ABC preaches about racism but ignores the modern echoes of 1930s Germany.
The national broadcaster seems to be indifferent to the fears and concerns of the Jewish community; it has scarcely reported on, let alone editorialised against attacks on Jewish Australians.
Joe Gersh, Daily Telegraph
Friday, 31 May 2024
As a former ABC Board director, I have long advocated for the critical role our public broadcaster plays in our national conversation. I have defended the ABC against calls for it to be defunded or privatised. When my term on the board came to an end last year, it was my firm intention not to become a critic of the institution I had been privileged to help advance and promote.
However events are, as always, the greatest challenge to good intentions. The brutal attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7 was, until it happened, an unimaginable event. And everything changed.
Since then, anti-Semitism has risen to levels never before experienced in Australia. For the first time in living memory, the Jewish community is asking itself whether Jewish life is tenable in Australia in the future.
I have waited for the ABC to call out the exponential rise in the manifestation of anti-Jewish hate in our midst. I have been disappointed. The national broadcaster seems to be indifferent to the fears and concerns of the Jewish community; it has scarcely reported on, let alone editorialised against, violent and abusive attacks on Jewish Australians.
ABC 7.30 political correspondent Laura Tingle speaking at the Sydney Writers Festival on Sunday, May 26, 2024.
Instead it has fallen to Sky News to make the documentary that the ABC should have made. On Tuesday night, Josh Frydenberg’s brave and forthright Never Again: The Fight Against Anti-Semitism aired on Sky News. So why is the publicly funded ABC largely silent about anti-Semitism?
It’s with great sadness that I have had to conclude that the ABC is not urgently bringing the issue of anti-Semitism to the public’s attention because it does not believe it is a problem.
Former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has produced a Sky News documentary on ant-semitism called Never Again. Picture: Supplied by Sky News Australia.
Speaking at the Sydney Writers Festival, ABC political reporter Laura Tingle called Australia a “racist country”. I can’t agree that Australia is a racist country. And I’m not sure the comment was appropriate for an ABC director. But it is undeniable that there are racists in Australia.
And yet anti-Semitism is the one type of racism it seems that the ABC cannot find the will to firmly condemn.
To be clear, criticism of the Israeli government, whether well-founded or otherwise, is not anti-Semitism.
But what do you call a student who attacks an 84-year old woman on her way to a peaceful protest and calls her a “Zionist pig”? What do you call someone who writes “Jew Die” in graffiti on the walls of the Jewish school attended by my grandchildren; a school attended and supported by their parents and grandparents?
And what do you call someone who compiles a list of Jewish creatives, leaking their personal details to activists, encouraging their pursuit?
The author giving evidence about the ABC and political interference at a hearing in 2019. Hollie Adams/The Australian
There is a word for those people: anti-Semite. Those actions constitute anti-Semitism. Plain and simple.
The ABC should be front and centre on this issue. So why isn’t it?
What the ABC says about the Israel- Hamas war is important. How it says it is even more important.
Has the ABC passed the test of impartiality? Take the case of its Global Affairs Editor, John Lyons, the ABC’s lead on this issue. Lyons is an experienced and knowledgeable journalist, but also the author of a book highly critical of Israel and a long essay expressing contempt for the leadership of the Jewish community and its advocacy groups. How can he possibly be suitable to lead the ABC’s Israel-Gaza coverage requiring, as its charter does, impartiality on the issue?
Australia in 2024 is not pre-war Germany. Far from it. In pre-war Germany discrimination against Jews was enshrined in law and incitement was conducted and orchestrated by instruments of state. In Australia, discrimination against Jews is prohibited by law, as incitement; laws which are to be strengthened imminently.
But the extent of the disinhibition demonstrated by many of the Palestinian activists, most recently on campus; the relentless anti-Israel advocacy of the Greens, and the widespread repetition of a fundamentally anti-Semitic “from the river to the sea” mantra, which calls for the destruction of the Jewish state makes it clear: anti-Semitism in Australia is reaching unprecedented and dangerous levels.
This is not the Australia I believe most Australians want. For that matter, I don’t believe it’s the Australia that the ABC leadership wants. It is time to act.
Joe Gersh is a businessman, lawyer and philanthropist. He was an ABC Director from 2018 to 2023.
Read the article on The Daily Telegraph here.