Pilger peace prize award sparks community concerns
AUSTRALIAN Jewish community leaders have expressed concern over the award of the 2009 Sydney Peace Prize to Australian journalist, author and filmmaker John Pilger.
DALIA SABLE
THE Australian Jewish community has expressed concern over the award of the 2009 Sydney Peace Prize to Australian journalist, author and filmmaker John Pilger.
Pilger, a supporter of Palestinian causes and a critic of Israel, received the award for his “commitment to peace with justice by exposing and holding governments to account for human rights abuses and for fearless challenges to censorship in any form”.
President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) Robert Goot said that bestowing the honour on Pilger “reflects adversely on the institute awarding the prize”.
“Awarding a peace prize to John Pilger is bizarre and disgraceful,” Goot said. “Pilger does not promote peace, but is a polemicist, a distorter of facts and history, and he promotes an extreme Palestinian narrative at the expense of Israel’s narrative and objective analysis.”
Chief executive officer of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies Vic Alhadeff echoed these sentiments.
“Presenting the Sydney Peace Prize to Mr Pilger makes a farce of the award. Some of his work over the years has been noteworthy for its extreme lack of either balance or context, which has done nothing to promote the cause of peace. The choice of winner is very unfortunate as there are so many worthy recipients out there.”
In addition to his many writings on the topic, in 1974 Pilger produced the documentary Palestine Is Still The Issue “about a nation of people — the Palestinians — forced off their land and later subjected to a military occupation by Israel”. In 2002, he released a follow-up documentary of the same name, revisiting the region where “nothing has changed”.
More recently, he called the Likud Party “fascists” and accused Israel Defence Forces soldiers of large-scale domestic violence when they returned from “their war on Palestinian women and children” to “make war on their own”.
Pilger has also produced documentaries about Cambodia, East Timor and the people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
The only international peace prize awarded in Australia, organisers of the Sydney Peace Prize claim it recognises organisations or individuals who have made significant contributions to global peace.
Past winners have included Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson, secretary-general of Amnesty International Irene Kahn and, to the disdain of the Jewish community, Dr Hanan Ashrawi for “her commitment to peace in the Middle East”.
Pilger will receive the award at a function at The University of Sydney in November. The following day he will deliver the City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture at the Sydney Opera House.
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