BY JEREMY JONES

Despite the proved falsity of history’s most notorious anti-Semitic book, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, the book itself and the myths within it are far from dead and buried. For that reason the article by Michael Ross in the Arabic-language Sydney pub­lic­a­tion El Telegraph this month may well be a sig­ni­fic­ant document in Jewish and Arab relations, at least in this country.

Ross, a former associate editor of El Telegraph, wrote his article as the result of a Con­cili­ation conducted by the Human Rights and Equal Oppor­tun­ity Com­mis­sion (HREOC) under the Racial Hatred Act. The complaint, by the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry, followed an article in El Telegraph that cited The Protocols as a source for under­stand­ing Israel’s attitude to the Lebanese people and to non-Jews in general.

The pub­lic­a­tion of the article was an indic­a­tion that the Racial Hatred Act can provide proper recourse to the victims of racial vili­fic­a­tion, appearing as it did on the front page of the newspaper and, it is to be hoped, read by the audience exposed to the original slander.

The offensive article was written by Charlie Ayoub, publisher and editor-in-chief of the popular Lebanese-based pub­lic­a­tion Al-Diar. The article alleged a “covenant” in the Bible to the effect that “the Lebanese fields must be burnt” and claimed that Jews, who were described as “snakes”, have a plan to establish a “Global Order” in which “all the people will submit to the Jews”.

The article by Ross bore the stark headline ‘The Protocols: We Were Wrong’. In it, Ross placed the Protocols in the history of Christian anti-Semitism, including the “blood libel” which accuses Jews of killing Christian children for ritual purposes.

He referred to the way Arab gov­ern­ments and prominent figures within the Arab world had promoted the Protocols, gen­er­ously conceding that some who did so were “perhaps ignorant of the fact that the Protocols are a forgery”. He warned readers “one cannot be so thought­fully inclined towards many partisan writers and pro­pa­gand­ists in the Middle East who delib­er­ately invoke the Protocols to encourage racial hatred of the Israeli State and the Jewish religion”.

Ross surveyed the dis­tri­bu­tion of the Protocols in Australia and elsewhere and sum­mar­ised suc­cess­ful pro­sec­u­tions of its pub­lish­ers and dis­trib­ut­ors. El Telegraph also published a feature which I co-authored with Peter Wertheim, President of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, entitled “Free Speech is Not a Licence to Spread Hatred”.

A precedent has now been set which will assist other aggrieved parties who seek to settle com­plaints arising out of material published in the main­stream media, including non-English language media.

A con­struct­ive rela­tion­ship evolved during the course of dis­cus­sions between the Jewish community and the pub­lish­ers of El Telegraph, which is now a rela­tion­ship firmly rooted in trust and respect.