Will Israel suffer as a result of the scandal embroiling Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation as a result of the phone hacking scandal in Britain's now-defunct The News of the World?

That's the question Zionists, including in Australia, are wondering as the empire built by the Melbourne-born media mogul continues to unravel.

The Australian newspaper, both in its editorial and opinion columns, has been largely pro-Israel, and scathing of the failures of the Palestinians, as well as supporting the Jewish community in Australia.

Most recently, the Australian newspaper has waged a campaign against the Greens, prompting Senator Bob Brown to accuse it of being the "hate media".

This included numerous articles blasting the Greens support for the failed boycott of Israel campaign in Marrickville, in inner Sydney.

"My own perspective is simple," Murdoch Snr said last October at an Anti-Defamation League dinner in his honour in America. "We live in a world where there is an ongoing war against the Jews.

"When Americans think of anti-Semitism, we tend to think of the vulgar caricatures and attacks of the first part of the 20th century. Now it seems that the most virulent strains come from the left. Often this new anti-Semitism dresses itself up as legitimate disagreement with Israel."

The 80-year-old media mogul has visited Israel on numerous. In 2009 he was honoured by the American Jewish Committee.

"In the West, we are used to thinking that Israel cannot survive without the help of Europe and the United States," he said at the AJC event. "Tonight I say to you, maybe we should start wondering whether we in Europe and the United States can survive if we allow the terrorists to succeed in Israel. "

Last week he and his son, James, testified before a parliamentary committee in London, denying any wrongdoing in the phone hacking scandal, while apologising for the harm the newspaper caused.

Isi Leibler, a former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Murdoch Snr saw Israel as "the plucky underdog when the rest of the world saw Israel as an occupier."