The magazine Overland has been targeted for its solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
A discussion group that includes Australian writers, teachers and academics is campaigning to get an editor and academic sacked and funding withdrawn, in response to a literary journal’s publication of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel articles.
Messages from a WhatsApp group, which were posted to X/Twitter by Evelyn Araluen, appear to show an “urgent call to action” against Jonathan Dunk, who co-edits Overland with Araluen.
The requests in the group appear to include asking for screenshots to use as evidence to support taking legal action against Dunk and the journal. Other comments posted by Araluen call for complaints to be made to Deakin University, where Araluen and Dunk are employed as academics, and also to Creative Victoria, which funds Overland.
On 9 November 2023, Dunk wrote a response to criticism for 'publishing a number of collective statements in solidarity with the Palestinian people'.
It was a furious piece of writing, noting that criticisms were multiplying:
'... even as the State of Israel denies food, water and power to two million fucking people… even as ever more historians and human-rights lawyers explicitly call Israel’s response the genocide it is.'
Dunk’s anger was directed towards 'educated academics and artists' who refuse to acknowledge 'continuing and escalating violence'. He wrote that his co-editor, Evelyn Araluen, encouraged him to make a 'conciliatory gesture towards hope' by recognising the protest marches and the courage of progressive Jewish activists.
Araluen posted the screenshots of a series of leaked messages from the WhatsApp group on Thursday, saying she’s 'known for months that @OverlandJournal has been a target of this group'.
The author of the award-winning poetry book Dropbear also wrote:
'Just reminding us all that the only reason we can platform Palestine right now is because of the incredible courage and commitment of our writers.'
Writers who responded in support of Araluen and Overland included Muslim advocate Randa Abdel-Fattah who commented that one thing that stands out in the group chat is Zionists see solidarity with Indigenous people in ‘Australia as transactional, an opportunity to flex power, a bargaining chip'. The leaked messages included suggestions that Overland was influencing writers and called for a list of “follow-ups”, including Clementine Ford and Diversity Arts Australia.
The exposure of this WhatsApp group’s campaign follows the revelations that a Lawyers for Israel group discussed complaining to the ABC’s chair Ita Buttrose about Antoinette Lattouf, before the presenter’s contract was terminated. The ABC has since responded to Lattouf’s case for unfair dismissal by hiring a U.S. law firm to defend the case.
Overland’s online journal currently includes a 'Statement of solidarity with Palestine and call to action from Monash University staff, students and alumni'.
Overland also published an open letter to the Australian Government, signed by 'artists and cultural producers', demanding a ceasefire and an 'investigation into Israel’s egregious attacks and war crimes on Palestinians in Gaza'.
The letter said:
'Today, as the media wages a war against truth and strips this colonial project of its historical context, we have a unique responsibility to use our voice and artistic practices to say no more!'
Rosemary Sorensen was a newspaper books and arts journalist based in Melbourne, then Brisbane, before moving to regional Victoria where she founded Bendigo Writers Festival, which she directed for 13 years.
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