...[Bnai Brith] Anti-Defamation Commission chairman John Searle said yesterday he was disappointed that Australia's Arabic community was supporting the station, al-Manar.
The Australian Communication and Media Authority has twice stopped the channel from being broadcast in Australia, in 2004 and in January this year, because of its support for terrorism. Now it is being transmitted by an Indonesian satellite company part-owned by the Indonesian Government, which has declined American requests to halt the broadcasts.
Al-Manar is operated by Hezbollah... endorses suicide bombing and often broadcasts the final messages of suicide bombers.
Mr Searle said al-Manar went beyond acceptable limits of free speech and was renowned for inciting violence and hatred. He said he was disturbed at statements by Australian Arabic Council chairman Roland Jabbour in The Age yesterday that the channel was popular and should not be restricted. "I would have hoped that a station broadcasting programs which describe Jews as the offspring of apes and pigs and which advocates their annihilation would not receive the support of Australia's Arabic community," he said.
Mr Jabbour responded yesterday by saying that anti-Semitism was wrong and that Judaism should be respected, but that Hezbollah was not anti-Semitic. "We need to make a clear distinction between anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and between a terrorist organisation and a resistance group," he said. He said he would not call Jews the offspring of apes and pigs, but that in the context of "the crimes of the state of Israel" it was reasonable for al-Manar to do so and to portray Israeli rabbis as killing Christian children to use their blood in Passover meals.
...and from the Andrew Bolt Blog (The Herald Sun), Friday, August 22, 2008:
...If that’s what Jabbour calls “respecting” Judaism, I’d hate to think what he’d get up to if he were a, you know, bigot.
For a reminder of the kind of respectful, non-racist progamming put on by al-Manar, here are a few cheery little clips.
Oh, and as for Jabbour, you’ll be pleased to know that a man with his broad mind and fine taste in television has been showered with all the honors appropriate in our fiercely multicultural land:
- Founding and Current Chairman Australian Arabic Council
- Appointed to the Federal Government, Council for Australian Arab Relations
- Justice of the Peace for the State of Victoria
- Victorian Government Joint-Arabic Standing Committee on Educational Cooperation
- Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s committee on Racism and Discrimination
- Deakin University Academic Advisory Board on Arabic Studies
- Former Committee Member of the Northern Schools Network of Victoria
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