Iran shared an agenda in the shape of support for the Assad regime, in Syria.
“The outcry against Assad has been vociferous at all levels of the Israeli government, including in unequivocal statements from its Prime Minister, its Foreign Minister and its President, Shimon Peres – right across the political spectrum, at all levels of think tanks and commentary,” Danby said.
ADAM KAMIEN
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