- This is a magnificent little book by experienced journalist John Lyons. I read his 2017 memoir on his six years as a foreign correspondent for The Australian based in Jerusalem and I clearly remember it as enlightening and powerful. In this new one Lyons revisits the issue of the Australian media's coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict, though his focus is narrower. He gives example after example of how our editors and journalists are cowered by right wing Israel lobbyists who are absolutely relentless in their opposition to any semblance of fairness or balance in media reporting on the Palestinian predicament. A prime example was the lack of any significant coverage in Australia of the highly regarded report on Israel by the international organisation Human Rights Watch released in April this year. It did not shy away from calling Israel's treatment of the Palestinians a policy of apartheid and persecution.
- Israel is determined to continue its occupation of the West Bank, the expansion of settlements, and its opposition to any possibility of a Palestinian state. Lyons resists mentioning the contentious word ‘apartheid’ but he does describe the reality of it in detail. We are now at a point where the 'two state solution' is totally unrealistic.
- Even mention of ‘Palestine’ in a media story or, for god's sake, a crossword is condemned by the mainly Melbourne-based lobby, the Australian/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (led by Mark Leibler and Colin Rubenstein). This despite the fact that three million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
- What is extraordinary is that the media reports that are constantly objected to are quite frequently published in Israel itself without any complaint whatsoever. In Australia however our journalists are dubbed anti-Semitic at every turn. It's nasty and it's absurd.
- Lyons praises former and current editors of The Australian, Chris Mitchell, Paul Whittaker and Clive Mathieson, for standing up to this bullying. (Nick Cater was another story).
- Thankfully Lyons fully addresses the issue that readers of The Saturday Paper have long found disturbing. Why the minimal coverage of the Palestine issue? Morry Schwartz, owner and founder, and editor-in-chief Eric Jensen respond and are quoted at length. They comment on former editor Maddison Connaughton’s surprise resignation, and former morning editor Alex McKinnon’s letter of complaint where he addressed what he called A policy of silence…they’re deceiving their readership by pretending that they don’t have a stance, but they do. Schwartz and Jensen reject these assertions. TSP was always intended to be Australia-focused, according to Jensen. And according to Schwartz I want the same level of reporting as Poland or Russia or Saudi Arabia or Chechnya. Lyons just leaves that there!
- As another leader of the Australian Jewish community Dr Ron Weiser says: The Australian Jewish community is one of the most pro-Zionist and Israel-connected in the world.
- Finally Lyons reflects that the controlling faction of the Australian Jewish leadership is way out of kilter with [even the] security and military experts in Israel.
- This is an absolute must-read. It won't take you long. It's only 80 or so pages and is written in very lucid prose.
(This piece by Louise Adler, the editor of In The National Interest series, of which Lyons' book is a part, is also excellent)
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