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Anti-Israel bias at the ABC and SBS? Bullying, harrassment and nit-picking are theaffecting the ability of ABC and SBS to report fairly on the Middle East.

Article Excerpt
If Arab ambassadors and lobbyists behaved like their Israeli opposite numbers, would we listen to them? Would we respect them? Would we run for cover and print only one side of the story? Would we, hell. Robert Fisk, Independent, 13 December 2000

The last months have seen a dangerous escalation in the Middle East conflict. The war between Israel and Hezbollah sets a dangerous precedent for ongoing tensions in the region. The alleged involvement of Syria and Iran has allowed Washington, Israel and its allies to justify atrocities in the name of fighting the 'war on terror'. But something else is happening. The power structure of the region is shifting--and nations, long used to using Arab countries as little more than petrol stations, are finding greater resistance to their imperial designs.

Media representation is essential in this struggle. Zionists recognise that they are losing the public relations battle in the eyes of many around the world, not least because it forces them to justify the occupation of another people, the Palestinians. Many are therefore compelled to pressure journalists, editors and media boards to portray Israel as the aggrieved party, a state constantly under attack and threatened with annihilation. The facts do not bear this out, but it matters little to the rhetoric. The notion of journalistic 'balance' has never been so brazenly abused and truth has become a casualty in the process.

In times of war, journalism is a natural breeding ground for controversy: the stakes could not be higher, or the truth more contested. Ever since the September 11 attacks in 2001, Australia's public broadcasters, the ABC and SBS, have been put under intense pressure from the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) and others to conform to a news and current affairs agenda that is pro-Israel, pro-American and anti-Arab, just as they were during the first Gulf War.

Zionists, Liberal government ministers and conservative cultural warriors argue that they are trying to ensure 'balance'. This includes engaging in years of harassment of reporters and senior management with a barrage of complaints. Sometimes complaints have coalesced around the reporting of shocking single events, such as the Israeli Defence Forces' attack on a refugee camp in the West Bank town of Jenin in 2002, during a search for Palestinian militants. Israel denied it had carried out a massacre there, but reporters later witnessed the burial of dozens of bodies. A United Nations investigation--challenged by Human Rights Watch--subsequently determined that fifty-two Palestinians had been killed during the attacks.

Other complaints against ABC and SBS coverage of Israel have alleged broad-brush bias, making them time-consuming and difficult to adjudicate. Or else the complaints are narrow, even nitpicking, focusing on the use of single words in coverage. At least two complaints of systemic media bias brought by AIJAC against the public broadcasters have resulted in in-depth inquiries.

The consequences are that editors and journalists employed by the public broadcasters increasingly self-censor their stories, or fail to ask the tough questions of politicians or establishment figures. Given the climate, it's remarkable how many hard-hitting and provocative programs are still aired. Since 2002, both the ABC and SBS have been under sustained and deliberate attack over their reporting of...

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