Published: 6 October 2023
Last updated: 19 March 2024
In this extract from his memoir, the ex-editor of The Age says Israel's advocates are relentless but the idea that a lobby dictates foreign policy is both shocking and laughable.
In June 1981, I arrived back in Australia after three years in London, where I had been a correspondent for The Herald and Weekly Times newspaper group. A few weeks later, I was asked to come to what I was told would be a panel discussion about the way the media covered the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. I assumed I had been invited because of the articles I had written a few months earlier, during my first visit to Israel, which had caused something of a stir in the Melbourne Jewish community.
By the time I arrived back in Australia, I had forgotten the articles, and was surprised by the invitation. I did not know the people who issued it, and I somewhat reluctantly agreed to be on the panel. I thought the other panellists would be journalists. The event was held in a suburban community hall on a Sunday afternoon.
On stage, at the front of the hall, were six or seven chairs, with another chair set a small distance away. When I arrived, I was told I should sit on that chair. About 200 people trooped into the hall, most of whom I did not know. In the row of chairs sat not journalists, but a group of youngish men. Each of them had copies of the articles I had written. For the next hour and a half, these articles were analysed, criticised, dissected, destroyed. I was on trial!
When it came to my turn to defend myself for what I had written about Israel, I don’t think I did a magnificent job. I felt I had been misled about the composition of the panel. Still, I could not help but see that these Jews were forensic, knowledgeable, articulate. They knew much more than I knew. This taking on and re-educating me, a Jewish journalist, was a mission for them. Back then, there were few Jews in journalism. It was a trade, and a poorly paid one. Few Jewish mothers would have encouraged their children — their sons, in particular — to become reporters.
I had moved on from those articles. Journalists are always moving on to the next story. But we forget that while we move on, for the people we write about, and for people like the Jews in that hall interrogating me, there is no moving on, because the stories are central to their lives and their life’s work.
