Recently, ABC ‘Media Watch’ chose to mount an attack upon AIJAC for its complaint to the ABC about matters arising from the screening by ‘Four Corners’ of the controversial BBC Panorama documentary on Ariel Sharon (29/4). ‘Media Watch’ ridiculed AIJAC’s complaints and misrepresented data that AIJAC had provided it. But this is scarcely the first occasion that reasoned complaint concerning ABC’s news and current affairs coverage has been greeted by individuals at the ABC with obtuseness and hostility.

A blow-by-blow account of each and every instance of ABC bias on the Middle East would be prohibitively lengthy. But a thematic study of the issues that have recurred in the past year helps to indicate that the problem is neither imaginary nor over-stated. It also explains why Michael Kroger is not alone in his frustration with the ABC being a law unto itself.

Over the past year, in respect of the Middle East, the ABC has been doing four things:

1) By omission, commission and sheer inaccuracy, it has misrepresented key facts in stories, giving them a completely different character that misleads viewers;

2) It has deployed biased and loaded language that has been prejudicial to fair reportage;

3) It has engaged in all the acts of commission and omission entailed by a "politically correct" agenda; and

4) It has falsely equated democratic institutions and procedures with those of non-democratic regimes.

The examples chosen are all important, though not necessarily the most serious or memorable. Rather, they serve to clearly illustrate the nature of the problems identified.

The ABC’s ‘World Today’ program presented a report from Jo Mazzocchi (12/6/01) on a rally of support for Israel held by Sydney’s Jewish community, which was addressed by Federal Minister, Tony Abbott. The meeting was described as having been called "to show solidarity for Israel in the face of mounting international pressure over the failure of the peace process." It was said to have been held in the seat of Wentworth, a constituency with a large Jewish population, and that Abbott’s words of support for Israel were "an overt and rare display of alignment".

None of this was true. The rally took place in the seat of Sydney, not Wentworth. It was called to express solidarity with Israelis at a time of horrific losses sustained through Palestinian suicide bombings, not because of "pressure" from anyone regarding an (insinuated) Israeli responsibility for the failure of the peace process. And Mr Abbott’s words of support for Israel were completely consistent with Australian government policy and UN Security Council Resolution 242, which successive Australian governments have supported.

Despite prompt efforts to point out the error, an uncorrected transcript of the report thereafter appeared on the ABC website and it took a week for a correction and apology to be made, and then only in relation to correcting the electorate. This is actually one of the more satisfactory cases where acknowledgement and correction were at least registered.

On ‘AM’ (28/8/01), Linda Mottram reported on the Israeli killing of Abu Ali Mustafa, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an organisation that under Mustafa’s direction had carried out car bombings in Israel. Mottram stated that Mustafa "is by far the most senior of around 50 Palestinians killed by the Israelis in their campaign of murder directed against Palestinian militants."

The same day on ‘PM’, Peter Cave referring to hostilities in Bethlehem, said that the "tension here obviously is the murder, the assassination yesterday of Mustafa". Again the same day, John Highfield on the ‘World Today’ said Mustafa had been "assassinated," then introduced correspondent Peter Cave, whom, Highfield said, was asking an Israeli official "why Israel had chosen now to murder the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine." The not so subtle implication was that Israel was committing war crimes in eliminating terrorists.

Tony Jones, too, in presenting ‘Lateline’ opened one program (7/8/01) with a statement alleging that Israel had begun "escalating its campaign of state sanctioned assassinations to include senior Palestinian leaders." Later in the program, he asked, "So can a state get away with assassinating its enemies at a time when international criminal courts are flexing their muscles?"

Linda Mottram commenced a report on ‘AM’ (5/7/01) regarding the removal of a Bedouin community by Israel following the murder of an Israeli in the district. The Bedouin, said Mottram, "were the latest victims of the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence in which Israeli civilians are murdered and in return, Palestinians face assassination or collective punishment."

Manipulation of language is one way of foiling an equitable reporting of Israel’s case. Both "assassination", which refers specifically to the killing of civilian, normally political, figures, and "murder", which strictly applies to unjustified, premeditated killing, are highly charged terms used only in respect of crimes. Clearly, language is being wilfully perverted when "murder" becomes a synonym for killing and "assassination" another for military action targeting figures who dispatch terrorists.

Targeting military personnel in hostilities, including commanders, is entirely consistent with the Hague Regulations. Yet, on no fewer than five occasions, with three of them on the same day, individual ABC journalists used emotive and prejudicial language to describe legitimate Israeli military action directed at those who orchestrate acts of terrorism. The bias inherent in this repeated choice of words is patent.

But not, apparently, to ABC’s Director of Corporate Affairs, Victoria Buchan, who responded to an AIJAC letter giving examples of bias in this and other ABC Middle East coverage:

In the world according to Buchan, one is three and three is one. Style rather than accuracy determines the choice of words. The meaning of plain English usage is denied and then the calumny repeated. Apparently, it is not the ABC’s role to describe a person who orchestrates murderous attacks on civilians as a "terrorist" — but it is apparently very much the role of the ABC to invidiously describe a legitimate military operation to eliminate a terrorist as "murder". All of which suggests that Buchan understands neither language nor arithmetic, let alone fairness.

Political correctness at the ABC has dictated what we may and may not know or discuss about the Middle East. This usually means scant or no attention paid to anything that upsets David-and-Goliath preconceptions of the Arab-Israeli conflict, or perceptions of Muslims, even if the data is true and noteworthy. Conversely, a new vocabulary can be adopted and a few goal posts relocated when covering real and imagined Israeli transgressions.

Not all ABC journalists are happy about this state of affairs, though the opportunity to say so seems limited. Barrie Cassidy, for example, had to make the following revealing disclosure as a guest on Channel 10’s ‘The Panel’ (26/9/01):

The same month, Philip Adams, interviewed a number of commentators discussing Middle Eastern issues on ‘Late Night Live’ (13/9/01). One of these was Bar-Ilan University’s Professor Gerald Steinberg, an authority on the conflict. His sin, it appears, was to raise an issue that explains much in the Arab-Israeli conflict but which is regularly neglected in the mainstream media: the incitement of Jew-hatred and dissemination of dehumanising antisemitic rhetoric in the media, mosques and education systems of Arab societies. But Steinberg had only to allude to it for Adams to cut him off with the retort that hatred is also disseminated in churches and synagogues. Adams spoke over Steinberg, who could be heard at much reduced volume for some seconds afterwards attempting to elaborate. The official response by ABC’s Mark Collier to AIJAC’s complaint on the incident ran as follows:

It is instructive to observe the ABC asserting that undeniable and newsworthy factual information might be better left untouched because it might incite ill-will and violence against a distinctive group. True, responsible journalism must always involve a calculation of the risk posed to innocent people as a result of how news and current affairs are reported and discussed. Choice of words and scrupulous fairness, as can be seen in the misuse of terms like "murder" and "assassination," are vitally important. But that is a different matter from preventing any reportage or discussion on sensitive issues.

It is also noteworthy that the ABC does not seem to exercise similar solicitude where the sensibilities and safety of the Jewish community are concerned. To the contrary, with regard to Israel, ABC officials and journalists seem to insist on the right to discard fairness in favour of loaded and inflammatory language and without concern for possible consequences.

The Collier response, however, is also important for at least conceding that Adams, in cutting off Steinberg with his gratuitous criticism of churches and synagogues, had been "rather clumsy". Stronger words can be imagined for Adam’s conduct, but the point is made. Or is it? For Adams himself takes an entirely different and unapologetic view of his conduct that night.

Responding to a letter of criticism from a listener, David Wluka, for his behaviour on the program, Adams actually conceded Wluka’s charge. "I’m invariably polite to my guests," responded Adams, "even the ones I find detestable. But Steinberg crossed the line. Here was someone who claims to work in the resolutions [sic] of conflict behaving like a thug — and pouring petrol on already delicate issue. You describe me as ‘rude and unprofessional, showing disrespect bordering on insult’. That’s how he was behaving to the other guests. And to suggest, as he did, that the hatreds flow one way in the Israel/Palestinian issue is laughable, hypocritical, outrageous."

So Adams adds insult to injury and delivers a pious homily on the duty of journalists not to inflame passions and be one-sided. Adams’ listeners will therefore be interested to see how he meets his own stringent criteria when, for example, he next gives leave and license to regular interviewee Robert Fisk to spout harangues against Israel and popularise fictions about US genocide in Iraq.

Surely, Adams will intervene in the interest of preventing a "thug … pouring petrol on an already delicate issue". He will most certainly himself avoid "pouring petrol" on anti-American hatred by heedlessly adopting these fictions himself in his own commentary. And he will surely protest, if necessary cut Fisk off, if he dares to suggest that Israel is all to blame for the Arab-Israeli conflict, for that is the very least he can do in the absence of any other interviewees to balance Fisk. To do otherwise would be, well, "laughable, hypocritical, outrageous."

Since, of course, no regular listener can expect Adams to do any of these things, the Steinberg incident is of considerable forensic significance. Clearly — and on this both Adams’ intemperate response and Collier’s more circumspect one are the same — there are only some groups and countries that merit the tender treatment so willingly, indeed insistently, denied to others. In short, the Muslims are "in", the Jews are "out" — proof if any were needed, that political correctness is simply a different agenda of prejudices, not a solution to them.

Recently, Tim Palmer on ‘PM’ (17/5/02) made the following extraordinary statement in relation to a story regarding how Palestinians were addressing "delayed matters such as the rule of law":

Palmer’s comment was nothing other than a crude effort to foist equivalence between a democratic, law-based society and a terrorist-sponsoring regime run by an autocrat’s fiat. The effort involved falsely implying that, because Israel lacks one written constitution, there is something less than complete rule of law and constitutional government in that country.

This is of course absurd. Other venerable democracies, Britain and New Zealand to name two, also lack a constitution. Israel has a legal regime of basic laws, holding quasi-constitutional status, which include guaranteeing human rights that are regularly enforced by the Israeli High Court, which has jurisdiction in these matters. The separation of powers is an enshrined, practical reality. Australia lacks a Bill of Rights, and very few human rights are guaranteed in the Australian Constitution. Yet no-one would assert that Australia’s form of government can be usefully compared to that of Burma.

Ameliorating the situation is not simple, but must originate in bipartisan political efforts to establish accountability and procedures that allow for this. AIJAC has a good case against ‘Media Watch’ and ‘Four Corners’ that deserves serious attention from those genuinely uncommitted on the issues involved but who are concerned that the national, tax-payer funded broadcaster cease to be a law unto itself. To admit that this is true and necessary does not mean one must withhold credit from the ABC for the good work it produces. Like any large institution, it has its achievements and its faults. But that can be no excuse to avoid addressing its serious failures and shortcomings.