Ted Lapkin responds to Julian Burnside

Ted Lapkin responds to Julian Burnside

Crikey.com - 24 August 2006

Julian Burnside QC's original email to Ted Lapkin

Dear Sir

My attention has just been drawn to an article on your website. The article was written by Ted Lapkin, titled 'JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM '. It concerned Anthony Loewenstein's book 'My Israel Question'. The article mentions the forthcoming event at the Melbourne Writer's Festival, in which I am involved.

The author states: "According to the Festival program, Loewenstein will share the stage with QCs Julian Burnside and Robert Richter. Burnside’s pro-Palestinian sympathies are a matter of public record."

That is false and defamatory. Whilst I have sympathy for any group of people who suffer, I am neutral on the question of Israel and Palestine. I challenge Mr Lapkin to justify the sentence I refer to. I suspect it is just an example of his willingness to argue by abuse rather than by reason. If he cannot justify the sentence, I ask you to publish a retraction, and an apology from Lapkin and from you.

If you do not comply with this request by the time of the Melbourne Writer's Festival event, I will publicly raise Mr Lapkin's statement, his failure to validate it and your failure to correct it.

Just the facts, please.

Very best wishes
Julian
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Julian Burnside QC
jb@julianburnside.com
www.julianburnside.com

www.thejusticeproject.com.au

'Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.' - H.L. Mencken

Ted Lapkin’s full response to Julian Burnside that is referenced in a story that appears on Crikey.com - Aug. 24, 2006

Mr. Burnside:

I find it quite odd that you have taken umbrage at my characterisation of you as one whose “pro-Palestinian sympathies are a matter of public record.” In light of your track record, I would have thought that you would consider such a description to be the highest form of praise.

What other reasoned conclusion can be drawn from your decision to launch the “Palestine Lost” photo exhibit in 2004? The exhibition’s sponsors – Women for Palestine and the Australian Arabic Council – make no bones about their pro-Palestinian stance. And the application of that explicitly partisan worldview to the exhibit was made abundantly clear by Women for Palestine President Sonja Karkur, who was quoted in the Age as follows:

“it is the first time that the Palestinian story is shown from three different perspectives in one exhibition… the exhibition tells the story of the Palestinian struggle to retain identity and homeland under occupation”.

In that same Age article, curator Judith Pugh stressed that the exhibit included photos of Israeli victims of suicide bombings. But these token references Palestinian violence did little to redress the overall partisan thrust of the exhibit. The leit-motif of the enterprise remained harshly critical of Israel. While “bad things have happened on both sides,” said Pugh, the exhibition’s primary focus is to “show the moral decay that happens to a society [Israel] that overwhelms another [Palestinian] society.”

The statements of the organisers, as well as the photo exhibit itself, clearly reflect a pronounced partiality in favour of the Palestinian narrative. For my part, I certainly would refuse to participate in any enterprise with which I was in fundamental ideological disagreement. By contrast, your willingness to lend your name to this partisan enterprise makes it only reasonable to conclude that you share its weltanshauung.

And that impression is reinforced by a speech you gave at the NSW Parliament. During your address at the 16th Lionel Murphy Memorial Lecture, you quoted approvingly from a poem by Edmund Ortiz that expressed profoundly anti-Israel sentiments. Through Ortiz, you called for a moment of silence to honour, inter alia: “the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of U.S.-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation”.

At the very time that you delivered this oration, in November 2002, the Palestinian campaign of suicide bombing against Israel was at its ghastly height. Hundreds of innocent Jews were ripped to shreds in attacks against commuter buses, shopping centres, cafes and nightclubs. Yet you saw no need to pay any deference at all to the Israeli victims of this conflict. You could have easily interpellated some mention of Israeli suffering into your remarks, yet you decided not to do so. You deemed only Palestinian tribulations to be worthy of public recognition.

Before your declamation of the Ortiz poem you declared: “I think you will understand why I choose to read it.” Indeed, I believe that I comprehend entirely. By both commission and omission, you made your partisan proclivities on the Middle East conflict readily apparent. And I contend that your paper trail does not support your protestations of neutrality on the “question of Israel and Palestine.”

Thus I stand by my characterisation of you as one whose “pro-Palestinian sympathies are a matter of public record.”

And now you threaten you promise to “publicly raise” this issue if I fail to comply with a demand that I beg your pardon and disavow my statement. By way of reply, I shall quote the Duke of Wellington’s rejoinder to a similar episode of attempted intimidation: “publish and be damned!”

In fact, in view of your intention to air this matter in public, I view myself at liberty to publicise it in my own right. Please consider the above as my response to your missive.

Most sincerely yours,

Ted Lapkin