BBC News fails to adequately inform on Australian organisation

On January 21st the BBC News website’s ‘Australia’ page published a report credited to Kathryn Armstrong and Tiffanie Turnbull titled “Antisemitic crimes may be funded overseas, say Australian police” which currently opens by telling readers that:

“Australia’s federal police have said they are investigating whether “overseas actors or individuals” are paying local criminals to carry out antisemitic crimes in the country.

There has been a spate of such incidents in recent months, the latest of which saw a childcare centre in Sydney set alight and sprayed with anti-Jewish graffiti. No-one was injured.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called a snap cabinet meeting in response, where officials agreed to set up a national database to track antisemitic incidents.

Thus far, the federal police taskforce, set up in December to investigate such incidents, received more than 166 reports of antisemitic crimes.”

The report later mentions some of those incidents:

“Last week, a man from Sydney became the first person to be charged by the federal taskforce, dubbed Special Operation Avalite, over alleged death threats he made towards a Jewish organisation.

Albanese said Tuesday’s incident at a childcare centre in the eastern Sydney suburb of Maroubra was “as cowardly as it is disgusting” and described it as a “hate crime”. […]

Most of the recent incidents have taken place in Sydney and have involved antisemitic graffiti, arson and vandalism of buildings including synagogues.”

Notably, the BBC’s report does not include any comment from the “Jewish organisation” which was the target of “alleged death threats” – the Australian Jewish Association – or the main Jewish organisation monitoring antisemitic incidents – the eighty-year-old Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

The report does however include comment from an organisation established less than twelve months ago.

“The Jewish Council of Australia, which was set up last year in opposition to antisemitism, said that it “strongly condemns” this and all such incidents.

“These acts underscore the urgent need for cooperation, education and community dialogue to combat prejudice and promote understanding,” it said in a statement.” [emphasis added]

Turnbull and Armstrong’s portrayal of that statement does not inform readers that it went on to say:

“We urge politicians not to use these attacks for political point scoring or to spread other forms of hatred, such as Islamophobia or anti-Palestinian racism. Responses such as these breed racism and division rather than combating them.”

Similarly, their portrayal of the Jewish Council of Australia as having been set up “in opposition to antisemitism” fails to adequately inform BBC audiences, concealing the fact that in its February 2024 launch press release, the organisation stated:

“We will understand and address antisemitism as part of the broader problem of racism in Australia, rather than as a special case.”

The same press release included a very specific portrayal:

“Antisemitism is a real and evolving threat perpetuated by fascists and the far right.”

As it makes abundantly clear, the Jewish Council of Australia is primarily a niche political organisation:

“While we have diverse views on many issues, we are united in our opposition to Israel’s continued policies aimed at the destruction of Palestinian life. We are opposed to the Israeli occupation and the prioritisation of the rights of Jewish people over the rights of Palestinians. […]

We support calls for freedom, equality and justice for all Palestinians and Israelis. We reject any claim that this call is racist or antisemitic, or that it is antisemitic to criticise Israel’s conduct.”

In an interview given to the Guardian shortly after its establishment, one of the group’s founders had this to say:

““If [antisemitism] gets weaponised to shut down Palestinian voices, it becomes much harder to call out real antisemitism, which I feel is growing in a number of ways,” she says.

Since the terrorist attacks on Israel by Hamas on 7 October and Israel’s retaliatory bombardment of Gaza, antisemitic incidents in Australia have multiplied, with the ECAJ recording a 482% increase in the seven weeks after the attacks.

But Strakosch says the harassment of Jews has come from fervent supporters of the Israeli government among the Jewish community as well as from “more blatant and openly violent” neo-Nazis.”

The anti-Zionist Jewish Council of Australia – which has former Guardian contributor Antony Loewenstein on its advisory committee – rejects the widely adopted IHRA working definition of antisemitism and in September 2024 opposed proposed legislation on antisemitism. Despite being a lawyer, one of its executive officers has promoted inaccurate claims concerning the January 2024 ICJ ruling:

“Human rights lawyer Sarah Schwartz, also an executive on the council, said the willingness of Israel lobby groups to partner with organisations that have a history of racism and bigotry was concerning.

“At a time when the International Court of Justice has found a plausible case that Israel is committing genocide, the weaponisation of false anti-Semitism accusations and Holocaust memory … is particularly egregious,” she said.” [emphasis added]

Another of its executive officers has whitewashed an antisemitic chant:

“He believes there are legitimate differing interpretations of the “river to the sea” chant.

“In our interpretation, and as it’s explained by Palestinian people the world over, is it’s a call for freedom and equality for all people, Jewish and Palestinian. Palestinian leaders in Australia have been very clear when they say freedom from the river to the sea, it extends to all people,” he said.

“It’s definitely not something that should be construed as a threat to Jewish people or Israelis,” Kaiser said.”

In other words, the Jewish Council of Australia’s “opposition to antisemitism” is confined to specific circumstances which align with its anti-Zionist political agenda. Nevertheless, that was the only Australian Jewish organisation which Turnbull and Armstrong found fit to quote in their bizarrely ending report about antisemitic attacks in Australia.

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