The Israel Lobby at work.....in Australia

The Israel Lobby knows no bounds - as this rather disturbing piece by a well regarded journalist, author and media commentator in Australia, Margaret Simon reveals on her blog reveals in her piece "The Michael Backman Column: Weird and Unpleasant Happenings at The Age":

"I was out frying other fish yesterday so did not catch up with the controversy consuming The Age newsroom until late afternoon. This morning as I ring around, it is clear that the newsroom remains tense and upset. Staff are rallying around. They fear unfairness.

It’s all about an anti-Semitic column by regular contributor to the business pages, Michael Backman. published last Saturday - and about the bizarre “apology” The Age had on page two yesterday.

The original column has been taken down from the Age website, but is still available on Backman’s own website,

Bad enough. Very bad, in fact. How did such a racist column come to be published? Keep reading, but first some more background.

Yesterday a bizarre apology was published on page two of the Age, under the usual pro forma information about contact numbers and the like:

A column by Michael Backman headlined “Israel living high on US expense account’’ was published in error.

The Age does not in any way endorse the views of the columnist, apologises for the distress the column caused to many readers, particularly in the Jewish community and regrets publication of the column.’

Now, if publishing the column was strange, this was even stranger. The wording suggested that the column was - woops - published as a production error - without anyone realising or thinking about it or noticing what it said. This was not the case, as I detail below."

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