Fran Kelly’s coverage on Radio National’s Breakfast of last weekend’s shooting down of an Israeli warplane by Syrian missiles was fit for a Press TV midday bulletin, it being completely devoid of any rigorous factual debate.
On Saturday an Iranian drone crossed into Israeli airspace where it remained for around a minute and a half where an Israeli Apache helicopter was dispatched to destroy it. Israel then responded by destroying the control vehicle the drone was being directed from, as well as another 12 Iranian and Syrian targets. Syrian anti-aircraft batteries responded, downing an Israeli F-16 but not before the pilots ejected.
Listeners of Breakfast were probably expecting, if not hoping for, a recount of recent events informed by fact and perhaps even backed up by a discussion between two people of differing political persuasion. Alas, listeners were instead treated to the one-sided, unchallenged propaganda of Mohammad Marandi, a pro-Iranian apologist teaching at the University of Tehran interviewed by Ms Kelly.
This is not the first time the ABC has let fly their anti-Israel colours. Last year a Palestinian family was evicted from their home after losing a court case to an Israeli family who was found to be lawfully in possession of the land the Palestinians were squatting on. The ABC proceeded to dedicate two minutes of coverage on the midday bulletin and then a spot on “7:30”. The ABC received significant criticism when it failed to give equal coverage to the stabbing of three members of a Jewish Israeli family celebrating a birth in the family around their Shabbat dinner table.
Journalists today are more likely to have a centre-left leaning perspective and it is certainly no secret that the vast majority of journalists at the ABC have a left-leaning perspective when it comes to doing their jobs. This lends itself to bias and a tendency to cover Israel the way the left does: as an apartheid state set up as a colonial project to subjugate Arabs. This is despite the fact that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and the only country that treats gays, women, Arabs, Jews and Christians equally before the law. But I digress.
The interview conducted on Monday is but another blot on the ABC’s Israel record. Marandi was able to speak for around eight uninterrupted minutes on how “dishonest” Israel was to suggest that a drone had even entered Israeli airspace (which it had). Kelly failed to challenge Marandi on a number of other points.
Marandi also posited that the only reason Israeli planes ever bombed Syrian targets was to protect Islamic State (IS) and Al Qaida. This is a blatant lie. From the beginning of the Syrian civil war Israel has pledged not to intervene on any side, however, it has promised to conduct attacks proportional to the attacks its receives from adversaries. Israel is the only state that IS fears because Israel uses a strategy akin to the strategy employed by the US and the Soviets during the Cold War. Israel has managed to avoid a confrontation with IS by credibly persuading them that any attack on the Jewish state will be met with a response that leaves them unable to significantly retaliate and achieve victory.
As Graham Allison explains: “If you refrain from the prohibited action, I will withhold the threatened punishment. If, for whatever reason, I decide to administer the specified punishment even though you have complied with my demands, I spend that coin—and can no longer use that threat to deter you.” Israel is not favouring IS over Syrian forces because they are strategic bedfellows. They are maintaining a policy of deterrence and strategic patience; Israel is choosing to avoid IS, Al Qaida and Syrian forces so as to not ‘spend’ the strategic coin that deters its enemies. For example, in 2015 Israel threatened IS with an overwhelming response if they attacked Syrian Druze living in the Golan Heights.
Kelly also failed to remind listeners that Israel bombs Syrian targets because “credibility is enhanced by taking limited offensive actions to signal that the ‘rules of the game’ have been broken.” In March 2014, an explosive device was detonated on the Syrian-Israeli border. Israel was quick to respond with strikes on Syrian forces in the south of the country. In September, Israel shot down a Syrian fighter jet over Israeli territory once it crossed the cease-fire line between Israel and Syria. The next year, Israeli forces killed four Syrian personnel attempting to rig explosives on the border fence. Israel attacks both IS and Syria proportionality because to not do so would damage the credibility of Israeli red lines.
This is the kind of information Kelly should have put to Marandi. Funnily enough, Marandi did not come off second best here. He was able to say his piece and leave. Unfortunately for Kelly, she opened the ABC to criticism and contributed to the fracturing trust Australians have in their ‘impartial’ broadcaster. Lessons, however, can be learned from American experiences.
In an interview on CNN, Ben Shapiro, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Wire summed up the dangers agenda-driven, biased-laden reporting can have for outlets that claim to be impartial. Shapiro argues that many people do not trust the media “because the media seem like they are representing their own interests, [as] a separate class, as opposed to people who are defending the interests of the American people.” Since the media never tried to be the opposition during the Obama years, it is now highly disingenuous that they want to be the opposition during the Trump presidency.
If the ABC wants to be taken seriously when covering Israel its reporters need to remind viewers that fact checking is more important to them than emotionally biased reporting.
Ben Walsh (currently works for an international think-tank based in Perth)