Message from Bob Kucera, Chairman of the Friends of Israel Western Australia:
Like many of you, I watched the recent ABC 4 Corners program “Stone Cold Justice” which portrayed the arrest
of young Palestinians for throwing stones and rocks at military personnel and people simply going about their lawful business, both Jews and Arabs alike.
What really concerned me was the obvious lack of balance in the report. Where was the footage of the
rock-throwing youths' intended victims, where were the interviews with the civilians and police who have
been badly injured? Where, for instance, was the interview with the parents of 3 year old Adele Biton,
who suffered horrific head injuries when her mother’s car was attacked by these so called “stone throwing
children” in the town of Ariel in February 2013? She suffered massive brain injuries as a result, and the perpetrators are currently facing appropriate charges in a properly constituted court of law.
Where was the context in the ABC report? During 2013 Adele was just one of some 132 civilian casualties hospitalised by over 2,500 stone throwing incidents, with over a third of these directed specifically at civilians. In that same region there were some 66 separate terrorist incidents including the abduction and murder of a soldier.
Against that background, both the Police and Military are having to operate in what is essentially hostile territory, and regardless of the age of the stone thrower or the bomber, the rocks and the explosives are just as lethal.
Again let’s put it into a local context. At the same time the ABC was running the program on stone throwing youth in the West Bank, our local TV was showing footage of an out of control party in one of the wealthiest suburbs of Perth. Bottle and stone throwing youths were attacking police and smashing local neighbour-hood properties as they rampaged through the streets. Some were bundled into police vans and others later faced courts. Police in full riot gear and fully armed were confronting them, mounted Police and the TRG were backing them up. There was almost universal condemnation of the actions of those young people, yet a Palestinian youth who hurls a rock through the window of a mother’s car, critically injuring an innocent three year old is held up as a martyr to the cause, and the Police and military condemned for seeking justice for the child victimized by the actions of another child.
From a personal perspective, after 35 years of dealing with children in all areas of the law, I never saw a child who was born “bad”. They are a product of their environment, and what sort of family environment or political dogma sends children into conflict often before they are even old enough to appreciate the portent of their actions, applauds them when they injure or kill innocents, or are killed or injured themselves. The same family then condemns the law makers, and those tasked with upholding the law and society for reacting to the crime that their families have fostered and condoned. As someone once said to me “I can understand them wanting to kill our children, but I can’t understand them wanting to kill their own.”
As the first casualty in any conflict is truth, it is incumbent on our National Broadcaster to report the whole truth, not just their reporters’ editorialized version of events that, in anyone’s language is called a fair go!
The Hon Bob Kucera APM JP
From: Steve Lieblich [mailto:steve@lieblich.com.au]
Sent: Tuesday, 11 March 2014 8:23 PM
To: Phil Samuell (philsam@amnet.net.au)
Subject: Bob's article in the latest newsletter
Phil
Can you provide a Word version of Bob’s excellent article about the ABC Four Corners program Stone Cold Justice?
I’d like to disseminate it on blogs and social media….
Regards,
Steve Lieblich, Principal
Lieblich & Associates ...commercial knowhow for business success.
Mobile +61 41 990 8181
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