Israel in the Australian Media
Tzvi Fleischer
The Australian media focuses disproportionately on Israel and particularly
on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The bias in this coverage derives partly
from trends imported from international sources, especially certain "narrative
frames." However, there are domestic influences within the Australian
media, especially among the public broadcasters and some of the
newspapers, that exacerbate the problem.
Beyond bias, certain themes emerging in the Australian media are
examples of the "new anti-Semitism." These include the alleged financial
and media power of the Jewish lobby; an extreme demonization of Israel
and extravagant assertions about the supposed worldwide effects of its
policy toward the Palestinians; conspiracy theories about American Jewish
neoconservatives; and a tendency to claim that anti-Semitism is a
response to Jewish behavior and attitudes.
Influences on the Australian Media
The Australian media gets much of its news about the Middle East,
both print and electronic, from international services such as AP,
Reuters, AFP, the BBC, and CNN. It therefore absorbs many of the
biases and problems associated with these outlets around the world.
In particular, these sources bring into Australia what the Project
for Excellence in Journalism1 has called "narrative frames" - overall
storylines about the Middle East that shape coverage. They influence
what stories are seen as news, the perspective from which they are
conveyed, language use, and the background the reporter presents.
David Bernstein has identified three such frames that are key to understanding
most media treatment of the Middle East, both in Australia
and elsewhere:2
Narrative Frame #1: The Cycle of Violence
The "cycle of violence" frame holds that violence only begets violence,
in a vicious circle of bloodshed. According to this paradigm,
in the words of the Jerusalem Post's [Bret] Stephens, "ordinary distinctions
between aggressors and victims, and between random terrorist
acts and targeted military reprisal, are submerged in the catch-all
word 'violence,' as if violence belongs to the same category as the
weather...."
Narrative Frame #2: Victim vs. Victimizer
Another, more overtly biased narrative frame is "victim versus victimizer,"
which holds that the former victim - Israel or the Jewish
people - has now become the victimizer. It should not surprise us
that this is the default position of an industry that has described its
mission as "to afflict the powerful and comfort the afflicted...."
Narrative Frame #3: All Negotiations Are Good, All Conflict Is Bad
Another narrative frame that journalists use is that negotiations are
good and that conflict, or the threat of conflict, is bad. According
to Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the
mainstream media tend to be biased in favor of peace negotiations
and against the party perceived as scuttling peace talks. In a report
two years ago about Pakistan-India tensions, NPR's Michael Sullivan
commented approvingly of a "more reasonable attitude from both
sides" toward entering into negotiations. His comment represented
a subtle rebuke of the Indian foreign ministry spokesperson interviewed
in the story, who demanded an end to cross-border terrorism
as a precondition for negotiations.3
In addition to these common problems of narrative frames, certain
aspects are specific to parts of the Australian media.
First, some of the outside sources imported into Australia, particularly
from Britain, go so far as virtually to adopt the Palestinian
narrative of the conflict. Traditionally, Australian journalists and
media organizations have looked first and foremost to their British
counterparts both for material and as models. British newspapers,
however, unlike in postwar Australia or the United States, have
long been marked by overt ideological agendas. In particular, the
Australian press imports stories and commentaries from The Independent
and The Guardian, both of which are more or less openly
pro-Palestinian. As recently demonstrated by Trevor Asserson,4 the
same holds true for the BBC, which is also utilized extensively in
Australia.
In addition, some segments of the media have, through interaction
and self-selection, developed a largely common worldview that includes
axiomatic, strongly pro-Palestinian views. This is particularly
the case among Australia's public broadcasters, though in less extreme
form than in the BBC.
Israel and the Australian Media
As in most of the world's media, Israel receives disproportionate coverage
in Australia given the subject's limited relevance to most people's
daily lives. Moreover, the attention focuses almost entirely on the
conflict with the Arabs. Israeli political and social news is generally
reported in terms of its effects on that struggle and the prospects for
its resolution. Nor does the media aphorism "If it bleeds it leads"
suffice to explain the coverage, since other conflicts involving much
more loss of life receive much less coverage.
This disproportionate focus typifies all parts of the electronic and
print media, though the treatment of Israeli and Middle Eastern news
differs in other ways as well.
Print Media
The Australian print media is dominated by two corporate players.
All major cities except Perth have a daily newspaper associated with the
News Ltd media company, whose principal shareholder and founder is
Australian-born American businessman Rupert Murdoch. This group
includes the nation's largest-circulation dailies, the Herald Sun and
Daily Telegraph tabloids, published in Melbourne and Sydney, respectively.
News Ltd also runs the important daily The Australian.
News Ltd's major competition comes from the John Fairfax stable
of newspapers, which includes the Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne's
The Age, and a national financial daily, the Australian Financial Review.
Certain independent daily newspapers also play an important role
in shaping the overall tone of media coverage, such as Perth's West
Australian and the Canberra Times. Although the latter, for example,
has a modest weekday circulation of less than forty thousand,5 its
influence is disproportionate because it is based in the nation's capital.
Its audience includes senior civil servants, politicians, the diplomatic
community, and the federal parliamentary press gallery, which plays
a major part in determining what stories are featured and how they
are covered.
None of Australia's major newspapers is explicitly political in
the way many British papers are. All present themselves as independent,
objective sources with a wide range of commentary and
views. However, the editorial line of some of them, such as the
Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times, tilts to the left,
and of others, such as The Australian or tabloids like the Herald Sun, to the right.
Most consistently anti-Israeli is the Canberra Times, both in terms
of its editorial line and the opinion and analysis it publishes. It also
frequently reprints slanted news and commentary from Britain's Independent.
The two major Fairfax newspapers, the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age, are Australia's leaders in reprinting material from The
Guardian. This makes their treatment of Israel less fair. These papers
also tap other British dailies with different outlooks, such as The Telegraph and The Times, as well as major American papers. Nevertheless,
the strongest voice in their Middle East coverage, apart from their
own reporters and analysts, is The Guardian.
As is true everywhere, news coverage in the different papers
varies over time as personnel change. The current Fairfax correspondent
in the Middle East, Irish journalist Ed O'Loughlin, frequently
puts Palestinian interpretations of events as the leads to his
stories, with a paragraph much further down including a statement
from an Israeli spokesperson. He also often uses language or interprets
the news in ways critical of Israeli policies. For instance, in
2003, he declared that the road-map peace plan was "widely seen
as anathema to Sharon, the former champion of annexing the territories
and expelling their Arab occupants," despite the fact that
Sharon's government had backed the road map and Sharon himself
had never called for forced removals.6 A few weeks later, O'Loughlin
speculated in a news story that a missile attack on a Hamas leader
meant Sharon's "public change of heart was just an elaborate
dummy that he sold to Bush."7
An independent study of Age news coverage of Arab-Israeli issues
over eight weeks in 2003 highlights other examples of unfair coverage
by O'Loughlin, and other serious flaws in many stories.8
By contrast, O'Loughlin's predecessor as Fairfax Middle East
correspondent, Ross Dunn, was generally fair in presenting the views
of both sides.
Television
There are five free-to-air television networks in Australia. The three
commercial ones are Channels 7, 9, and 10. Each presents competent
nightly news programs and some current affairs, but depends on overseas
news services for international coverage. The partial exception is
Channel 9, the highest-rating of the three, which does more of its own
reporting both for news and current affairs shows. The latter include
an Australian version of 60 Minutes and also Sunday, which is watched
by the political classes, journalists, and other opinion leaders.
Most of this programming is balanced and professional, if strongly
influenced by the international news services. However, Richard Carleton,
the main foreign affairs reporter on 60 Minutes, is highly critical
of Israeli policy and his periodic stories on the Middle East clearly
reflect this viewpoint. For instance, following the death of Yasser
Arafat, Carleton commented, "[Arafat] was a terrorist of course but
that didn't distinguish him. Some say Mandela was one too. Ariel
Sharon is near a war criminal....[Arafat] gave hope to defeated and
oppressed Palestinians."9
However, the most influential television news source, though not
the one with the largest audience, is the government-funded Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Its news programming has a fairly
large audience10 and is watched closely by the political and intellectual
classes, and it also produces two daily, significant current affairs shows.
It also offers a variety of other material in this area, much more than
the commercial networks.
Allegations of bias about ABC's Middle East coverage have often
been raised and debated. During the 1991 Gulf War, Labor Party
Prime Minister Bob Hawke criticized ABC for nearly exclusive reliance
on "expert" commentators who strongly opposed using force against
Saddam Hussein.11 Australian Jews have also complained of a culture
of bias at ABC, documenting problems in the presentation of facts,
use of language, and acts of commission and omission designed to
reflect a politically-correct agenda.12
A recent book by Peter Manning, ABC's former head of news
and current affairs and now a university journalism lecturer, reflects
the channel's dominant, self-perpetuating views. In its first part, Dog
Whistle Politics and Journalism attempts to prove Australian media
racism against Arabs by using a computer search for the proximity
of the words Arab and Islamic with words related to war and violence.
Given that there has been a real concatenation of terror and violence
with the Middle East in world affairs, it is not surprising that he found
the combination was quite common. As for the book's second part,
it argues that the media did not sufficiently understand that Palestinian
suicide bombings were a necessary and reasonable response to Israeli
occupation.13
As Manning told ABC Radio National:
Yes we have suicide bombers, but that's one reality. Another reality
is that since the 1967 war there's been, whether it's a Labour or a
Likud government in Israel, there has been expansion of settlements
into occupied Palestinian land. Now what do a people who are
occupied do about that, and how do they have a space, how do they
have a narrative in the Western media to represent their feelings
about that, and their actions about that, and how is that reported,
and does it in any sense balance the Israeli government narrative
which is about terrorism and suicide bombers?
So when for instance, since 2000, there was a Barak government
policy which was taken up by the Sharon government, which was
to assassinate Palestinian leaders one by one, and...do so quite indiscriminately,
not "targeted assassinations" as the Israeli public relations
machine would have you say, but quite messily, so that women
and children and Palestinian children in schools are shot while they're
sitting with their schoolbooks.14
Another public television network, the Special Broadcasting Service
(SBS), provides multicultural programming. It also offers news
with an international focus, and considerable current affairs and documentary
material, again with a worldwide emphasis. Although its
ratings are generally low,15 its current events shows are watched by
many politically active people.
Of the television networks, SBS has the most Middle East - and
most consistently biased - coverage. This partiality appears to come
both from the sources SBS uses - it relies more on BBC material for
its overseas reporting than any other Australian news service - and
from an apparent ambience of sympathy for the Palestinians as part
of the network's commitment to multiculturalism.
A study by the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council of daily
SBS coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict in 2001 gives fifty-seven
examples of bias in violation of SBS's own editorial guidelines. It also
summarizes SBS documentary programming on the Middle East over
a ten-year period, and finds a preponderance of material highly critical
of Israel. Moreover, one of the few exceptions, the BBC's Israel: A
Nation Is Born screened in 1996, was given an introductory warning
that the program presented "a partisan view of this tumultuous era
in history....It is unfortunate that the Arab view was not sought, to
fill in the gaps." None of the shows critical of Israel, including some
from official Palestinian and Lebanese sources, prompted a similar
disclaimer.16
Radio
ABC is also the dominant force in radio news and current affairs in
Australia, though generally outrated by commercial talk radio. Radio
news primarily depends on wire services, and the political, intellectual,
and business elites generally tune in either to the local or national
ABC stations. In recent months the former communications minister,
Senator Richard Alston of the ruling Liberal Party, submitted sixty-six
complaints about reporting on the Iraq War in a single ABC radio
news program.17
Anti-Semitic Trends in the Australian Media
Anti-Israeli bias is common in Australia media; much rarer are instances
of outright anti-Semitism. Most of the problems in the coverage
of Israel do not involve racism but, instead, journalistic ignorance or
sloppiness under time pressure, as well as narrative frames that are
often amplified by material from overseas news services.
Certain media themes relating to Israel in Australia do, however,
fall into the category of anti-Semitism. More specifically, they are
examples of the "new anti-Semitism," in which hatred and conspiracy
theories about Israel and its supporters serve the same attitudinal
functions as did beliefs about Jews for traditional anti-Semites. Five
trends in the Australian media unequivocally violate one or more
elements of Natan Sharansky's "3-D" test for anti-Semitism:18 demonization,
double standards, or delegitimation.
1. Jewish power, especially financial power, closes off debate about the
Middle East in Australia.
This is the single most dangerously anti-Semitic theme now current
in Australia. It was particularly prominent in late 2003, when there
was a media debate over the decision by a committee associated with
Sydney University to give the annual Sydney Peace Prize to Palestinian
activist Hanan Ashrawi. All major bodies of the Jewish community
protested that, given her hardline stances, Ashrawi was an inappropriate
recipient, and some asked the premier of New South Wales to
refrain from personally granting the award.
Prof. Stuart Rees, head of the selection committee, wrote in the
Sydney Morning Herald that Jewish criticism of the award "raises
issues central to the health of Australian democracy. Should people
give way because of the formidable financial power pitted against
them?"19 He also told a columnist, Alan Ramsey, that he was standing
up to "invisible but powerful people" who "intimidate and bully."
Ramsey, a respected veteran commentator, himself complained about
the "virulent campaign of distortion by Jewish critics" and said that
to "buckle" to them would be "shameful."20 Earlier Ramsey had
backed a Labor opposition backbencher's criticism of a pro-Israeli
speech by Labor leader Simon Crean, saying: "So there you have
it - money. Almost always, in politics, money is at the root of the
greatest grovelling....The pro-Israeli lobby in this country is a powerful,
influential and intimidating group. Backbenchers...get left way behind,
along with the interests of the Palestinians."21
Even more extreme was the editor of the Herald's online "Webdiary"
discussion forum, Margo Kingston, who said that Jewish backers
of Sharon "seem to have the power, money and clout to dominate
public debate and wield enormous political and financial power behind
the scenes."22 Later she asserted that "the fundamentalist Zionist lobby
controls politics and the media in the US and Australia."23 When
there were objections, Kingston replied that she was mystified, saying,
"I am not anti-semitic, and I thought what I wrote was a statement
of fact."24
ABC programs at the time of the Ashrawi controversy made similar
claims. Stephen Crittendon of ABC Radio's Religion Report interviewed
a Jewish leader and repeatedly charged that the opposition
to Ashrawi was really "about bullying and intimidation" and might
"release anti-Semitic views."25 In a story about supposed Jewish "pressure"
to "censor" an exhibit at a Sydney museum, the ABC Television
program Lateline asserted that because of the Ashrawi dispute "the
power of Australia's Jewish lobby was at the centre of media attention."
However, the story included no examples of actual pressure.26
Other expressions of this theme, with its classical anti-Semitic
resonance and implication that any disliked participation by Jewish
organizations in public debate is illegitimate and dangerous, were
common in 2003 and have occasionally reappeared in the Australian
media.
2. Israel is a demonically evil or Nazi state and the source of most of
the world's problems.
Claims that Israel was uniquely evil or a Nazi state were not
uncommon among extreme critics over the past decade, but increased
drastically in the media after 11 September 2001. Some opponents of
military action in Afghanistan and Iraq often put Israel at the center
of Middle Eastern and world problems. This view fosters distorted
portrayals of Israeli policies.
John Pilger, a highly regarded Australian expatriate journalist and
filmmaker, wrote in reaction to the 11 September attack:
The current threat of attacks in countries whose governments have
close alliances with Washington is the latest stage in a long struggle
against the empires of the west, their rapacious crusades and domination...
the weak have learned how to attack the strong, and the western
crusaders' most recent colonial terrorism (as many as 55,000 Iraqis
killed) exposes "us" to retaliation.
The source of much of this danger is Israel. A creation, then
guardian of the west's empire in the Middle East, the Zionist state
remains the cause of more regional grievance and sheer terror than
all the Muslim states combined.27
The largest promulgator of such notions has been the Canberra
Times, especially its editorial page. Over the past decade or so, at least
two of the paper's columnists have compared Israel to Nazi Germany.28
After 11 September, an editorial said the event might "give propaganda
power" to Israeli attempts "to characterise Palestinian resistance as
'terrorism.'"29 A few days later, foreign affairs correspondent Lincoln
Wright averred that since 11 September "was directed by Islamic
terrorists aggrieved by US support for Israel," the best response would
be if "the US pressured Israel to provide some justice to the Palestinians."30
A few weeks later, an editorial stated: "The latest cycle arises
from World War I, which spawned the vengeful Versailles, Nazism,
the Holocaust, the creation of Israel and the displacement of the
Palestinians. Horrible and inexcusable as it is, the September 11 attacks
did not come without cause."31
Subsequent editorials have similarly demonized Israeli behavior.
In October 2003, when Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed
told the Organization of the Islamic Conference that Jews control the
world, the paper argued that if Mahathir had "said 'Israeli' rather
than 'Jewish'...some of his points were arguable" and "until Israel
shows rather more good faith in addressing the causes of its problems,
it can hardly be surprised about being misrepresented."32
There are many other examples, such as SBS documentaries, of
attributing demonic motives and inordinate influence to Israel.
3. U.S. policy is the result of Jewish neoconservatives.
Another anti-Semitic trend that has appeared in the Australian
media involves conspiracy theories about American neoconservatives
that portray them as either a wholly or uniquely Jewish phenomenon.
It is of course not anti-Semitic to criticize either neoconservatives or
their views - unless one means Jews, or claims they are serving Israel
and not the United States. Unfortunately, charges of the latter type
have been made in Australia.
A forty-five-minute story on the neoconservative phenomenon on
ABC Television's flagship investigative show 4 Corners, screened on
18 March 2003,33 repeatedly identified neoconservatives as Jewish or
Zionist and said they have "tentacles" throughout U.S. power structures.
Other ABC programming has made similar allegations, such as
7:30 Report on 1May 2003 in which the presenter asked a guest: "Will
Bush accept a need to demonstrate not just to Palestinians, but also
to the rest of the Middle East, that he's not just being run by the
Israeli lobby?"34
Similar exaggerated and racist claims about neoconservatives have
appeared in the press, especially in material imported from British
papers such as The Guardian.
4. Anti-Semitism results from Jewish activities and behavior, especially
support for Israel.
Phillip Adams, a prominent ABC Radio presenter and newspaper
columnist, said Jewish criticism of Ashrawi's peace prize was "an
attack on free speech in this country, and yes, free assembly." This
was a ridiculous assertion, but not anti-Semitic. But after declaring
his support and closeness to the Jewish community, Adams went on
to say that Jewish lobbying on this issue and others "plays right
into the hands of the true anti-Semite." As noted earlier, Stephen
Crittendon of ABC made a similar assertion about Jewish advocacy
and anti-Semitism, and there are other examples. It would be considered
unacceptable to claim that, for instance, while violence and racism
against African Americans is unfortunate, the views of most blacks
and the policies supported by their leaders exacerbate the problem.
5. Classical anti-Semitic themes explain Jewish and Israeli behavior.
Some of the commentary on Israeli-Palestinian issues uses elements
of classical anti-Semitism beyond the "Jews control the media"
trope.
For example, in the 23 December 2004 edition of the Australian
Financial Review, the academic David Wetherell, whose past work has
concentrated on the history of Christianity in Australia and the Pacific
islands, published an article called "Israel and the God of War." In
it he argued that Judaism and the Bible make Jews inherently prone
to genocide and ethnic cleansing. Citing Deuteronomy, he claimed:
"the narrative does require the genocide of the indigenous inhabitants."
He also quotes the author Gem de Ste Croix's statement that: "I know
of only one people which felt able to assert that it actually had a
divine command to exterminate whole populations among those it
conquered, namely, Israel."
Wetherell adds a variety of pro-Palestinian arguments, including
that Zionism was always essentially about ethnic cleansing. The article
also draws on classical Christian anti-Semitic themes about how Jews
are vengeful and unforgiving and believe their status as the "chosen
people" entitles them to abuse non-Jews.35
Conclusion
The Australian media has a mixed record on Israel. Much of the
coverage is developed from international wire services and shares their
biases. In the electronic outlets, distortion also stems from entrenched
cultures, especially at the public broadcasters ABC and SBS, as events
are interpreted within frames such as "occupation," "cycle of violence,"
or "terrorism as the last resort of the desperate."
In addition, themes have emerged that belong to the "new anti-
Semitism." These include the Jewish lobby's supposed financial and
media power; extreme demonization of Israel and allegations about
the global effects of its policy toward the Palestinians; conspiracy
theories about American Jewish neoconservatives; and a tendency to
claim that anti-Semitism is a response to Jewish conduct and attitudes.
These notions are not widespread, but neither are they marginal. They
deserve serious scrutiny and an effort to combat them by both the
Australian and international Jewish communities.
* * *
Notes
1. The Project for Excellence in Journalism is "an initiative by journalists to
clarify and raise the standards of American journalism," according to its
self-description. Part of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism,
its website is: http://www.journalism.org.
2. David Bernstein, Israel in the Media: A Guide to Producing Effective Media
Critiques (New York: American Jewish Committee, 2004). The discussion of
narrative frames begins on p. 13. Available at: http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/
PubIsrael.asp?did>1260.
3. Ibid., pp. 14, 15, 15-16.
4. See the various reports at www.bbcwwatch.com.
5. Figures for six months up to December 2004, as compiled by the Australian
Audit Bureau of Circulation. See the website of John Fairfax Holding: http://
www.fxj.com.au/readershipcirc.htm.
6. The Age, 31 May 2003.
7. The Age, 14 June 2003.
8. Media Study Group, "An Analysis of Compliance with Journalistic Standards
in The Age Newspaper's News Stories on the Arab-Israel Conflict
from June 15th 2003 to August 15th 2003," available online at: www.honestreporting.
com/articles/ 45884734/reports/-The-Age--Newspaper-Study-(pdf).
asp. The study is a valuable source of examples of problematic coverage in
The Age, and as a whole makes a strong case. However, it has some problems
both in terms of the overly quantitative methodology used, and occasional
unrealistic standards for media behavior rooted in a lack of detailed knowledge
of the news business.
9. Channel 9, 60 Minutes, 14 November 2004.
10. Figures for the second week of March 2005 show that ABC receives 16.9
percent of total television viewing in Australia's major cities from 6 p.m. to
midnight. The ABC Nightly News, while well behind news broadcasts on
commercial Channels 9 and 7, has a substantial viewership and the Sunday night
edition is one of the fifty most watched shows on television for the
week. See Oztam ratings figures, available at: http://www.pbl.com.au/media/
pdf/2005/Australian%20Television%20Ratings%20-%20Week%2011.pdf.
11. For a brief description of this controversy, see Michael Kapel, "Notebook,"
Australia/Israel Review, 18 February 1998, http://www.aijac.org.au/review/
1998/232/notebk232.html.
12. Daniel Mandel, "The ABC of Bias," The Review, June 2002, http://www.aijac.
org.au/review/2002/276/abc - bias.html.
13. Peter Manning, Dog Whistle Politics and Journalism: Reporting Arabic and
Muslim People in Sydney Newspapers (Sydney: University of Technology,
Centre for Independent Journalism, 2004). See also an analysis of the book
by Ted Lapkin, "Who Shall Judge: One Manning's Terrorist...," The Review,
April 2004, http://www.aijac.org.au/review/2004/294/manning.html.
14. ABC Radio National, The Media Report, 4 March 2004. The transcript
is available at: http://www.womenforpalestine.com/020403v2/media-interviews
-DangerousLabels.htm.
15. In the second week of March 2005, 4.8 percent of television viewing in capital
cities from 6 p.m. to midnight was of SBS. See Oztam ratings figures at: http://
www.pbl.com.au/media/pdf/2005/Australian%20Television%20 Ratings%20-
%20Week%2011.pdf.
16. The AIJAC report is available at: http://www.aijac.org.au/resources/reports/
sbs-report.html#Documentaries.
17. For a recent discussion ofAustralian controversies about ABC bias, including
the Alston complaints, see Gerard Henderson, "Devil in the Detail, but Now
It's Their job," Sydney Morning Herald, 8 March 2005, http://smh.com.au/
news/Gerard-Henderson/Devil-in-the-detail-but-its-now-their-job/2005/03/
07/1110160750162.html.
18. Natan Sharansky, "Antisemitism in 3-D," Forward, 21 January 2005.
19. Sydney Morning Herald, 22 October 2005.
20. Ibid., 25 October 2005.
21. Alan Ramsey, "Lost Even with a Map," Sydney Morning Herald, 30 August
2003.
22. "Webdiary," Sydney Morning Herald, 14November 2003, http://www.smh.com.
au/articles/2003/11/14/1068674374750.html.
23. Ibid., 22 July 2004. The web address is: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/
07/22/1090464787482.html, but the specific phrase has since been removed.
It was, however, reproduced in a subsequent posting cited in the next
endnote.
24. Ibid., 26 July 2004, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/26/1090693889
416.html.
25. ABC Radio National, Religion Report, 29 October 2005, http://www.abc.net.
au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s977542.htm.
26. ABC-TV, Lateline, 18 November 2003, http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/
2003/s991146.htm.
27. John Pilger, "The Unmentionable Source of Terrorism" Antiwar.com, 20
March 2004, http://antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid>2159. To the best
of my knowledge, this particular article was not published in the mainstream
Australian media.
28. Gerard Noonan, "Third Reich Echoes on the West Bank" Canberra Times,
24 March 1994; Robert Macklin, "Holocaust's New Religion Adds Fire to
Old Conflict," Canberra Times, October 2000, cited in Jeremy Jones, "Leaping
the Line," The Review, November 2000.
29. Canberra Times, 15 September 2001.
30. Ibid., 18 September 2001.
31. Ibid., 9 October 2001.
32. Ibid., 20 October 2003.
33. ABC-TV, 4 Corners, 10 March 2003, http://abc.net.au/4corners/content/2003/
transcripts/s801456.htm.
34. ABC-TV, 7:30 Report, 1May 2003, http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/
s845107.htm.
35. David Wetherell, "Israel and the God of War," Australian Financial Review,
23-28 December 2004.
* * *
TZVI FLEISCHER has been editor of The Review, the monthly current affairs magazine of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), since 1999. He has served in various roles at AIJAC since 1992, and also writes a monthly media column for the Australian Jewish News. He is currently completing a Ph.D. in international politics at Monash University.
* * *
The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect
those of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
The above essay appears in the Fall 2005 issue of the Jewish Political Studies Review, the first and only journal dedicated to the study of Jewish political institutions and behavior, Jewish political thought, and Jewish public affairs.
Published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (http://www.jcpa.org/), the JPSR appears twice a year in the form of two double issues, either of a general nature or thematic, with contributors including outstanding scholars from the United States, Israel, and abroad. The hard copy of the Spring 2005 issue will be available in the coming weeks."
From the Editors: Manfred Gerstenfeld and Shmuel Sandler
The Forgotten Narrative: Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries by Avi Beker
European Politics: Double Standards toward Israel by Manfred Gerstenfeld
Annals of Israeli-Albanian Contacts on Establishing Diplomatic Relations by Yosef Govrin
Perspectives - Jomo Kenyatta and Israel by Asher Naim
Assessing the American Jewish Institutional Response to Global Anti-Semitism by Steven Windmueller
The New Muslim Anti-Semitism: Exploring Novel Avenues of Hatred by Raphael Israeli
Arab and Muslim Anti-Semitism in Sweden by Mikael Tossavainen
Kill a Jew - Go to Heaven:
The Perception of the Jew in Palestinian Society by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
Israel in the Australian Media by Tzvi Fleischer
Barbara Tuchman's Comments on Israel by Moshe Yegar
Hidden in Plain Sight: Alexis de Tocqueville's Recognition of the Jewish Origin of the Idea of Equality by Joel Fishman
Perspectives - The Seventh-Century Christian Obsession with the Jews: A Historical Parallel for the Present?
by Rivkah Duker Fishman
Book Reviews:
Isi Leibler on Tower of Babble: How the United Nations
Has Fueled Global Chaos by Dore Gold
Shalom Freedman on Iran's Nuclear Option: Tehran's Quest
for the Atom Bomb by Al J. Venter
Shalom Freedman on Rabin and Israel's National Security
by Efraim Inbar
Freddy Eytan on The Long Journey to Asia
by Moshe Yegar
Susanne Urban on From Cooperation to Complicity:
Degussa in the Third Reich by Peter Hayes,
and The Nazi Dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank
by Harold James
Joel Fishman on The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People
under Siege by Kenneth Levin
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Rising from the Muck: The New
Anti-Semitism in Europe by Pierre-André
Taguieff
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Les territoires perdus de la
République: Antisémitisme, racisme et sexisme en milieu
scolaire by Emmanuel Brenner
Manfred Gerstenfeld on Holocaust Justice: The Battle for
Restitution in America's Courts by Michael J. Bazyler
Shalom Freedman on Double or Nothing: Jewish Families
and Mixed Marriages by Sylvia Barack Fishman
About the Contributors
Jewish Political Studies Review
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