Anti-Israel Bias: Australia's Channel Nine Needs Watching

Viewers of Australia's National Nine News will be familiar with the network's not infrequent tendency to carry stories, in the second half of its bulletins where international reports tend to appear, that are decidedly unfair to Israel.

Such reports habitually inform the viewer that x number of Palestinians has been killed/ wounded in Gaza/the West Bank yesterday/today without presenting Israel's side of the story, and characteristically with no background at all.

That there's someone in Channel Nine's newsroom who's biased against Israel seems a given, and viewers of yesterday's 4 pm bulletin, at least in Melbourne, were treated to a seemingly sinister dose of anti-Israel propaganda.

The report in question concerned the big news of Monday in Oz,  news still in the headlines, namely that there had been a serious malicious cyber attack on the computer network of federal Parliament in Canberra, and that the culprit must be a foreign power.

No sooner was the involvement of a foreign power being aired in Nine's 4 pm Monday bulletin than an Israeli flag flashed up up on the screen, covering the latter's entire left half.

The shocking implication was clear: Israel did it! Mossad's tentacles have reached out to harm Australia!

Afterwards the report (which I've searched in vain for online) proceeded to tell the viewer that only a handful of countries have the technology to launch such a cyber attack, and it listed them (Russia America, Israel, China, but in what order I'm not sure, though I do know that Israel was not first), showing their flags in turn.

But by then the viewer's mind had been affected by the graphic that had first appeared on the screen, implicitly connecting Israel to the attack.

Perhaps the newsroom was inundated with text and phone protests by indignant "Zionists", or perhaps a fair-minded producer had charge of the 6 pm bulletin, for the corresponding report, seemingly identical and certainly very similar, to the 4 pm one, did not start off with an Israeli flag halfway across the screen.  It did show an Israeli flag, but only at the exact spot when Israel was mentioned in the list of countries with the capability of carrying out such a cyber attack, together with images, when appropriate, of the other flags.  Each flag was in the background to the report, not 50 per cent full frontal.

Since the likeliest culprit for the cyber attack is generally agreed to be China, the channel's simultaneous display of an Israeli flag when the cyber attack was mentioned appears to have had a sinister motivation.

Given the channel's tendency to show scant sympathy for Israel in news reports, Nine's news bulletins need watching.  And strongly protested where necessary.

Twice is a Coincidence: BBC boob boobs again

If he does it a third time, however ...

Yes, I'm talking about the BBC's Chris Rogers, who's on record as making light of the antisemitism he was supposed to be reporting about by clowning around.

To quote the Daily Mail a couple of years ago:

'A BBC journalist was filmed giving a Nazi salute and goose stepping while filming a documentary about anti-Semitic football fans in Poland and Ukraine.

Chris Rogers was caught marching with one finger under his nose, as crew reportedly looked on.

The BBC Panorama documentary Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate, was filmed two years ago ahead of the tournament in Poland and Ukraine - but details of the gaffe have only just come to light.

Mr Rogers ... admitted that he displayed a 'lack of judgment'.

He said: 'I fully accept that some of my behaviour, which was intended as a joke, was deeply inappropriate particularly given the seriousness of what we were filming.

"I apologised and was strongly reprimanded by the BBC. I might have displayed a lack of judgement but none of this detracts from the serious football racism exposed in the programme."'

And now Mr Rogers has demonstrated questionable behaviour again.

To quote London's giveaway rival to the Jewish Chronicle, the Jewish News:

'The BBC has apologised after one of its radio presenters said on-air that Israel “hasn't really worked out” as a country.

BBC Radio London host Chris Rogers was hosting a phone-in on Tuesday about the refugee crisis when a caller asked: “Why can’t they put a load of them (refugees) in Africa?”

The presenter replied: “Is just dumping families from all over the world, with lots of different cultures and reasons for fleeing - is just dumping them in a new state, if we do Israel all over again, is that really the answer?

“I mean, Israel arguably hasn't really worked out, has it?”

A Board of Deputies spokesman called on Mr Rogers to clarify or apologise for remarks which he said were “off-hand, politically-loaded” and “most unfortunate”.

In response, a spokeswoman for the BBC explained that “Chris Rogers was trying to challenge the caller's point by finding a historical comparison and in the heat of a live programme discussion he picked the example of Israel.

“He accepts that his words might have implied criticism of the creation of the state of Israel which was not his intention. BBC Radio London apologises if any listener was offended.”...'

Funny how he just happened to pull Israel out of thin air though, innit.

Meanwhile, a very welcome development Down Under:

http://honestreporting.com/honestreporting-australia/

 (hat tip: Ian)

" If You Don’t Do This, You Are Professionally Ostracized": A journalist on anti-Israel bias

Ring any bells, Jon Donnison?

'....Over time, I came to realize that to be considered a successful journalist by the Western media, a journalist must stick to an acceptable script. In the Middle East, this means portraying Israel and the Jews as the bad guys, and the Palestinians and the PA as the good guys. If you don’t do this, you are professionally ostracized.

.... I saw journalists depict the easiest stories to tell without digging any deeper into the facts behind the conflict. There were various reasons for this—lack of time, money, and resources; ignorance and pressure from editors....

Beyond this, however, I found that some stories carried with them an inherent dislike for the Jewish state and the Jewish people. I’m not speaking about most of the Western media. But a few conversations with journalists do come to mind in which it was obvious that the motivation for their stories was anti-Semitism. What’s scary is that these stories inevitably play a major role in shaping foreign policy toward Israel.

Of course, every news outlet, newspaper, or magazine has an agenda. There is no such thing as an unbiased journalist. We bring our experiences, interactions with people, and our emotions to bear on every story and situation. This is inevitable. Biases will always exist. But we still have a responsibility to uncover and portray the truth to the best of our ability. Admitting to our biases does not mean we should submit to them. [This goes double for publicly-funded public broadcasters like the BBC, whose charters obligate them to impartiality.]

I admit that, at times, I questioned my perception of the situation in Israel. Was I missing something? I felt like I must be doing something wrong, because my views didn’t fit into the framework presented by the Western media.... And the Western media’s view of Israel is a status quo that needs to be questioned.

There is another reason why Western journalists must begin to question their biases and their conduct toward Israel: Their failure do so is pushing peace further away. For example, the Western media feeds the corruption of the Palestinian Authority. If journalists really want to help change things for the better, they should have the courage to criticize the Palestinians and their government.

Got that, Jezza?

They should report on human rights violations committed by the PA (and Hamas). They should tell the world about incitement again Jews and Israelis in PA-controlled media, as well as mosques and schools. They should report on the television shows that teach Palestinian children to hate Jews. They should share the stories of Palestinians who want to speak out against their leaders, but are afraid to do so for fear of imprisonment or death. Give Palestinians a real voice. Putting all the blame on Israel will never change the fate of the Palestinian people.

In fact, just like the PA, the Western media exploits the Palestinians. They use them in order to get the award-winning story their editors want. What the Palestinians do not realize is that these journalists don’t care about the Palestinians. They interview a few people in Ramallah about their struggles, take some emotional photos, and then head back to the comfort of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. As a result, decades of pro-Palestinian bias has changed nothing.

.... As a journalist myself, it pains me to see how bias, unprofessionalism, laziness, ego, and sometimes outright racism influences coverage of Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians. These failures are not only a violation of journalistic ethics, they make peace less likely and embolden Israel’s enemies, and the enemies of democracy around the world.

People ask me a lot if I am pro-Israel. Am I pro-Israel? If supporting democracy and the search for truth it permits means that I am pro-Israel, then, yes, I am.'

Those are extracts from a suberb indictment of journalistic bias against Israel, entitled 'Yes, Journalists Choose Sides in a Conflict—and Often for the Worst Reasons' by Israel-based journalist Zenobia Davji, herself of Parsee heritage.  The entire piece must be read.

And since her article inevitably reminded me of the BBC, here's a recent Memri.org video of Al Beeb's very good friend "Bari" Atwan, speaking late last year in Beirut:

Aussie Leftist Media Bias Against Israel: Michael Danby talks to Andrew Bolt (video) (updated)

In this interview, the splendid Aussie columnist Andrew Bolt and the staunchly pro-Israel Labor MP Michael Danby discuss leftist bias in Australia against Israel, beginning with the warped views of Melissa Parke, Labor MP for Fremantle, and proceeding to the disgraceful bias of the ABC (Australia's answer to the BBC).

Hat tip: Ian

Incidentally, here's what Mr Danby has recently written about the Iranian threat:

'Russian Deputy Chief of Staff General Nikolay Bogdanovsky was in Israel last week pursuing Israeli/Russian plans to avoid military confrontation particularly in the air over Syria.  To his credit, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had flown to Moscow with four Israeli air chiefs, as soon as the extent of the Russian military intervention in Syria was realised. You won’t read of this fundamental power shift from blockheaded, anti-Israel fanatics like Robert Fisk, or the Pollard–McNeill axis of their brand of Australian reporting. But the Russians have installed total air defence with sophisticated SA-22s covering much of Syria’s airspace. As Daesh (IS) doesn’t even have a crop duster, this makes even more farcical US President Obama and our Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s initial enthusiasm for Russian President Putin as there to join the fight against Daesh. Jerusalem is wise to make arrangements with Moscow as best it can in a world with a US administration so feckless and strategically confused.

[Australian Foreign Minister] Julie Bishop’s announcements of support for Syria’s dictator Assad, who has murdered 200,000 of his own people, as the only alternative to Daesh taking over Syria is untrue and unethical. But the massive Russian intervention, on the side of Iran and Hezbollah, cements in place Iran’s Shiite crescent from Lebanon, through Syria and Iraq, to Iran. Worse, the Iranian-controlled Iraqi government, where Australia has 300 of its finest soldiers trying to retrain its cowardly army, has announced its gratitude by openly joining a pact with Iran, Syria and Lebanon under Russian auspices

That is why I have moved a resolution in Parliament, for Australian soldiers to be withdrawn from the Taji military camp where we are at least implicitly cooperating with the Iranians (if we were serious about destroying Daesh, our guys would in Erbil training and arming the 25,000 Kurdish fighters who could occupy Raqqa, the centre of IS evil, in two weeks. From a direct national security point of view, of course, this would be much more useful, in preventing attacks like the ones in Parramatta, or Dandenong, by deranged Jihadist teenagers, who are getting their orders from Raqqa from Daesh, rapists and murderers like Al-Cambodi (Neil Prakash).)

But back to the main strategic shift, the Russian invasion of Syria and what is portends; it is another victory for Iran, after duping and cajoling the Americans and Europeans into the nuclear deal, which, in the medium-term, will refinance, re-arm, and renew Iran’s bid for the atom bomb.

At the end of the 2006 Second Lebanon war, an Israeli naval ship was hit by a Russian missile shore-to-sea missile, supplied to the Iranian stooges Hezbollah. In all of the years since 2006, the Israeli air force has been free to intercept, bomb and destroy further shipments from Iran to Hezbollah of the even more sophisticated 300km-range Yakhont missiles.

Julie Bishop should be reminded that these Iranian mercenaries Hezbollah are still classified as a terrorist organisation by the Australian Parliament. Our foreign minister thinks the nuclear deal with Iran is good, that Assad should be kept in office, and that Russia is fighting Daesh. Putin’s massive intervention, particularly his control of the Syrian skies, mean that, unlike every time in the past nine years, Israel will have to beg Putin to be allowed to destroy covert shipments of these deadly missiles to Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s long-range missiles target Israel’s people, her ports, her navy, and its gas installations.

Another negative outcome of Russia’s involvement in Syria is the reprieve it will give Hezbollah fighters. They have been stretched thin and thousands have been killed or injured. However, with close Russian air support, volunteer Russian troops, plus the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that have arrived as part of the Russian–Iranian ground offensive against non-Daesh rebels in the north and south. How strange it is for our foreign minister to say “If we use [the Iran nuclear deal] as an example of Russia’s preparedness to be part of a solution rather than part of the problem, then we can have some optimism that Russia’s involvement [in Syria] is positive.

Russia’s armed guarantee of the Hezbollah-Assad-Iraq-Iran alliance also brings Iranian power to the borders of Israel on the Golan. Well done, President Obama – your weakness in Ukraine and now Syria endangers the peaceful lives of people everywhere. Iran is a much more serious and existential threat to Israel than the hoodlums, crucifiers and rapists of Daesh.

At least I’ve been able to stop the Australian Opposition from giving its support to this existential power-shift. Selling a few more tonnes of Australian beef is not worth our soft-peddling on Iran and Syria.  Selling a few more tons of Australian beef is not worth our soft-peddling on Iran and Syria.  In a world turned upside down, the outcome of the nuclear deal with Iran gets worse and worse.'

 Update:
Two relevant articles on J-Wire today.
Regarding Danby, Julia Bishop, and Iran
Regarding Melissa Parke

A French Oleh's Lament: "French journalists practice a disgusting double standard against Israel"

This illustration is taken from the updated edition of Edgar Davidson's superb "Rules and Guidelines for Westerners reporting on Israel".

Here, as an example, is Rule 2:

'Rule 2 (Arab casualties)

If there is any incident either in Israel or near its borders in which there are claims of Arab casualties you must write a report with the following headline:

“Israelis kill X Arab civilians including Y children”

For the numbers X and Y simply choose the highest figures from the following sources:

    Hamas
    Hezbollah
    The Palestinian Authority
    Islamic Jihad
    Syrian State Television
    Islamic State
    Al Jazeera or Press TV
    Any person within 20 miles of the incident who is wearing a kaffiya or a Burka.

You do not need to state the source of your claim. In the unlikely event that an Israeli spokesman claims either a different figure, that the 'victims' were armed terrorists, or that the incident simply did not happen you may end your report with the following:

“An Israeli spokesman claimed, without evidence, that they ‘acted in self-defence’.

Note that there are certain circumstances where Arab deaths from violence should not be reported at all. This is when Arabs themselves openly claim to be the killers. This applies, for example, in the following cases:

Mass slaughter in fighting between different rival groups (Shia v Sunni, Hamas vs PA, Hamas vs Al Qaeda, PA vs Islamic Jihad etc)

 Where the victims are accused of being Israeli collaborators

If news of these killings does leak out into the Western media then simply write a brief statement including the words:

“The underlying cause of the violence was the oppressive Israeli occupation”

Any claims of deaths of Israelis during such incidents can be assumed to be false and hence ignored.

Read all of the Rules and Guidelines here

Of course, it's not only in the English-language press that the media gets the message of such "Rules and Guidelines".

See, for instance, this new article by French oleh Jean Vercors, no stranger to my blog; he's provocatively entitled it "French media: the thought Einsatzgruppen".

Writes Jean Vercors:

Since ancient times, many people have hated the Jews and this is not going to change.

The French journalists practice a disgusting double standard against Israel that constantly stirs anti-Jewish hatred.

Is this because they are affiliated with trade unions close to the Communist Party?  Are they automatically anti-Israel because Israel is supported by the United States or because of or banal hatred of Jews?

My observations of media bias against Israel are a constant source of aggravation.

No matter what happens in the world, Israel is always making the headlines. A morbid obsession. The daily massacre of Copts, Yazidis, Chaldeans, Christians, Assyrians, Kurds, and Africans in Muslim lands are barely mentioned.

In Israel, the press is free. Journalists can cover the news as they wish; they know it and do not hesitate. I can write things here, to express my thoughts in a way that would send me to court if I was in France.

In Israel, journalists are not harassed, assaulted, raped, followed by the police, tortured, intimidated or even beheaded as in Syria or Iraq.

In an article of July 2014, I called the French media scavengers and my opinion has not changed since.

When three young Israelis were kidnapped and killed by local Arab terrorists, rather than blaming the criminals, French media preferred to report how dangerous it is to hitchhike the Gush Etzion area.

Today, with the story of the dead Arab baby in Duma, the mainstream media, with L’Agence France-Presse (AFP) leading the pack, brought out the heavy artillery. No excuse can justify this act proclaims the same media that naturally found excuses for the killing of three Jewish students in July 2014 .  Apologists for the Arabs, not the Jews: double standard.

Then the media accuses "religious extremist settlers" of being the perpetrators even before the police investigation has begun.

The countless assaults by Palestinian Arabs against Jews goes unreported and without condemnation.
Similarly, the UN and EU have a big problem only with the one single attack by a few persons against the Arabs, even though there is no clear proof yet that it was indeed perpetrated by Jews. The entire Jewish nation has already been condemned.

As with the notorious invention that was the al-Dura case, it represents a continuation of the age-old libel of ritual murder of children by Jews.  It is the antisemitic blood libel that Jews murder non-Jewish children for ritual purposes. French journalists did not need evidence to charge the Jews, they lit the pyre and prepared media killings.

In ten years, the Arabs in Palestine killed nearly 180 Israelis, dozens of babies. Where is the outrage of the media?

Are journalists dishonest and hypocrites to that point? Yes definitely.

This hypocrisy was also revealed in October 2014 by an Arab site,Actionpal.org , which identified the number of Palestinian Arabs killed in Syria: 2 512. Not a single line in the media.

The French media practising intellectual terrorism.

Censorship of any idea contrary, any debate, arguments and intimidation methods for preventing the development of harmful ideas, nothing can stop the media, speak with one voice as if it was only one opinion and they had been brainwashed.
This ideological censorship, the font of the word, forbidden to speak of what is beyond the gates of the ruling doctrine.

The thought police uses the techniques of fascism and Nazism to implode Arab propaganda.

Some examples: Alexandra Schwarzbrod Liberation, Mediapart, BFM, ITV, Le Parisien, Le Monde, Courrier International, France 24, La Croix, MetroNews, France 2, Marianne, 20 Minutes, Slate, Nouvel Obs, Le Figaro, The AFP: all decided Jews are the criminals, without leaving their confortable offices and without any confirmatory police report, found Jews to be culpable .

The left rejoices – finally some "proof" for their slanderous accusations of Israel.

The immediate and vociferous world reaction, including that of the Israeli media, was overwhelming. Many claimed that Jewish terrorism happens all the time and is ever present. Time will also tell if it was indeed an attack by Jews. But we do not need to wait to find out who has perpetrated dozens and dozens of attacks against Jews in the last year or two: Palestinian Arabs, driven by their fanatical, antisemitic, Islam-inspired hatred of Jews.

Arabs attacking, maiming and murdering Jews is an almost-daily event.

In France, when reporting police arrests of criminals, journalists always use the conditional, speak of "suspect" until law courts have given their verdicts. In this reportage, however, there are no suspects, there is no use of the conditional: the putative miscreants are guilty for sure, taken for granted to be so because they are Jews.

The kings of the amalgam, finally, it is they, the journalists.

For a well-oiled disinformation process, the disclosure of wrongdoing attributed to some Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria allows for a huge amalgam to stigmatize an entire population
 – that of Israel – and then develop the amalgam to the top of the state, and accuse the Israeli government of ultimate responsibility.

Disseminating slanders against the Jewish state, it is trendy.

Denounce any amalgam against the Muslim community as well.

Intellectual terrorism is not an end in itself, it is a means to steer public debate against the Jews and Israel. Thus, the media, when they talk of Israel became "Einsatzgruppen" of thought.

The media who lie about Israeli assault me. My story, my identity, their refusal to allow me to define myself, is the expression of intellectual terror.

The offspring of right-wing extremists, Nazis, fascists, it's them.

Yes they attack me. We Jews have a hard shell, very solid. Nevertheless, they attack us.

Our real enemies, the Europeans, the Arab worst enemies in the region, attacking us for years not for what we would do or would not do, but for what we are and what we represent.

It does not succumb to the temptations of the oppressors and persecutors worldly, so we give up our history, our values, the faith of our fathers, and worst of all: our identity, the word they hate the most.

We do not accept the deletion they are inflicting to the European people by dilution in Islam, his drowning in immigration. On the contrary!

Recalling Leo Tolstoy's perception of the Jewish People:

“The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlasting fire, and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the religious source, spring, and fountain out of which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religious. The Jew is the pioneer of liberty. The Jew is the pioneer of civilization. The Jew is the emblem of eternity.”

"The Campaign To Boycott Israel is An Antisemitic Policy ... The Problem Starts With The World's Media": Aussie newspaper publisher

The Cambridge Union has voted that Israel is "a rogue state": ayes 51 per cent; noes 19 per cent; abstentions 30 per cent.  Ben White, the ubiquitous anti-Israel campaigner who spoke in favour of the motion along with Ghada Karmi and Norman Finkelstein, has his triumphant take on the sordid matter here.

Miriam Margolyes, coincidentally herself a Cambridge graduate, the "star of stage and screen" known to young audiences as "Professor Sprout" of Harry Potter fame, but whose longest-running, not to say infamous, role seems to be that of an "Ashamed Jew" (see Ray Cook's unforgettable review here) has been up to her old tricks.

And as a result of her demonisation of Israel an the ABC's Q&A show (Australia's answer to the BBC's "Question Time") the  veteran leftist has been enjoying rather too much of the limelight in the Australian press this past week or so, especially from its Israel-bashing elements.

She's attracted attention not only because she repeated her despicable mantra that Israel is responsible for the rise of antisemitism worldwide, but because she described  prime minister Tony Abbott as "a tit".

Liberal Party minister Josh Frydenberg, assistant treasurer in Abbott's team, did his best to refute her ignorant views, in a courteous manner.

Pity another visiting Brit (actually, Margolyes now has dual Aussie/British citizenship) Melanie Phillips was not on the panel to show her up.

Or the alter ego of Dame Edna Everage, who rather splendidly dealt with Margolyes on a previous Q&A when she spouted similar invective against the Jewish State.

As Ted Lapkin, a former adviser to the Abbott government, has observed in The Australian newspaper:

'The moment actress Miriam Margolyes opened her mouth to opine on anti-Semitism during the ABC’s Q&A this week, the moral rot at the heart of 21st-century leftist thought came on full display. Responding to an audience question on the issue of Jew-­hatred, the ever-so-progressive Margolyes indulged in a nauseating exhibition of “blame the victim” pathology. The reason “people don’t like Jews”, she didactically intoned, “is because of the actions of the state of Israel”.

Margolyes declared during a BBC interview in 2010 that she “totally understood” Palestinian anti-Jewish hostility because Is­rael “foments it”. Using Margolyes’s line of reasoning as a guide, the slaughter of Jews in Paris and Copenhagen should not be blamed on the jihadi fascists who actually pulled the triggers. The true culprits responsible for the shedding of Jewish blood in France and Denmark are instead those dastardly Zionists whose ­actions incite justifiable Islamic resentment.

.... Through her uncritical pro-Palestinian activism she provides political aid and polemical comfort to one of the most noxious theofascist movements in the world today.

....  Margolyes is Jewish, a fact that marks her for death in the Hamas covenant that explicitly invokes a genocidal campaign to kill every Jew on earth. She is also openly gay, another capital offence in the Hamas playbook. And she’s a woman, and thus consigned to second-class citizenship under the strictures of sharia law.

.... [J]ust as the Islamic Middle East is consumed by civil war and genocide, Margolyes seeks the downfall of the sole democracy in that tortured region. Margolyes’s ethical disorientation is a symptom of a greater malady. She’s a microcosm of the “long march through the institutions of power” advocated in the late 1960s by Marxist student radical Rudi “the Red” Dutschke.

Across the past half-century much of our media and many centres of cultural authority have devolved into leftist monocultures of self-flagellation that preach moral relativism, the evils of free-market capitalism and the black-armband narrative of Western history.

As a result we’ve become so timidly PC that many of us are incapable of recognising the obvious fact that Westminster democracy is superior to Wahhabi theocracy.'

But enough of the objectionable (some say the "Jewish anti-semite") Margolyes.

"If I can speak on behalf of the community tonight I would like to express my appreciation to the prime minister, Tony Abbott, who has been a staunch friend of both the Australian Jewish community and Israel"

So proclaimed Australian Jewish News publisher Robert Magid at the launch in Sydney of a book celebrating 120 years of his newspaper. 

'....[T]here are dark clouds on the horizon.

Only yesterday it was revealed that at a rally in Sydney demonstrators chanted: "Khaibar ya yahud, jaish Muhammad saya'ud" – Look out Jews the armies of Mohammad are coming."

While the chanting is seen on the streets of Sydney, the problem starts with the world's media. 

Hamas is a terrorist organisation that rules Gaza with an iron fist, tortures Palestinians, throws people from the roofs of buildings and executes citizens without due process.  It diverts humanitarian aid to build rockets and terror tunnels.  Its schools teach children to kill Jews.

Its aim is the extermination of the State of Israel.  Yet none of this is reported by the media for fear of retribution by Hamas.

On the other hand, Israel is a free society.  One can write the most mendacious reports about Israel with impunity and the international media takes full advantage.  There is group-think among international journalists based in Israel which has contributed to the demonisation of Israel.

Many of the appalling features which are prevalent in Palestinian society are perversely attributed to Israel in a complete inversion.

Most of us in this room know about Israel's amazing technological advances, its flourishing culture and the fact that it sends rescue teams to natural disasters throughout the world.

But you will not see the media reporting this because they are focusing rather on settlements, conflicts, the lack of progress in negotiations for which Israel is purportedly solely to blame.

Non-Jewish Australian businessmen who visited Israel last year during the war with Hamas said that media reporting of Israel in Australia did not reflect the reality they experienced.

In a recent British poll asking which country people most abhor, Israel came second only to North Korea.

Every murderous, totalitarian regime which kills gay people, treats women as chattels, practises apartheid, arrests dissidents without charge, tortures prisoners, executes for misdemeanours and where no freedom exists is preferred to Israel.

 The Boycott Israel movement is spreading around the world.

So should we boycott Israel?

Only if we use the same yardstick for Israel as for every other country, such as China, Russia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, all Arab, African and Latin American countries.  The result would be total isolation.

.... The campaign to boycott Israel is an antisemitic policy.  Why would you boycott the only liberal democracy in the Middle East?

There is only one answer: because you have an irrational hatred of Jews.

....  While the majority of Muslims in the West might be repulsed by the behaviour of jihadis in their midst, their distorted understanding of the Israeli Palestinian conflict contributes to their widespread anger and hatred toward Israel, which morphs into hatred of Jews.

As a result, the main threats to the Jewish communities come mainly from hotheads in the Muslim community....

Our immigration policies have been a success because immigrants have been free to express their values insofar as they are consistent with Australian values, values such as sexual equality, tolerance of their fellow citizen's beliefs, freedom of expression and the rule of law.

But this isn't the case for all communities.

There is a small but vocal section of the Muslim community that has not accepted Australian values.  The onus is on the leaders of the Muslim community to purge imams, teachers and other members of their community who promote violence and hate speech and refuse to embrace the moral foundations of Australian society....

We should support an immigration policy which blocks entry to anyone who is likely to destabilise Australian society....' {Emphasis added]

Media Most Foul: David Singer demolishes Richard Falk's attempt to justify Israel's status as "a special case" for obloquy

In this, his latest article ("Israel – Media Imbalance Incites Jew-hatred"), Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer brings his own perspective  to the chorus of condemnation by Israel's friends over the way in which an irresponsible western media has stoked the flames of antisemitism in recent weeks.  He proceeds to focus on Richard Falk's "very disturbing" insistence that Israel constitutes "a special case" as a target for press and public opprobrium.

Writes David Singer:

The incessant media focus on Israel – compounded by misleading and factually incorrect reporting  – has materially contributed to inciting the growth of Jew-hatred world-wide. Organisations such as HonestReporting and CAMERA expose inaccurate reports appearing daily in the most widely read and supposedly reputable international newspapers, television stations, radio networks and on-line publications.

Corrections eventually made usually come too late to remedy the initial sensationalist reporting. Matti Friedman sums up this phenomenon:

“Is there anything left to say about Israel and Gaza? Newspapers this summer have been full of little else. Television viewers see heaps of rubble and plumes of smoke in their sleep. A representative article from a recent issue of The New Yorker described the summer’s events by dedicating one sentence each to the horrors in Nigeria and Ukraine, four sentences to the crazed génocidaires of ISIS, and the rest of the article—30 sentences—to Israel and Gaza.”

This pre-occupation with Israel at the expense of covering far more serious conflicts in the region prompted one concerned person to ask Professor Richard Falk – the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on "the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967” – the following questions:

“Nowhere on the face of the earth will you find a country that has been unremittingly attacked in the language used to attack Israel, or at all – not truly genocidal nations like Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria, Serbia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Turkey; not the world’s worst violators of human rights like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Somalia, Russia, China, North Korea and Cuba; not seizers and occupiers of land like Russia, Armenia, Turkey (Northern Cyprus), Morocco and Azerbaizhan. Where are the BDS movements, Prof. Falk? Where are the blogs? Where are the armies of blog crawlers? Where are the videos? Where are the links? What do you think it is that draws all these “critics” to Israel and nowhere else?”

Falk’s reply – designating Israel as a “special case” – is very disturbing.

“Israel is a special case for at least three reasons: – its legitimacy was established by UN and League initiatives without any effort to take into account the views of the population physically present in the country; – the US as the world’s self-appointed global leader has singled out Israel for the most massive financial assistance over a period of many years, and has lent controversial support to Israel to shield it from censure by the UN; –Israel itself claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East and otherwise posits itself as a shining example even extending to the boast that the IDF is the most moral army in the world. These three reasons explain and justify the attention given to Israel’s alleged wrongdoing. Beyond this, the fact that worse offenders are not scrutinized to the same extent as Israel is more an argument for according more attention to such offenders. It is not excuse for Israel’s behavior. Whether we like it or not the Israel-Palestine conflict has become the litmus test of international morality ever since the collapse of apartheid South Africa.”

Falk’s reasons for assigning only Israel and none of the other nominated states “special case” status are outrageous and can be dismissed on the following grounds:

1. The “League initiatives” to which Falk refers is the Mandate for Palestine unanimously endorsed by the League of Nations in 1922. Syria, Lebanon and Iraq – products of the same Mandates system – are currently humanitarian and politically dysfunctional disaster areas. Yet Falk does not regard them as “special cases”.

2. The views of “the population physically present” were taken into account  being both politically and violently expressed from the moment Britain assumed its role as Mandatory. Arab riots in 1920, 1929 and between 1936-1939 expressed opposition to the Jewish National Home. The 1922 decision on Transjordan, the 1937 Peel Commission, the 1939 White Paper restricting Jewish emigration to Palestine, and the 1947 United Nations Special Committee on Palestine all recommended changes to the Mandate’s stated policy to the detriment of the Jewish people.

3. Israel’s legitimacy was not established by the United Nations – but by the League of Nations, seven decades of State building and defeating six invading Arab armies in 1948.

4. Since when did financial aid received from another country qualify the recipient to be classed as a “special case” because other countries received lesser aid or no aid from the same donor country?

5. America has not always vetoed resolutions against Israel in the Security Council. America has also vetoed resolutions affecting countries including Panama, Nicaragua, Namibia and South Africa – but never have they been regarded as “special cases”

6. Israel is indeed the only democracy in the Middle East and its army is certainly one of the most moral armies in the world – yet Falk has long advocated support for the PLO and Hamas whose stated objectives are to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

Falk’s discredited assertion that Israel is a “special case” setting it apart from the world community for special treatment encourages

* the media to keep focusing disproportionately on Israel

* Arab and Islamic countries justifying their continuing non-recognition of Israel

* Jew-haters and self-hating Jews world-wide maintaining their campaigns denigrating and delegitimising Israel.

“Jews are always good for news” needs an urgent media rethink and policy overhaul – if increasing Jew-hatred world-wide is to be effectively silenced.

Shan't Learn, Can't Learn: The BBC's Jon Donnison

Yesterday: another biased Donnison tweet; more in similar vein today

He really is a piece of work, the BBC's Jon Donnison.

One of the most perceptibly and persistently biased of all the BBC's Middle East correspondents, he has countless times been shown up for the egregiously prejudiced and under-informed reporter that he is by the incisive and knowledgeable Hadar Sela of BBC Watch.

But instead of taking Ms Sela's well-founded criticisms to heart and attempting to rectify his prejudiced reportage so that it reflects the objective approach incumbent upon him and his colleagues by the BBC Charter, he has chosen not to learn from his mistakes and instead has taken to making childish jibes about his tenacious Israeli critic that says far more about him than about her:

Indeed, Al Beeb's former Gaza correspondent, who was sent back there from Sydney to cover Operation Protective Edge, seems never to have quite come to terms with his new billet here in Australia.

Among his numerous tweets (some of them of puerile schoolboy standard that not only let him down, but also, I should have thought, the BBC) are many regarding Gaza  and Israel; no prizes for guessing the comparative twists.  Indeed, a sticky post on his Twitter page big-notes the photos he took when last there; you can guess their thrust.

Too many of his reports from and comments about Australia are flippant and shallow.

Yesterday he tweeted this, which I suspect reveals as much about Donnison's attitude as the Somali man's:

Donnison seems to have made little effort to delve deeply into Australia's history and politics, preferring, it would appear, to rely on gleanings from left-wing sources including leftists with Twitter accounts.

His latest piece is a typically superficial and partisan one about Australia's "stop the boats" policy, by which illegal mainly economic migrants wanting to jump the established immigration queue fall victim to international people traffickers, and which in typical leftist style he interprets as the unconscionable response of a heartless government backed by racist people.  (I wonder whether he realises that the long defunct "White Australia Policy" to which he refers in the article originated less in racism than in the fear that uncurbed migration from South-East Asia was inexorably driving down workingmen's wages.) And, true to form, he manages to make Gaza and the Gazans a feature of the piece.

Twitter, indeed, appears to encourage lazy journalism, and lazy journalism is what many of Donnison's critics consider a failing of his: witness, for instance, this.

It seems a given that BBC staff scan and cite the Guardian and Ha'aretz for news of Israel, to the virtual exclusion of centrist and (perish the thought!) rightwing media (except to disdain or mock the latter's content).  Preferring leftist sources, which in Australia's case means the Fairfax Press and not Murdoch 's News Corp is, evidently in almost every Beeboid's DNA.

Donnison's recent dismissive tweet about the article in Ha'aretz on antisemitism in Australia by former Australian Jewish News editor Dan Goldberg  which originally appeared in the latter paper is a probable example of Donnison's mindset. 

Goldberg had opened the article thus

"Australia is not afflicted by the same degree of anti-Semitism reportedly sweeping Europe, but there is a “palpable level of concern” among Jews here following a spike in anti-Semitic incidents since the Gaza war broke out seven weeks ago, some Australian academics warn...."

and it took care not to accentuate the problem.

It did, though, observe, inter alia:

'There have also been several physical assaults on Jews here, but the torrent of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic abuse has come from the sewers of social media.

 “There has been a seismic shift,” said Prof. Mark Baker, director of the Jewish center at Melbourne’s Monash University. “It’s as though the images that we once viewed on television have popped out of the computer screen and landed in our bedrooms.

“People feel as though they are living inside the experience of ISIS beheadings, anti-Israel demonstrations and the Gaza Israel war,” he told Haaretz.

“Everyone is talking about this incessantly, fearing that the world is no longer recognizable, and living in fear of an impending catastrophe. The community is in a tailspin and looking for answers.”

Prof. Danny Ben-Moshe, another Melbourne-based academic who analyzes anti-Semitism, agreed there had been a shift within Australian Jewry but stopped short of describing it as “seismic.”'

 “The collective well-being of Australian Jewry has been adversely affected,” Ben-Moshe told Haaretz. “Jews are neither as free nor as safe as they were prior to this war.” ....'

And it concluded:

'Zeddy Lawrence, the editor of the Australian Jewish News, agreed there was a “palpable sense of concern” within the Jewish community, but did not go as far to suggest the community is in a tailspin.

“There have only been a few isolated anti-Semitic incidents,” he said. “But seeing what has happened in Europe obviously heightens fears of a backlash against the community here.”

In the wake of the incident on Jewish pupils on a school bus in Sydney, Dr. Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission, wrote earlier this month: “There are alarming developments and chilling signs that are making the Jewish community here less comfortable, less confident and very worried that the flames of anti-Semitism are burning more furiously at home.” '

 I suspect the mention of the media, which invoked memories of the disgraceful Mike Carlton article in the Fairfax Press and its accompanying odious cartoon (above, right) prompted Donnison's dismissive attitude, because it wouldn't do for a Beeboid to concede antisemitism on the part of fellow journalistic leftists indulging in a spot of Israel-bashing, now, would it?

Chuck the chutzpah, Jonno!

Indeed, I seem to recall that Carlton or someone of his ilk gleefully retweeted this example (right) of what passes for Donnisonian wisdom.


And  I've a hunch that a piece by a Muslim editor on his community's concern about increasing "Islamophobia" in Australia would not have been so cavalierly treated.

That's no alibi for you, Jonno

Still, knowing how fond Donnison and his fellow lefties are of the Fairfax Press, I trust they will tweet the link to this article that appears in today's Sydney Morning Herald, by an Israeli living in Australia, Dana Amir:

'....Two weeks ago in this paper, an anonymous Israeli declared shame in her citizenship. I'm proud that she has the right to do this, and can do so safely, both here and in Israel. However, her anonymity was insulting. Australia and Israel is not Gaza or Nazi Germany. Israelis and Australian Jews can, and do, criticise Israel.

Although I'm sad that it has been forced to do so, I'm really proud that Israel has invested billions of dollars on bomb shelters and air-raid sirens and radars to detect incoming rockets and missiles to shoot down those rockets, all in the name of protecting its people.

I'm proud that I could do my small part in protecting other Israelis by serving in the army. The army consists of people just like you and me; people who would prefer to start their adult life  earlier, but understand the importance of defending their country. That said, I hated the idea of fighting Palestinians.

For, whether we like it or not – or they like it or not – Israelis and Palestinians share a homeland. We could fight each other for another few generations, or we could divide the land so both sides have a state. I'm proud that successive Israeli governments, buoyed by majority opinion, have been willing to do just that. We have engaged in peace talks, we have made offers. I  know there are Palestinians who also want to stop fighting. I don't know how many, because their media remain full of calls for Israel's destruction, many of their politicians describe Jews as sub-human and their leaders keep turning down Israeli peace offers.

But I know peaceful Palestinians exist, and exist in significant numbers....

What I also know is that Hamas hates me – not because I'm an Israeli, but because I'm a Jew. I know  that Hamas sees itself as being in an inter-generational war with my people. That is why it launches rockets and digs tunnels to provoke fighting with Israel. Not because it thinks it will win, but because it thinks that, after another 10, hundred, thousand such rounds of conflict, the Jews will find somewhere else to live.

Well, we won't. And while I'm proud that the Israeli army does what it must to protect Israelis, it breaks my heart when innocent Palestinians die. I believe that their deaths are the result of Hamas's unbelievably cynical tactics, and I'm proud of the lengths to which Israel goes to prevent Palestinian casualties...."

Read Dana Amir's entire article here