SBS reporter returns to work despite ‘kiss of death’ from Israeli lobbyists

SBS World News reporter Essam Al-Ghalib returned to work this week after being suspended with pay following calls from pro-Israel organisations to have him stood down for anti-Israel tweets posted nearly a decade ago. 

“Following the outcome of the review, Mr Al-Ghalib continues to be engaged on a casual basis with SBS as a cross-platform journalist, and appropriate measures have been taken to manage this issue,” an SBS spokesperson told Crikey. 

“SBS is a public broadcaster and all our journalists are expected to be, and be perceived as, impartial and balanced in their reporting.”

SBS launched an investigation into Al-Ghalib’s use of social media earlier this month, after pro-Israel media-monitoring website HonestReporting picked through tweets posted by Al-Ghalib from 2014 and 2015, which the broadcaster says “did not align” with its standards and values, or community expectations. 

The tweets, which were posted before Al-Ghalib was employed by SBS and have since been deleted, coincided with the Israeli Defence Force’s mobilisation into Gaza in response to Hamas rocket attacks, which were fired at Israel following the reported arrest of some 350 Palestinians for the alleged kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers.

The UN says the conflict, later dubbed the 2014 Gaza War, killed at least 2251 Palestinians, including 1462 civilians, of whom 299 were women and 551 children. Six civilians were killed in Israel as a result of the conflict, as well as 67 soldiers, a United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry into the conflict found. A ceasefire was agreed to after 50 days of fighting.

Among the offending tweets posted by Al-Ghalib at the time was one that praised Al Jazeera’s coverage of the conflict, accompanied by the hashtag “#F***Israel”. 

Another tweet condemned the conduct of an Israeli soldier who was allegedly seen “choking a Palestinian boy”. Other tweets claimed Israeli soldiers were “bloody murderers”, who from the late 1940s operated “little-known concentration and labour camps”, and that Israel is “the biggest terrorist in the world”. 

The Australian Jewish News (AJN) reported HonestReporting’s findings shortly after they were released, citing a spokesperson at SBS who ensured the publication that “action” was being taken, and that Al-Ghalib was stood down “from all duties” pending an internal investigation. 

The story raised questions over Al-Ghalib’s capacity to report on the region with balance and impartiality, which most recently took the form of an audio report on US State Secretary of State Antony J Blinken’s recent visit to Israel. The story has since been deleted by SBS without explanation.

Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni said in offering AJN on-the-record commentary on individual employment matters, the broadcaster wrongly validated the publisher’s charges without the necessary context, which put Al-Ghalib’s career at risk.

Mashni said he does not condone the contents of the tweets, but thinks SBS management could have better handled the matter. 

“The first thing they should have done was to investigate the entity that brought forward the complaint. And once they had ascertained that HonestReporting’s only job is to trawl through Palestinian-sympathetic tweets or posts… it’s at that moment you go, ‘Perhaps this isn’t real’,” Mashni told Crikey.

Mashni said coordinated lobbying efforts like the one that led to Al-Ghalib’s suspension can often be the “kiss of death”. He said it “should be” the case for anti-Semites, but not for those sympathetic to Palestine, which are too often conflated. 

Staffers at SBS privately fear the broadcaster’s swift action could have a chilling effect on the broadcaster’s coverage of the region, stoked by fears they mightn’t be safe or supported carrying out reporting that doesn’t favour Israel. 

Jennine Khalik, a Palestinian-Australian journalist and advocate, said that a chilling effect has already taken hold, “not just at SBS, but at most media outlets”. 

“Palestinian and Arab staffers, along with others, have long felt fear at SBS and ABC, and are navigating a minefield. Leadership at these institutions have moved swiftly to kill stories and threaten journalists and staffers with punitive measures. I myself experienced this,” Khalik, a former ABC journalist and digital producer, told Crikey.

“Unfortunately, there have long been concerted efforts by pro-Israel organisations and outlets to smear and defame Palestinian advocates and any critics of the Israeli apartheid state. This is far larger than SBS.”