Published: 7 November 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Former minister Barry Jones, who is patron of Overland, was scathing of the letter, which has prompted Jewish creatives and academics to speak out over the Left’s anti-Israel bias.
Former ALP Minister Barry Jones has described an open letter by literary journal Overland, of which he is official patron, as “appalling” over its inflammatory language and distorted claims about Israel and Gaza.
The letter accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza, describes the Hamas massacres as “armed attacks by Palestinian people” and states as fact the discredited claim by Hamas that Israel bombed the Al-Ahli hospital.
“The letter was appalling and deeply counterproductive in securing peace and stability in the Middle East,” Jones told The Jewish Independent.
Titled Stop the Genocide in Gaza, and dated October 21, the letter calls on the Australian government to condemn Israel over its retaliatory attacks on Gaza, and has hundreds of signatories. Overland was founded in 1954. Its co-editors-in-chief are academics at Deakin University.
“We the undersigned are Palestinian, Arab, SWANA, First Nations, Bla(c)k artists and creatives and their allies, writing to express our concern and disappointment that on 16th October, 2023, you voted against condemning war crimes committed by Israel in its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people,” the letter begins.
The letter is riddled with inflammatory language, bias, unverified claims and anti-Israel rhetoric. It describes the Hamas massacres of 1300 Israelis as follows: “The armed attacks on October 7 by Palestinian people cannot be de-contextualised from apartheid, extreme oppression, vicious brutality against protests and the open embrace by the Netanyahu government of policies that openly aim to exterminate the Palestinian people and their struggle for freedom."
The letter is morally distressing. It contains not a single word of condemnation for Hamas’s atrocities.
Lee Kofman, Melbourne writer and teacher
