Why is Al-Manure in Australia....

No country should let in Al-Manure...

AUSTRALIA should investigate jamming an anti-Semitic, pro-terrorism television station being broadcast into Australia from Indonesia, a Jewish advocacy group says.

Anti-Defamation Commission chairman John Searle said yesterday he was disappointed that Australia's Arabic community was supporting the station, al-Manar.

The Australian Communication and Media Authority has twice stopped the channel from being broadcast in Australia, in 2004 and in January this year, because of its support for terrorism. Now it is being transmitted by an Indonesian satellite company part-owned by the Indonesian Government, which has declined American requests to halt the broadcasts.

Al-Manar is operated by Hezbollah, a militant Lebanese Muslim party banned in the United States as a terrorist organisation. In Australia only its armed wing is proscribed.

The fiercely anti-Israel and anti-US station endorses suicide bombing and often broadcasts the final messages of suicide bombers.

Mr Searle said al-Manar went beyond acceptable limits of free speech and was renowned for inciting violence and hatred.

He said he was disturbed at statements by Australian Arabic Council chairman Roland Jabbour in The Age yesterday that the channel was popular and should not be restricted.

"I would have hoped that a station broadcasting programs which describe Jews as the offspring of apes and pigs and which advocates their annihilation would not receive the support of Australia's Arabic community," he said.

Mr Jabbour responded yesterday by saying that anti-Semitism was wrong and that Judaism should be respected, but that Hezbollah was not anti-Semitic.

"We need to make a clear distinction between anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and between a terrorist organisation and a resistance group," he said.

He said he would not call Jews the offspring of apes and pigs, but that in the context of "the crimes of the state of Israel" it was reasonable for al-Manar to do so and to portray Israeli rabbis as killing Christian children to use their blood in Passover meals.