Sky News host Chris Kenny says a divisive, conspiratorial “knee-jerk anti-Israel blame game” was allowed to air unchallenged on Channel Ten’s The Project in the aftermath of the Beirut explosion.
The death toll in Beirut has now risen to at least 175 people, with 5,000 or more injured after scores of ammonium nitrate exploded in a warehouse after a fire in the port capital of Lebanon.
In its coverage of the disaster, The Project invited on a guest who insinuated the explosion may have been an attack emanating from Israel.
“No evidence proffered, no qualification or distancing by The Project hosts, just a divisive, baseless, anti-Israel conspiracy theory floated,” Mr Kenny said.
“Not on the dark web, not through some extreme-Right or extreme-Left anti-Israel group, but by a mainstream commercial television program.
“This is the ugly sort of blame-shifting that fuels anti-semitism and fuels hatred in the Middle East. Television hosts and producers, if they are going to cover serious issues really ought to do better than this.”
Mr Kenny spoke with former Labor MP Michael Danby on the issue.
Watch the news clip from The Kenny Report on Sky News.