ABC Media Watch program continues to wipe Israel off the map

[Published 12 September 2017]


The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC)— taxpayer funded to the tune of $1 billion annually — still continues to feature a map which falsely identifies “Israel” as “Palestine”.

This bizarre conduct came to light after the ABC had initially removed the segment “Misplaced Map Outrage” from its Media Watch website containing the offending map with the following headline:

“Daily Mail accuses the ABC of wiping Israel off the map but misses the point of the story”

When I wrote to Media Watch approving of their decision to delete the segment and seeking an explanation for the segment’s removal — I was shocked to receive this response from Gabrielle Clark at Media Watch:

“This hasn’t been purposely removed. Just looks like a back end publishing error. It is back online now.”

Shortly thereafter I received a further reply from Jason Whittaker, Story Editor, Media Watch:

"The story has not been removed from our website. It remains here:
abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4729053.htm

We have issued no apology, retraction, correction or amendment to this item.

When I clicked on the link supplied by Whittaker —- I noticed that 20 or more posted comments —including mine —had all been removed.

This prompted me to write to Whittaker asking him to:

“Immediately reinstate all the posted comments that have been removed in the course of someone in the ABC reinstating the segment to the website.”

I found Whittaker’s reply quite disturbing:

“You’re welcome to re-post the comment. We apologise if a technical error removed it.

As for the story itself, like I said, we stand by it and have nothing more to add. But if you’d like to take the matter further you can do so through the ABC complaints process (abc.net.au/contact/complain.htm) or through Free TV Australia (freetv.com.au/content_common/pg-viewer-feedback-and-complaints.seo).”

I then sent Whittaker the following detailed response:

“Thanks for your response and the suggestion I can re-post my comment.

What about reposting the more than 20 other comments that were removed by “technical error”? Are they too irretrievable?

Reposting my comment does not answer my complaint about the following false statement made by [the presenter] Paul [Barry] in the story:

“But two days is obviously an age in the Mail’s hectic newsroom. And clearly no one bothered to watch the ABC report.

Because if they had they would have known that the nations in blue are where this law has been abolished. And the nations in yellow are those that still have it on their books.

And Israel was not on the map because it never had the offending statute.”

This statement was patently false because:

1.Israel was shown on the map
2. Israel was coloured yellow
3. Israel was mislabelled “Palestine”

Paul was clearly in error in making the above statement. Where he got the information to make this statement needs to be explained by Paul.

The segment was clearly tainted by this statement.

I am surprised that in these circumstances your response is:

“As for the story itself, like I said, we stand by it and have nothing more to add”

With the greatest respect - I think you do - especially as the segment involved an ABC program - The World - where an incorrect map bearing an ABC logo was used - indicating someone in the ABC had prepared it for specifically for The World program.

Your website proudly proclaims: “Media Watch has built an unrivalled record of exposing media shenanigans since it first went to air in 1989.”

On the face of it Media Watch and Paul Barry appear to have become unwitting victims of shenanigans within the ABC - having been fed false information which was relied on by Paul to make the offending statement which - if true - would have certainly debunked the Daily Mail story.

However the statement was false.

I initially expressed my approval that the segment had been removed - which was the right thing to do in the circumstances - only to now be told it was due to a “back end publishing error” and incredibly find it is back on the website again.

That is shocking.

Paul needs to pursue the person in the ABC who fed him the information that formed the basis of the offending statement and also find out the person in the ABC who authorised the preparation of the map and allowed it to go on air in the misleading and deceptive form it did.

The segment also needs to be removed from the website.”

Whittaker’s pathetic response was:

“David, I won’t be entering into further correspondence about this. As I’ve said, we believe our report was fair and we have no intention of correcting it. And I’ve given you avenues to take your complaint further if you’d like to do that.

Appreciate your engagement with the program. All the best,”

For Media Watch to act in this high handed and dismissive manner is a national disgrace.

Removing the segment that contained the false map was certainly the right action for Media Watch to take. Reinstating it was contemptible.

Those responsible for this total fiasco should be reprimanded — perhaps dismissed.

Jason Whittaker’s title should be changed to “Fake Story Editor”. Paul Barry remains silent.

Media Watch’s credibility has hit rock bottom.

Media Watch boasts to viewers:

“Everyone loves it till they’re on it”

Media Watch itself is now centre-stage on Media Watch and clearly does not like being targeted for false reporting.

United Nations and Trump should heed 1989 Balfour Declaration

[Published 4 September 2017]


A lot of bloodshed, pain and suffering sustained by both Jews and Arabs over the last 28 years could have been avoided had the United Nations heeded the 1989 Balfour Declaration presented by the 4th Lord Balfour at the 4th international conference of the Jordan is Palestine Committee held in Jerusalem in November 1989.

The 1989 Declaration stated:

“The world should be fully aware of what was British Palestine; the misleading propaganda issued from oil-wealthy Arab states must be countered; Palestine has already been divided into two countries – Jewish Israel and Arab Jordan; the present governments of Israel and Jordan should be fully supported and upheld; and a third state as suggested by the PLO would upset the political and economic situation in the whole area”

The demand by the PLO to establish that third state – in addition to Jordan and Israel – in the territory comprised in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – remains unrealised in 2017.

President Trump at this point of time still seems wedded to this proposed three state solution - eventually formulated by President Bush in his 2003 Roadmap - and endorsed by the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

The Bush Roadmap was also accepted unconditionally by the PLO and with 14 reservations by Israel.

Bush - overwhelmingly supported by the Congress – made the following written commitment to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004 to secure Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the West Bank:

“… the United States remains committed to my vision and to its implementation as described in the roadmap. The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan. Under the roadmap, Palestinians must undertake an immediate cessation of armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere, and all official Palestinian institutions must end incitement against Israel. The Palestinian leadership must act decisively against terror, including sustained, targeted, and effective operations to stop terrorism and dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. Palestinians must undertake a comprehensive and fundamental political reform that includes a strong parliamentary democracy and an empowered prime minister.”

The PLO has failed over the last 13 years to comply with these obligations.

Yet Trump still apparently appears willing to allow PLO Chief Mahmoud Abbas to stride on the world stage as he simultaneously refuses to unconditionally return to negotiations with Israel on the Bush Roadmap – stalled since April 2014.

However Amnesty International’s latest report presents an appalling overview of life under the PLO which could herald a rapid Trump-about face:

“The Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Hamas de facto administration in the Gaza Strip both continued to restrict freedom of expression, including by arresting and detaining critics and political opponents. They also restricted the right to peaceful assembly and used excessive force to disperse some protests. Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees remained rife in both Gaza and the West Bank. Unfair trials of civilians before military courts continued in Gaza; detainees were held without charge or trial in the West Bank. Women and girls faced discrimination and violence. Courts in Gaza continued to hand down death sentences and Hamas carried out executions; no death sentences were imposed or executions carried out in the West Bank.”

Elections – the first since 2007 – are urgently needed to test whether the PLO should continue to dominate the lives of the West Bank Arab population and to prevent all hell breaking loose as the negotiating void continues.

The 1989 Balfour Declaration beckons if the above measures do not break the current stalemate.

Abbas set to defy Trump and Netanyahu at United Nations

[Published 28 August 2017]


PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas seems set to once again embark on another futile journey to the United Nations (UN) seeking recognition of a second Arab state — in addition to Jordan — within the territory comprised in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

A senior unidentified Palestinian source threatened such action on 21 August:

”If we don’t hear within a month and a half that the American team has stopped talking and started doing, Abbas intends to mobilize anyone and everyone he can for the UN General Assembly session on the establishment of a Palestinian state, regardless of the Israeli and American reactions,”

President Trump was quick to respond - State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert telling a press briefing on 23 August in answer to a question as to why America was loath to commit — or recommit - to the two-state solution:

“We are not going to state what the outcome has to be. It has to be workable to both sides. And I think, really, that’s the best view as to not really bias one side over the other, to make sure that they can work through it. It’s been many, many decades, as you well know, that the parties have not been able to come to any kind of good agreement and sustainable solution to this. So we leave it up to them to be able to work that through.”

Negotiations — suspended since April 2014 — extending over the past 24 years between Israel and the PLO have not produced any workable and sustainable solution. Abbas is clearly in no mood to resume those negotiations without preconditions.

A replay of Abbas’s appearance at the UN General Assembly on 23 September 2011 therefore seems inevitable.

Israel’s Prime Minister — Benjamin Netanyahu — was quick to point out at that time how automatic majorities at the UN had been used to incite institutionalised hatred against Israel:

“After all, it was here in 1975 that the age-old yearning of my people to restore our national life in our ancient biblical homeland — it was then that this was braided — branded, rather — shamefully, as racism. And it was here in 1980, right here, that the historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt wasn’t praised; it was denounced! And it’s here year after year that Israel is unjustly singled out for condemnation. It’s singled out for condemnation more often than all the nations of the world combined. Twenty-one out of the 27 General Assembly resolutions condemn Israel — the one true democracy in the Middle East.

Well, this is an unfortunate part of the UN institution. It’s the — the theatre of the absurd. It doesn’t only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi’s Libya chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam’s Iraq headed the UN Committee on Disarmament.

You might say: That’s the past. Well, here’s what’s happening now — right now, today. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the UN Security Council. This means, in effect, that a terror organisation presides over the body entrusted with guaranteeing the world’s security.

You couldn’t make this thing up.

So here in the UN, automatic majorities can decide anything. They can decide that the sun sets in the west or rises in the west. I think the first has already been pre-ordained. But they can also decide — they have decided that the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest place, is occupied Palestinian territory.”

This theatre of the absurd seems set to be repeated once again at the forthcoming 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly.

Israel-bashing can never resolve the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.

Trump must question Abbas-PLO commitment to peace with Israel

[Published 21 August 2017]


The planned visit to the Middle East at the end of August by President Trump’s Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, Special Envoy for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt and Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategy Dina Powell – presents a wonderful opportunity for them to test the commitment of the PLO and its leader Mahmoud Abbas to concluding a peace treaty with Israel.

Abbas needs to confirm or reject his following remarks reported on 11 January 2014:

“Referring to Israeli demands to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Abbas said, “This is a story that we have heard only in the last two years. We won’t recognize and accept the Jewishness of Israel. We have many excuses and reasons that prevent us from doing so.” Abbas was speaking during a meeting in his office with dozens of east Jerusalem residents. Israel’s problem is that the Palestinians know more than the Israelis about history and geography, he said. “We talk about what we know,” he said. “We won’t accept the Jewishness of Israel. We are asking for the 1967 borders.”

Abbas and the PLO should be asked to amplify these remarks by written responses to the following questions:

I. On the Jewishness of Israel:

What excuses and reasons do you have for refusing to recognize and accept the Jewishness of Israel?

II. On the history of Palestine:

Do you accept the historical accuracy of the following statements in Israel’s Declaration of Independence?

“The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world.

Exiled from Palestine, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom.”

III. On the geography of Palestine:

Do you still claim that:

“Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”

Did the boundaries of Palestine during the British Mandate encompass what is known today as Israel, Jordan, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza?

Did 78% of the British Mandate territory become the sovereign independent Arab State called ”The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan” in 1946?

IV. On asking for the 1967 borders:

Are you aware that:
(i) the “1967 borders” are in fact the “1949 Armistice Demarcation Lines” delineated under an agreement signed on 3 April 1949 between The Government of the Hashemite Jordan Kingdom and the Government of Israel (Armistice Agreement)
(ii) Article VI (9) of the Armistice Agreement provided:

“The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto”.

If Abbas and the PLO can’t provide satisfactory answers – then Trump will be wasting his time trying to jumpstart negotiations – stalled since April 2014 - between Israel and the PLO - since those negotiations will assuredly end up going nowhere like previous PLO - Israel negotiations conducted during the last 24 years.

Jailed PLO terrorists and families of deceased terrorists still receive life-time payments for murdering Jews - rebuffing Trump’s demand they cease.

Trump has shown no compunction jettisoning poor performers like Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, and Anthony Scaramucci, who failed to deliver.

Abbas and the PLO could suffer the same fate if they show no genuine commitment to resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict after 50 years of relentless rejectionism.

Trump, Israel, Jordan and PLO need to define Palestine’s boundaries

[Published 14 August 2017]


President Trump’s attempt to end the Jewish-Arab conflict could well hinge on Israel, Jordan, the PLO and Trump defining the boundaries of former Palestine under the 1922 Mandate for Palestine (Mandate territory).

Defining the territory within which the competing claims of Jews and Arabs must be resolved is a first prerequisite to ending a conflict that has raged for the last 100 years.

False claims still continue to be made that Israel comprises more than 75% of the Mandate territory whilst Judea and Samaria (West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza comprise the remaining 25%.

The latest such misleading claim appeared in the following article :

“On the 14 of May 1948, the state of Israel was declared. By the time Israel and the Arab States signed the Armistice agreement in 1948, Israel had gained control over 75% of mandate Palestine.”

The article further asserts that the 1967 Six Day War was:

“the beginning of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and annexation of East Jerusalem, territories which together made up the remaining 22% of Mandate Palestine.”

The article fails to inform readers that:

1. in 1946 - 78% of the Mandate territory became a sovereign independent Arabs-only, Jew-free State called the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan — renamed Jordan in 1950

Israel is only 17% of the Mandate territory

2. Judea and Samaria (West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza comprise the remaining 5% of the Mandate territory.

3. Israel, the PLO and Jordan have each separately acknowledged this geographically-accurate territorial subdivision of former Palestine- as the following statements make clear:

(i) Abba Eban - Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations - said in Newsweek on 2 December 1974:

“Palestine comes into modern history as a region extending on both sides of the Jordan, comprising the present sovereign territories of Israel and Jordan and the administered areas of the West Bank and Gaza. Of this original Palestine, 80 per cent became an exclusively Arab domain through the separation of Trans-Jordan from Palestine.”

(ii) Yasser Arafat — the first PLO Chairman told the New York Review of Books on 25 June 1987:

” Jordan and Palestine until 1945 were one State, actually. After the Second World War, Churchill himself said, “This is Transjordan, and this is Palestine. Before that Jordan was an emirate ...completely part of Palestine”

(iii) Transjordan’s King Abdullah addressed the Arab League meeting in Cairo on 12 April 1948:

“Palestine and Transjordan are one, for Palestine is the coastline and Transjordan the hinterland of the same country”

Many more similar statements exist from Jewish, Arab and other sources.

If Trump concludes that a second Arab State — in addition to Jordan — is required in the Mandate territory - then Jordan - not only Israel, Judea and Samaria (West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza — should be included in determining that third State’s possible location.

However such a second Arab State — if governed by the PLO - the sole spokesman for the Palestinian Arabs since 1974 - would pose an existential threat to the continued existence of both Jordan and Israel as sovereign independent States - since article 2 of the PLO Charter expressly states:

“Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”

One Jewish State and two Arab States in the territory of the Mandate will exacerbate — not resolve — the conflict.

Jordan — 78% of the Mandate territory — must be part of any territorial resolution.

Territorial negotiations — like gridiron and basketball — can only be played out within clearly designated boundaries.

Defining Palestine’s boundaries is indeed the key to Trump succeeding where all others have failed.

Trump, Israel, Jordan and Egypt can redress Obama - PLO debacle

[Published 7 August 2017]


President Trump continues to ponder the way forward to end the 100 years conflict between Arabs and Jews - as negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) — stalled since April 2014 — show no sign of being resumed.

Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap - endorsed by Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - were consigned to the graveyard of history after PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas unilaterally disbanded the Palestinian Authority on 3 January 2013.

White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner has been quoted in an off-the-record discussion saying:

“there may be no solution”.

There may however be a solution should Jordan and Egypt — Israel’s immediate neighbours - agree to negotiate with Israel to end the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Filling this potentially explosive negotiating void with Jordan and Egypt will require Trump to first articulate:

1. the parameters and

2. The fact-based framework

within which such new negotiations should actually be undertaken

The parameters should be restricted to resolving the competing Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the remaining 5% of the territory of the former Mandate for Palestine — Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza — where internationally-recognized sovereignty still remains undetermined (“the disputed territories”).

Conflicting narratives paralysing previous negotiations must be replaced by Trump with a different fact-based framework underpinning any new negotiations - including:

1. Jordan and Egypt:
(i) signatories to peace treaties with Israel in 1994 and 1979 respectively and
(ii) the last Arab States to occupy the disputed territories between 1948 and 1967
are the best Arab interlocutors to determine with Israel the allocation of sovereignty in the disputed territories.

2. The PLO Charter calling for the destruction of both Israel and Jordan disqualifies the PLO from participating in such new negotiations.

3. Hamas — designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel and banned in Jordan — must be excluded from these new negotiations.

4. The new negotiations are being undertaken to resolve the “Jewish-Arab conflict” that began in 1915 — not “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” that began in 1948

5. Sovereignty in the territory of the Mandate for Palestine has already been granted to Israel (17%), Jordan (78%) - with sovereignty in Judea and Samaria [West Bank], East Jerusalem and Gaza (5%) still undetermined.

6. The Jewish people is legally entitled to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in the disputed territories by close settlement under Article 6 of the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter - subject to the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities living there being safeguarded.

7. Misleading and deceptive language referring to the disputed territories as “occupied territory” or “Occupied Palestinian Territories” fail to recognize that it was Jewish occupation in the disputed territories that was first abruptly ended in 1948 — after every single Jew then living there was forcibly driven out by six invading Arab armies and not allowed to return until after the Six Day War in 1967.

Trump has a hard row to hoe in formulating this critical framework - but do it he must if there is to be any hope of advancing peace in the Middle East.

Such Trump-defined parameters and fact-based framework need to then be mutually agreed by Jordan, Egypt and Israel before formal negotiations can commence.

Any fanfare trumpeting yet another round of negotiations without such tripartite agreement will inevitably see those new negotiations being eventually buried alongside the graves housing the failed Oslo-Roadmap and stalled Israel-PLO negotiations.

Trump, Israel, Jordan and Egypt working together can certainly succeed where Obama and the PLO ignominiously failed.

PLO aim to destroy Israel and Jordan gets boost in Australia

[Published 1 August 2017]


The Resolution of the New South Wales (NSW) Labor Party Conference urging the next elected Australian Labor Government to recognise “Palestine” (Resolution) has boosted the political objectives of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) whose Charter calls for the destruction of Israel and Jordan.

Prior to the Resolution being passed its prime mover and shaker – Bob Carr – former Australian Foreign Minister, NSW Premier, Chairman of Labor Friends of Israel turned Patron of Labor Friends of Palestine - tweeted:

"No "conditions" to recognition of Palestine. No ifs or buts. Recognition to save two state solution being buried in settlements.
10:58 AM - Jul 29, 2017"

Carr’s “no ifs or buts” echoed similar demands passed by the Arab Heads of State (including the PLO) at Khartoum on 1 September 1967 following the Six Day War:

“no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country”

No “conditions” for Carr maybe – but a few headaches for the Federal Australian Labor Party if it is stupid enough to swallow Carr’s poison pill.

I. The Resolution does not identify the location of “Palestine”.
Negotiations between Israel and the PLO extending over the last 23 years have failed to come up with an answer.

Recognizing a phantom State is an exercise in futility.

The fact that 136 other member States of the United Nations have gone down this same road has only encouraged the PLO to adopt increasingly more intransigent and rejectionist positions opposing the peaceful resolution of a conflict which has raged for 100 years.

Australia should not get sucked into this mindless vortex.

II. When the Khartoum Conference was held - Article 24 of the PLO Charter then declared:

“This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.”

An independent Arab State had already been established in 78% of former Palestine in 1946 and called “the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan” (renamed “Jordan” in 1950).

A second Arab State in former Palestine had been proposed in the 1947 UN Partition Plan and rejected by the Arabs. It could have been created at any time between 1948 and 1967 with the stroke of an Arab League pen.

What possible justification is there for the Australian Labor Party unconditionally recognising such a second Arab State in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan - when the proponent of that State – the PLO – was not even claiming sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza in 1967?

III. Carr claims recognition is needed to save the two-state solution being buried in settlements.
There already is an existing two-state solution in 95% of former Palestine – Jewish Israel and Arab Jordan – underpinned by their 1994 peace treaty.

A PLO-governed State located in the remaining 5% between Israel and Jordan represents a threat to both Jordan and Israel - since the PLO considers Palestine with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate to be an indivisible territorial unit.

No Jewish settlements remain in Gaza following Israel’s disengagement in 2005.

Jewish settlements built on no more than 5% of the territory of the West Bank are legally sanctioned by article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

“Buried in settlements” is vintage Carr-overkill.

Hopefully sanity will prevail in the Federal Labor Party.

Two peoples – Jews and Arabs - need two States – not three.