Feedback letter to the #ABC

I was disappointed, and worried, to notice another one of your presenters mispronouncing Arabic words in an Israeli accent.

The Palestinian political movement Hamas حملس starts with a hard H ح that does not exist in English or in Israeli Hebrew.

I would have no objection to ABC presenters saying Hamas in an Aussie accent, but putting the effort in to say it differently and ending up saying it incorrectly in an Israeli accent seems like a very bad sign about how unbalanced the ABC's coverage is likely to be.

There has been a very newsworthy war happening for over a year. How have your news presenters not heard – or not listened to – the name of one of the main parties involved said by Palestinians, or Arab Australians, or any of the other diverse people from Australia – and the rest of the world – from the wide variety of language backgrounds who can all pronounce this difficult letter more accurately than an Israeli?

Why do ABC presenters consider Israelis so Authoritative that they copy Israeli mispronunciations of the names of Palestinian organizations?

@kirt@mastodon.social @kirt@infosec.exchange