BY SIMON TAYLER
SYDNEY Every Sunday night, Channel 31's Actively Radical TV (ARTV) program includes The Palestine Report, a segment on the conflict in Palestine. The report presents viewers with a point of view that the mainstream media habitually ignores or dismisses as biased: that of the Palestinian people.
The Palestine Report is the subject of a complaint to Channel 31 and the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA). In a letter dated August 28, the NSW Board of Jewish Deputies claimed the show contained "errors of fact", "bias" and "incited hatred" against Israelis and the Jewish community. Notably, the letter failed to mention any specific instances of how The Palestine Report distorted history or incited hatred.
The complaint received by the ABA also lacks details. It cites the May 19 program, but only complains that the history of Israel was "potted".
"We absolutely reject the idea that we're anti-Semitic", Jill Hickson, the program's coordinator, told Green Left Weekly. "We are critical of the rulers of Israel and their apartheid policies. A lot of people sympathetic to Zionism accuse anti-Zionists of being anti-Semitic, or of whipping up hatred against Jewish people. This is untrue and is a device to stifle debate. Many Jewish people oppose Zionist policies and support the just struggle of the Palestinian people for their rights. Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism."
Neither the letter to the station or the complaint to the ABA contain any specific threats of legal action, but the letter does request copies of Channel 31's charter and code of conduct. "We're taking this as an implicit threat", Hickson said, "but we won't be censored on this issue. We're determined to give voice to the voiceless, and the Palestinian people are one group of people denied voice by the mainstream media."
ARTV supporters are asked to send letters of support to: Channel 31, 154 Broadway, Broadway, 2001; and ABA, Level 15, 201 Sussex Street, Sydney, 2001.
ARTV airs on Channel 31 every Sunday at 9pm. Channel 31 is just past SBS on the UHF band.<|> From Green Left Weekly, September 25, 2002.
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