Wertheim corrects Gaza aid error
Wertheim wrote:
“Dear Sir/Madam
Peter Wertheim
Although it was only incidental to the story he was reporting, Andrew Tillett (“Danby under fire for Israel trip”) has unfortunately repeated the misleading claim originally made by the ABC’s Sophie McNeill that “a Department of Foreign Affairs investigation concluded in April no evidence government money had been diverted” from aid group World Vision to Palestinian terror groups. He omitted to mention the significant limits of this “investigation”. In fact, the Department of Foreign Affairs only examined its own internal records. It did not conduct a field audit to trace what use was actually made of aid money in Gaza.
In order to correct the record, Australia’s then Ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma, stated on 29 March: “The Israeli court case will determine World Vision employee Mr El-Halabi’s innocence or guilt. While DFAT conducted a review of its aid management and found nothing to indicate any awareness on our part of Mr El-Halabi’s alleged wrongdoing, World Vision International and World Vision Australia have also commissioned independent reviews which are ongoing, and the Israeli court case continues. Australian aid funding to World Vision will remain suspended until we consider the outcomes of these processes.”
The probability that the ABC will broadcast a correction is zero.
When the ABC management says that it has full confidence in Sophie McNeill, we can believe them: she cooks for them their favourite kinds of delicacies.
Oh dear, now they’ll complain that we’re targeting them, those unfortunate victims of the powerful Jewish lobby. They might even get a has-been foreign minister to write a sob story for “The Australian.”