The Drum: Publicly funded, poorly written and biased

As Gavin Atkins rightly points out, The Drum, ABC News' "analysis and views" appendage, is dominated by contributors from the left. So entrenched is this bias that almost indecipherable fringe left rantings are given prominence, as is this article on Israel's alleged involvement in the Dubai assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Some excerpts from the 1,038 word piece:

• Australia has a long history of bi-partisan support for the Jewish state but I can't recall another time when the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have expressed such public outrage over Israel's apparent use of Australian passports to cover their tracks in the Dubai murder.


• Senior ministers in both the ALP and Liberal party were equally vague on ABC's Lateline on Friday. [There are no Liberal ministers.]


• Perhaps an early indication of Canberra's anger was seen in a vote in the UN last week that saw Australia abstain from backing Israel against the serious allegations contained in the Goldstone Report related to allegations of war crimes in Gaza. [Allegations of allegations?]


• An Israeli official, anonymously of course, told the conservative Washington Times that the revelation of Mossad's behaviour in Dubai would not affect intelligence sharing between Israel and the West. [The article names two persons saying that intelligence sharing would remain unaffected.]


• It is possible that Australia will briefly downgrade its relationship with Mossad, as Canada did after the botched assassination attempt in 1997 of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal using fake Canadian passports, but backing Israel for Australia is too central to its complicity with the US alliance to seriously question or radically change. [Attempted murder by fake passport? The second bit is anyone's guess.]


• Countless reports have emerged over the years of Israeli allegedly using Australian passports as cover for covert activities but successive Australian governments have never fully pursued the leads.


• But there is no doubt that Kevin Rudd, like most Prime Ministers before him, view Israel as a unique state deserving special privileges.


• The image of Israel in the wider Australian society has inevitably taken a welcome hit but it remains highly unlikely that the political and media elites will implement the obvious implications of the latest affair; Israeli behaviour in the Middle East and the occupied territories are not the sign of a responsible or democratic nation.

The ABC should be deeply embarrassed at having put such poorly written rubbish on a publicly funded site. Then again, no commercial site, other than a humour site, would publish such crap unedited.