The taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation is all about balance. I mentioned last year that when the ABC offered to interview Australian Israeli Arnold Roth, whose daugher Malki was murdered by a suicide bomber, it insisted on "balancing" Roth's story by interviewing the proud father of the murderer. Roth refused. Piers Akerman of the Australian Daily Telegraph gives us an update
Does [the ABC] believe there can be some "balance", some symmetry, some moral equivalence in presenting the father of a murdered teenager who spent her school holidays providing care for severely handicapped children and the father of a young man who believed it was his religious purpose to murder innocent people?The ABC apparently does believe this
Last week, Mr Roth, who has set up the Malki Foundation to raise funds to assist families with severely retarded children in memory of his daughter's passion, arrived in Melbourne from Israel to find a message from an ABC radio producer, who had earlier asked him to be a guest on a morning program.The Malki Foundation helps both Jewish and Arab families.The note said: "I'm writing to let you know that unfortunately we are going to have to cancel arrangements to interview you Friday morning on our programme.
"Given the coverage we gave on today's programme to the latest explosion in Jerusalem, my executive producer and I agree that we will have to cancel.
"This morning we devoted considerable time to representatives from both Jewish and Palestinian organisations, and always seek to put both views forward.
Mr Roth says the Malki Foundation (www.kerenmalki.org) is his retaliation at those who killed his daughter.The Malki Foundation is at www.kerenmalki.org. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 26, 2003 07:00 AM"These people, Hamas, radiate hate," he said. "We cannot out-hate them but we can help Palestinian Arabs and show them that their strategy of hate has failed. If they choke on our aid, so be it.
"They are non-entities, when they murder they will be forgotten, but my daughter will live in the memories of those we help."
In the warped ABC culture, however, Malki Roth will be forever marked as the equivalent of murderous "martyr" Izzadin Al-Masri – all in the interests of "balance".