SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Segal & others don’t want the reality of the genocide being reported because Israel’s brutality is now resulting in a significant decline in international public opinion, with many countries holding negative views of Israel.

There’s rightly much talk about Jillian Segal’s criticisms of the ABC & SBS & their coverage of the ‘conflict’ in the Middle East.

Segal told the inquiry that

“… the Jewish community had told her the nature and volume of the coverage of the Israel-Gaza war had contributed to "an impression of great negativity about Israel" (Phoebe Pin, ABC).

About the same time as Segal was complaining about the ‘one sided’ coverage, I was reading John Lyons’ memoir, Balcony Over Jerusalem (2017/2024).

In Chapter 12, “Coffee with the Israel Army 9 December 2011” Lyons recounts a story of being requested to meet with Captain Arye Shalicar of the IDF.

During the conversation, Shalicar said he wasn’t challenging the accuracy of an article Lyons had had published a week or so earlier in the Weekend Australian Magazine but rather that:

“…it’s been published outside of Israel…in Australia”.

Shalicar went on to explain that had the article about the way the IDF treated Palestinian children been published by an Israeli outlet, they would have read it in the context of their ongoing commitment to Israel.

But, Shalicar went on,

“’A story like this may damage the view that Australians have of Israel and they don’t have the commitment to Israel to go along with that.’

Lyons then says that this is not an unusual perspective in Israel:

“… they don’t mind if something is printed in Israel, but when it is published more widely they react badly” (185).

The concern with publishing outside of Israel seems to be about Israel “formalising the occupation into official annexation and achieving Greater Israel” (191).

To do this, “the Israeli public have had to convince themselves that ‘the world hates us anyway’ and would criticise anything Israel did. That is, the world is becoming increasingly anti-Semitic” (191).

John Lyons goes on:

“As long as the media is seen as biased, anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, then Israel is not at fault” (for the occupation).

Hence why Segal is at pains to say the ABC & SBC are biased in their reporting.

Lyons wasn’t being singled out; he knew from speaking with colleagues that “the Israeli Government, Army and lobby groups did not want the reality of the occupation reported” because Israel is losing “the battle for international public opinion.”

And I guess Segal & others don’t want the reality of the genocide being reported because Israel’s brutality is now resulting in a significant decline in international public opinion, with many countries holding negative views of Israel.