The offensive ABC map. (Avi Yemoni/Facebook)

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Australia’s national news service has defended a map it displayed showing “Palestine” instead of Israel. 

Australia’s ABC News last Thursday screened a graphic on television displaying a map of the Middle East that included “Palestine” instead of Israel.

Avi Yemini, a local Jewish leader, noticed the omission and posted it on his Facebook page, accusing the broadcaster of deliberately wiping Israel off the map.

‘”Last night ABC wiped Israel off their map. They’re literally doing the Islamists dirty work for them,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

ABC News Australia this week denied the accusation, saying the graphic pertained to a news item discussing which countries in the region had repealed laws allowing rapists to escape punishment if they married their victims.

”The map showed countries where this law had already been repealed (in blue) and countries where campaigners were actively trying to have it repealed (in yellow),” ABC stated, according to the UK’s Daily Mail.

The channel further claimed that such a law has never existed in Israel, and therefore the Jewish state was not shown on the map.

ABC further claimed that the inclusion of Israel on such a map “might have attracted more warranted criticism… the story had nothing at all to do with it [Israel].”

It is of significance to note that “Palestine” does not exist. Also, “Palestine” and Lebanon were colored black on the map – not blue nor yellow.

Yemini told the Daily Mail that Israel’s exclusion was “to appeal to the Jew-hating crowd. “

“The time has come for the ABC to stop its constant attacks on one of our closest allies and the only real democracy in the Middle East,” he added.

He said that this was “yet another great example” of why ABC News should be defunded, as it has “become an international embarrassment.”