The Silence of the Intellectual 2

Further to my previous post on Robert Manne's Quarterly Essay critique of The Australian, here's an interesting exchange between another Israel indulgent, Phillip Adams, and Manne:

Adams: Explain to me why The Greens are in the [Australian's] crosshairs. What's going on there?
Manne:Well, I think the paper was extremely opposed to Gillard's decision to work with The Greens... I think that they see The Greens as economically mad. I think that they have a hostility to what they see as the inner-city late set which they think to be the voting power of The Greens. I think they oppose what they think is the radicalism of the climate change attitude of The Greens, and there's also a pocket of Greens in NSW that are very hostile to Israel, and that again is one of the things that they really exaggerate...
Adams: I think it causes Bob Brown some problems.
Manne: And causes Bob Brown some problems. To put it simply, both sides of politics, Liberal and Labor, are so pro-Israel that the fact that there is a faction of The Greens in NSW that are hostile to Israeli policy is not that important...
Adams: Well, it might even be healthy.
Manne: Might even be healthy, but it's certainly not important in the way that the paper made a huge amount, during the NSW state election, of that issue. ('Bad News': Quarterly Essay, Late Night Live, 5/9/11)

What Manne (and Adams) show no interest in exploring is just why this unimportant spot of BDS ferment among the NSW Greens should put The Australian into such a towering rage. And that is because he doesn't seem prepared to admit that toeing and promoting the Israeli line is absolutely central to The Australian, let alone canvass the implications of same.