J'Accuse

One of the most appalling Arabophobic/Islamophobic/Ziophilic so-called opinion pieces ever to appear in the Australian press (and that includes the Murdoch press!), has resulted in the letters editor of the offending paper, the Sydney Morning Herald, printing just one (1) critical letter in response, and that from a person of Arab background. I have little doubt too that that was severely edited. (There was another, one-sentence letter, of little substance.)

The Arabophobic etc I refer to is of course that by Herald calumnist (no spelling mistake here) Paul Sheehan, the subject of Monday's post.

The key question here is this: Were there any other critical responses?

If so, why did the letters editor, given the opinion editor's appalling lapse in allowing Sheehan's poison onto the opinion pages in the first place, not at least have the decency to print a number of critical responses?

If not, what does the absence of any critical response to Sheehan's toxic emission from Herald readers, apart from Mr Kazak, tell us about the readership of the paper? That they found nothing of any offence in it or its equally appalling graphic? That, God forbid, they even agreed with it? In which case, one can only ask: where the hell is this society of ours heading?

Here is Ali Kazak's lone letter:

"Paul Sheehan still thinks Muslims are under his bed ('Arab spring yields to Muslim winter' January 6). He does not mention the fact the deplorable sectarian conflict we are witnessing in Iraq is the result of the war against Iraq launched by America and its allies, including Australia, nor did he mention the explosives and car bombs are also blowing up mosques and killing Muslims, so what is the surprise about the blowing up of churches and synagogues as well? No one is immune from sectarianism.

"Sheehan's admiration for Israel is making him blind to the facts of the Middle East and to Israel's Jewish extremism, gross violations of human rights and war crimes."