Adjudication No. 314 (January 1987) [1987] APC 1

ADJUDICATION No. 314 (January 1987)

Mr Ali Kazak, the director of the Palestine Information Office in Carlton, Victoria, has complained to the Australian Press Council concerning an item which appeared in the issue of Sada Loubnan, The Echo of Lebanon, of 5 August 1986. According to the editor, Mr Joseph Bou Melhem, the item was in fact a letter received from the Guards of Cedar. Mr Kazak alleges that the letter is by "an extremist right wing Lebanese group in Sydney".

Mr Kazak alleges that the letter "is alarmingly inflammatory, offensive and racist against the Palestinian community in Australia". In reply, the editor states that the letter was itself a reply to a radio interview in Sydney with the Palestinian refugee Raouf Abu Lughod. The editor states that he read the item prior to publication and that it appeared to him to be a valid comment on the claims made by Mr Lughod in his radio interview. In his opinion, the item published merely represents the feelings of the majority of the persons in the Lebanese community. He published it so that members of that community and any interested and concerned Australian people could determine for themselves the validity of the claims made by Mr Lugnod in his radio interview.

The item in question makes a number of general accusations against the Palestinian people. Without detailing these, it is sufficient to cite the first of these:

To our Knowledge a people who do not build their own homeland cannot build the homelands of others. And a people who sell their land and do not defend their homeland cannot be but salesmen of homelands whether they settle or occupy it by force. The Palestinians were the first people in the world to abandon their land without regret and without resistance ... This parasitic people, even in loyalty to and liberation of their own land, can they be loyal to the homelands of others and the hospitality of others?

(Translation provided by editor)

The article goes on to make a number of charges against the Palestinian people.

Not denying that this may be the genuinely held view of the authors of the document, to make such allegations against a whole race must necessarily fall within the definition of racism, which the Press Council deplores. The Press Council believes that there should be great liberty in the presentation of views, even extreme views, in the press. However, sweeping allegations made in the letter against the whole Palestinian people are not appropriate in our liberal, multi-racial democracy, and in the view of the Press Council the editor should nave exercised greater restraint.

However, the Press Council believes that a solution to the problem may have been for the Palestine Information Office to avail itself of the opportunity offered by the editor to have its views published.