11^th April 2013
The ABC has dismissed a complaint made by the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ) about an interview on ABC Radio’s ‘Saturday AM’ program on 13 February 2013 conducted by presenter, Elizabeth Jackson, with com­ment­at­or Antony Loewen­stein.
The ECAJ com­plained that false claims were made about the supposed ‘dual loyalties’ of Jewish Aus­trali­ans, and that the inter­viewee making those claims was doing so without evidence, qual­i­fic­a­tions, expertise or rep­res­ent­at­ive status in any part of the Jewish community.
According to ECAJ Executive Director, Peter Wertheim, “During the interview, without evidence or sub­stan­ti­ation of any kind, the entirely baseless sug­ges­tion was made that there is a rela­tion­ship between ‘the Jewish estab­lish­ment in Australia’ and ‘the Mossad, and indeed Israeli intel­li­gence’ which facil­it­ates and encour­ages Jews from a young age to join up and fight with the IDF and the Mossad.”
Wertheim was espe­cially critical of the Saturday AM program. “It is supposed to be a fact-based news program, not a chat show with entire segments devoted merely to uncon­tested expres­sions of opinion. Where were the tough questions, or any questions, asking Loewen­stein to provide evidence for his com­pletely unfounded asser­tions? Isn’t that what fact based program inter­view­ers are supposed to do? Isn’t it their role to elicit the factual basis of opinions expressed by their guests, if any exist?”
“The ABC’s answers to our com­plaints are either not respons­ive to the specific matters we raised, or evaded the issue, or were disin­genu­ous”, Wertheim said. “The answers consist for the most part of simple denials that anything untoward was being implied, and irrel­ev­ant asser­tions that Loewen­stein has a right to express his opinions”.
Wertheim does not believe there would be any point in the ECAJ pursuing an appeal to the Aus­trali­an Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Media Authority, but noted that this would not be the end of the matter. “The ABC launched a baseless attack on Aus­trali­an Jews, with insinu­ations of dis­loy­alty, by inter­view­ing someone who the ABC itself describes as a ‘pro­vocateur’. The ABC has now demon­strated that the process whereby one section of the ABC invest­ig­ates another does not work”, he said.

Contact:
Peter Wertheim AM | Executive Director
phone: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: [email protected]

CLICK HERE TO READ TRANSCRIPT OF ABC LOEWENSTEIN INTERVIEW
CLICK HERE TO READ ECAJ COMPLAINT TO ABC
CLICK HERE TO READ ABC’s RESPONSE TO ECAJ’S COMPLAINT