Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The answer to the honourable senator's question is as follows:

The ABC does not accept that its coverage of Israel is " widely disparate " . A number of Israeli experts have also featured in ABC news stories, for example Mark Regev, Israeli Government spokesman; Martin Indyk, Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy at Brookings; Ehud Yaari, a prominent analyst and commentator on the Middle East and international fellow of the Washington Institute; Eli Yerushalmi, the deputy chef de mission at the Israeli Embassy, Canberra; Alan Dershowitz, lawyer; and Yuval Rotem, the Israeli Ambassador to Canberra.

The ABC regularly includes a broad range of perspectives in its reporting on events in the Middle East. In all cases, the ABC believes the coverage was appropriate, and that the overall coverage has been balanced and included principal relevant views.