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
It states as fact the discredited claims about the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital. “Israel’s bombing of the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital on October 18 (sic) is a clear demonstration of the consequences when governments around the world refuse to hold Israel to account. The attack was devastating: over 500 civilians – including doctors, nurses, volunteers and people taking shelter – were murdered and hundreds injured,” the letter said.
The overwhelming conclusion of Western intelligence agencies, which has been widely reported, is that the explosion was caused by a rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad terror group that malfunctioned, and that the number of deaths was 100-300. The Overland letter was published after these intelligence analyses were published.
The Overland letter has prompted a Melbourne Jewish writer to create a website with an open letter for Jewish writers, members of the creative community and academics, which has generated a tidal wave of engagement. The aim of the website, titled Jews4humanity, is to “raise awareness among our peers and organisations about how we feel; that many of them basically let us down,” the group’s initiator, Lee Kofman, a writer and teacher, told The Jewish Independent.
“Some arts organisations offered organised support to their Muslim members but didn’t reach to Jewish ones. We also worry that our future work projects might be jeopardised, especially if they are about Jewish themes, because of current attitudes in creative and academic environments.”
Some arts organisations offered organised support to their Muslim members but didn’t reach to Jewish ones.
Lee Kofman
Kofman said the initiative was “a spontaneous decision” prompted by reading the Overland letter. “I was deeply distressed by it. There are factually incorrect sections in it. The letter is morally distressing. The language is inflammatory and the letter contains not a single word of condemnation for Hamas’s atrocities – no concern for the deaths of Israeli civilians or the suffering of hostages in Gaza.”
Kofman said she initially sent an email “to about 60 Jewish writers I knew, asking if right now they were feeling as alone as I did among my supposedly progressive peers, and if they wanted to let them know how disappointed we are with some of their responses – silence or trivialisation – to Jewish deaths and the rapidly rising antisemitism in Australia. So really it was no longer about Overland letter anymore, but our general distress in our professional milieus."
At the time of publication, the Jews4humanity website had more than 500 signatories, Kofman told The Jewish Independent. The signatories include Lior, Simon Tedeschi, Tottie Goldsmith, Dennis Altman, Professor Sharon Lewin, Evelyn Krape, Kerri Sackville, Emile Sherman, Rachel Berger and Professor Kim Rubinstein.
“Clearly, we've tapped into something that really is a huge issue," says Kofman.
The Jewish Independent approached the co-editors of Overland, Evelyn Araluen and Jonathan Dunk, for comment. They did not respond.
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