So, why should the tax-payer still finance what is nothing more than yet another propagandist anti-jewish organisation?

I want SBS privatised, immediately, because I do not want to pay for an outfit such as this.

None of these assertions, which I backed up with specific content as reasoning, were considered relevant. The Ombudsman mentioned that my complaint was investigated, among a number of other complaints, and determined by the SBS Complaints Committee.
Amongst other details, the Ombudsman stated (in regard to assessing ‘The Promise’ against Code 1.3) that the Complaints Committee had regard to the Australian Communication Media Authority’s test of the ordinary, reasonable viewer, as defined by the ACMA’s Investigation Report No. 2537 of 2 March, 2011. It states: ‘In assessing the content against the Codes, the delegate considers the meaning conveyed by the relevant broadcast material. This is assessed according to the understanding of an ‘ordinary’, reasonable viewer. Australian Courts have considered an ‘ordinary, reasonable’ viewer to be:
A person of fair average intelligence, who is neither perverse, nor morbid or suspicious of mind, nor avid for scandal. That person does not live in an ivory tower but can and does read between the lines and, in so doing, the natural, ordinary meaning of the language, context, tenor, tone and inferences that may be drawn.
Once this has been ascertained, it is for the delegate to determine whether the material has breached the Codes.’

The Complaints Committee noted that ‘The Promise’ is a high quality drama series and a four part work of fiction. It quotes writer/director Peter Kosminsky with his description and intent. The Committee considers the characters portrayed as complex in interwoven storylines which show a range of political and personal positions. “As Mr. Kosminsky says, the film did not claim to be historically accurate, nor to be a documentary.” They also say that ‘it is fair to conclude that by the end of the series the sympathy of the audience is more likely to be with the Palestinians than with the Israelis’. (Well, that’s the understatement of the year! – LN).
The Complaints Committee considered the complaints specifically referred to in regard to stereotyping of Jews, including allegations that Jews are stereotyped as liars, untrustworthy, wealthy, conspiratorial, cruel, hateful and violent, were an incorrect reading of complex characters, which ignored their individual and collective positive characteristics.

I could go on … however perhaps this enough for a reader to get the gist. Part of the Conclusion of the SBS Ombudsman letter is: “The Complaints Committee is satisfied that the ordinary reasonable viewer fully appreciated that ‘The Promise’ was a fictional drama and nothing more than that.”

Well, that conclusion is very interesting when one bears in mind that I had already given them an example in my letter how this was manifestly not the case and therefore the series was damaging.
My example was as follows:

‘The fact that ‘The Promise’ might be deemed to be fiction is of no moment. Viewers are influenced by it as if it were purely factual, as evidenced by a Preview in ‘The Age’s’ Green Guide to television viewing, inciting viewers to watch the last episode on SBS1 on Sunday, December 18 – see below:

“As a comment on modern Israel, it’s hard to look past the wire mesh installed above the Palestinian markets in Hebron’s Old City to catch rubbish hurled down by the Jewish settlers from the apartments above – dirty nappies, broken glass, rocks. Try to talk to the Palestinians who live there, as Erin Matthews (Claire Foy) does tonight, and there’s every chance you’ll wear a bag of warm urine; Mazel tov! This excellent four-part series sees young Erin travel to Israel to explore the role of her soldier grandfather, Len, in the postwar British Mandate of Palestine. The Len-Erin dynamic is highly effective, establishing a parallel narrative that allows director Peter Kosminsky to explore Len’s conflicted experience while opening a window into contemporary Israel. Tonight, in the loaded final episode, Erin commandeers former Israeli soldier and part-time lover Paul to help find the family of Mohamed, a Palestinian Arab whom Len befriended 60 years ago.”

I went on to comment in my letter that ‘looking at this Preview closely you can see the ‘previewer’, Tim Elliott, is confusing fiction and fact. His comments embrace both the fictional narrative of the film and facts ‘assumed’ to be there that somehow in his mind transfer to truth. Consider the written reaction to ‘a bag of warm urine’ being thrown on anyone trying to talk to Palestinians: Mazel tov! (Hebrew for ‘good wishes/congratulations’), the previewer’s sarcastic innate response. Is this, and perhaps more virulent responses, something that SBS wants to incite with its programming?’

The SBS Ombudsman reply to this was as follows:
‘Your complaint also referred SBS to a preview of the program in ‘The Age’s’ Green Guide. That complaint was investigated and reviewed specifically.
I fail to see how all this stands up against their finding based on the response of ‘a person of fair average intelligence’, etc. It’s quite obvious in the case I’ve described that the fiction was being used in relation to what the previewer considered ‘a comment on modern Israel’, thereby politicising it.

The SBS Ombudsman letter states that if I consider this response inadequate I’m entitled to take it further to the Australian Communications and Media Authority for external review, which I shall do.

Incidentally, the SBS correspondence also mentioned that the making of this film was ‘in association with SBS”, but did not elaborate on what this actually meant.

Under the circumstances, I am assuming that Peter Wertheim’s comprehensive, well-researched and most succinct letter to SBS will meet with the same fate as mine.