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Jmedia Manager
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Our public broadcaster the ABC should be made accountable for a set of three program segments on the ABC Saturday Extra radio program that have done an appalling job overall addressing the vexing subject of water management issues between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Here are links to the three ‘water’ related segments that have been on Geraldine Doogue’s Saturday Extra program this year:

  1. Israeli experts on drought management with Professor Elion Adar & Professor Noam Weisbrod
  2. Water situation in Palestine reaches crisis point with Shira Efron
  3. Water in the Palestinian territories with Dr Abdelrahman Tamimi

The last interview with Palestinian Dr Tamimi, the General Director of the Palestinian Hydrology Group, was introduced by Geraldine Doogue apologising that her previous programs on the subject of water had not provided sufficient ‘balance’. In fact ABC Saturday Extra had succumbed to pro-Palestinian pressure by presenting an interview in which Dr Tamimi pursued a highly politicised pro-Palestinian propaganda agenda.

Seth Siegel is the author of the seminal book ‘Let There Be Water‘. We recommend that you listen to a full interview with Seth Siegel that was played in large part on the J-AIR radio program ‘The Israel Connexion’ for full details about this issue.  It reveals the abject failure by the ABC’s Saturday Extra program to do proper justice to the controversial subject of water management in Israel-Palestine allowing Dr Tamimi to further exacerbate the Israeli-Palestinian dispute by spreading malicious misinformation.

We exhort you to pressure the producer of the Saturday Extra program to remedy the lack of an appropriate and meaningful coverage of this contentious subject. Seth Siegel has indicated that he is prepared to be interviewed by Geraldine Doogue to discuss the subject of water properly and correct the misinformation that was broadcast in the interview with Dr Tamimi. This approach is recommended because the lodging of formal complaints to the ABC in the past has been a complete waste of time and the AJA has a voluminous dossier to prove it.

What we are specifically proposing is that if you are concerned like us that the ABC needs serious redress for its appalling coverage of issues to do with Israel then you should contact Saturday Extra by phone on 02-8333 2821, sending a text to 0418 226 576 or if you have the patience to write to Saturday Extra, ABC Radio National, GPO Box 9994 Sydney 2001. Formal complaints to the ABC have proven futile; it’s time for some grassroots advocacy!

Please promote this simple campaign. All that it requires is a text message, phone call or a letter to ask ABC Saturday Extra to interview a true expert like Seth Siegel to rectify their mistake.

Sending a text is probably the easiest thing to do. A message like ‘Please redress the appalling interview with Palestinian Dr Tamimi because it was replete with pro-Palestinian propaganda’ will do the job.

David Schulberg

P.S. With the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hamas there are further examples emerging of the anti-Israel media bias for which our public broadcaster the ABC is renown.

Here is the latest example from the ABC RN Breakfast program. The mention in the story there that the casualties have included a pregnant mother and her baby is extremely misleading as Israel has reported that the death of the mother and her baby was caused by a misfired rocket from Gaza. Such wrongful reporting so prevalent from the ABC only helps to create hostility and hatred for Israel.
#TellOurABC – if you are incensed by this disgraceful ABC reporting then please send a message of criticism on the ABC contact page.

See the video