As I recently reported, Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton took the stick to an ABC reporter who demanded to know why he called Hezbollah a terrorist organisation and not “resistance”. “I think the ABC is in greater trouble than even I first imagined,” Dutton said.
He hasn’t been paying attention, then.
Like the BBC in Britain, the ABC’s coverage of Israel has been extraordinarily biased. Israel is repeatedly cast as the villain and smeared with ‘war crimes’ falsehoods, while anti-Semitic terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah are glossed over. Multiple complaints were made after the ABC’s coverage of protesters in Australian cities carrying Hezbollah flags failed to mention that the flags are banned due to Hezbollah being a proscribed terror group.
You’d think the ABC might have learned from the dressing down from Dutton. But, no.
Here’s its ‘explainer’, purporting to break down the conflict for its readers.
It literally heads it by calling Hamas and Hezbollah ‘Iran’s Axis of Resistance’.
The Iran-backed state and non-state actors span Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Note that: ‘non-state actors’. Not ‘terrorists’.
In fact, in the entire 900-odd words, the ABC only mentions ‘terrorist’ once: in noting that Hamas ‘is listed as a terrorist organisation by the governments of Australia, UK, US, and Canada’. In fact, it’s listed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the EU, the UK, Japan, Paraguay, Argentina, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the 35-country Organization of American States.
The ABC’s twisting of the facts doesn’t end there.
Almost a year ago, Hamas militants hit southern Israel with a deadly attack.
Israeli authorities said about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage when the group stormed across the border from Gaza on October 7.
Israel responded with a military offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians and injured about 96,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Where to start with this odious passage? The minimisation of October 7 as ‘Hamas militants’, and the ‘Israel says…’ insinuation that the death toll and hostage-taking was somehow exaggerated?
Or the taking of Hamas (‘Gaza’s health ministry’ is another way of saying ‘Hamas’) at their word on the death toll?
Hezbollah was founded during Lebanon's 15-year civil war and came to the fore after Israel's invasion of the country back in 1982.
The Council of Foreign Relations says the Iran-backed militant group is driven by its violent opposition to Israel, and its resistance to Western influence in the Middle East.
Again, note the implication that Hezbollah is somehow a legitimate ‘resistance’ group and the insinuation that it’s all Israel’s fault, anyway (no mention that Israel’s 1982 invasion was, once again, a direct response to unrelenting terror attacks).
In fact, in contrast to the lone use of ‘terrorist’, ‘resistance’ is used in the article 10 times.
Then the ABC turns to whitewashing the Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
The group has been attacking ships in the Red Sea since November last year, stating it was supporting "Palestinian resistance in Gaza".
The Houthis began targeting only Israeli ships but have since turned their attention to Israeli ports, and ships of any company that had other ships visit Israeli ports.
Which is a sly way of avoiding admitting that yet another Iranian-backed terror group is indiscriminately targeting civilians.
This is what Australians get for their billion-dollars plus in taxes.
As former PM Tony Abbott perspicaciously observed, a decade ago, “the ABC instinctively takes everyone’s side but Australia’s”.
