In late 1975 the United Nations General Assembly determined by resolution that Zionism was “a form of racism and racial discrimination,” evoking its 1963 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and stating that “any doctrine of racial differentiation or superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous”. Not long after, in 1976, 3CR Community Radio began broadcasting across a small geographic area of Melbourne. From the outset, program content closely aligned with the UN’s stance across various shows, including “Palestine Speaks”, a twice weekly half-hour program in English. By platforming discussions around Palestine and anti-Zionism, 3CR was almost immediately subjected to hostile attacks from mainstream media, challenges to the station’s right to hold a licence, and the beginning of a systematic surveillance campaign by the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) that would last decades.
In the context of the Australian media landscape of the 1970s, the presence of dedicated coverage on the issue of Palestine was completely unheard of. Yet 3CR Community Radio was no ordinary radio station. After successfully attaining a low-power restricted commercial broadcasting licence just prior to the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975, 3CR was at the time considered to be Australia’s first community-owned and community-run radio station. Broadcasting initially from Armadale in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, and then from Cromwell Street in Collingwood, it was governed by a federation of hundreds of community organisations across a wide variety of interests. As a station newsletter in late 1976 noted, what all the community groups, unions and collectives that had come together to establish the station had in common was that they had been “discriminated against by the established media” and their “viewpoints have been ignored or distorted” (CRAM Guide 1976/1977). The station members came together with a shared vision — articulated in the station’s constitution — around enabling communication, providing access, encouraging involvement in media production, and giving voice to culture and the aspirations of the community.
In 1977, the station caused further controversy by rejecting a station membership affiliate application from the Jewish magazine Paths to Peace. The magazine was run by Norman and Evelyn Rothfield, and seen by many as a progressive Jewish voice, albeit one that still supported Zionism. Internally, this refusal of membership was voted on through the station’s democratic decision-making processes. While there were differing opinions among station members regarding the application, ultimately the station adhered to its existing rules and policies. In its opposition to Paths to Peace, the station was again aligning itself with the recent UN declaration on Zionism as a form of racism, while abiding by its station code of not broadcasting racist content.
By 1978 the attacks on 3CR had escalated. Infamously, the Bulletin magazine featured a balaclava-clad announcer on its cover under the heading of “Radio Scandal! Melbourne’s 3CR — The Voice of Terrorism”, reproducing an article that had first been published in Quadrant. This was closely followed by the release of a booklet by the Victorian Jewish Board of Deputies (VJBD) titled 3CR: A Matter of Public Concern. The VJBD, which in 1989 changed its name to the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, detailed in its booklet claims of “the anti-Semitic fanaticism of 3CR broadcasts”, with a clear focus on the weekly program “Palestine Speaks”. It claimed that the broadcasts were “a direct incitement to acts of violence and racial and religious hatred. Together with many other programmers on 3CR,” it stated, “they challenge acceptable standards of political debate in a democratic society”. There was a clear goal to silence the Palestinian content being broadcast, and the VJBD was determined to pursue this at the highest level — namely, the Federal Government that issued the licence.
This charge against the station by the VJBD was led by its then president, the late Arnold Bloch, subsequently of Arnold Bloch Leibler. In a lengthy submission in September 1978 directly to the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT), Bloch accused the station of causing offence to the Victorian Jewish community, demanded a right of reply, and called for the submission of “pre-taped material to the Tribunal so that the Minister may, as he is empowered to do pursuant to Section 99(3), prohibit the broadcast of such material as considered to be in contravention of the Broadcasting Programme Standards” (ASIO vol 5: 132). The practical ramifications of such an approach are stifling in respect to community controlled media production.
Tasked with dealing with the matter, the ABT — which is the precursor to the current Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and before that the Australian Broadcast Authority — held a preliminary hearing on 9 March 1979 to confirm procedures to be adopted at the inquiry. The VJBD and Paths to Peace were the two complainants. It was here that the ABT Chairman, Bruce Gyngell, was successfully challenged for being biased against 3CR, having previously stated, according to The Age at the time, that “he would not licence another station like CR. The statement was made during a Sydney radio licence hearing” The subsequent preliminary hearings in May 1979 were presided over by Vice Chairman Jim Oswin.
The station released a statement in its own defence, affirming:
it should be remembered that the Inquiry has flowed from a programming complaint about content. And this content is rooted in 3CR’s policies. Namely, the station’s obligation to provide access to groups denied access to the Mass Media, in this case, Palestinian groups, and the station’s policy of opposition to racism and denial, therefore, of access to those who would put forward racist views (ASIO vol 5:92).
Throughout 1979, the tribunal met five times and gained the interest of the emerging national community broadcasting sector. Michael Law, then Executive Director of the Public Broadcasting Association of Australia, the precursor to today’s Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, observed that the inquiry appeared “draconian in nature”, stating that “we take the strongest possible objection to the use of the threat … of the ultimate sanction of [licence] revocation or suspension”. In a letter to the tribunal in April 1979, Michael Law further stated that “It seems to us that this Inquiry should be cancelled and that any Inquiry which is substituted for it should have terms of reference which omit entirely the first part of those now announced” (ASIO vol 5:88).
In some respects, the ABT hearing was shaping up as a forum to challenge the ABT’s jurisdiction over broadcast licencing. More importantly perhaps, it was providing a prominent platform to interrogate whether Zionism is inherently racist — a position that the media more broadly was not prepared to give any air time to, as it was immediately conflated with antisemitism. Reams of documents had been collated, and the ASIO records confirm that people were planning to fly in key experts from overseas specifically to speak on this issue (ASIO vol 6:99). Ehud Ein-Gil, then a 28-year-old Israeli school teacher and a committee member of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, was brought out to Australia by Jews Against Zionism and Anti-Semitism (JAZA) to speak at the ABT hearing. Now a journalist with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, at the time he stated that “The fight against Zionism, in which I take part in Israel, is a fight towards the realization of the human and national rights of the Palestinian people. […] This struggle against Zionism is, far from being anti-Semitic, a real struggle against anti-Semitism.”
In August 1979 the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal’s preliminary hearings against 3CR were terminated and the Inquiry was abandoned. An agreement was signed between 3CR and the VJBD, with both sides claiming a degree of victory. Arnold Bloch, VJBD Chairperson at the time, is quoted in the Australian Jewish News as saying:
One thing is certain. If 3CR does not change in any way, then we will be back before the Tribunal either in the short term or in the longer term. As long as I am president of the Board, we will not simply shirk the issue.
The agreement did not weaken 3CR’s stance against racism, nor did it overturn its refusal to platform Zionist views and speakers. Paths to Peace was not granted affiliation, and there was no provision for unrestricted access to a right of reply. The Palestinian programming content — by then consisting of “Palestine Speaks”, “Palestine Voice” and “Arab Liberation News” — continued.
In some respects, this agreement assuaged the allegations of antisemitism and the challenge to the station’s licence. However, the repercussions of this time continue to reverberate, as the most recent wave of accusations of antisemitism have demonstrated. To be clear, the station has never been charged with, or convicted of, any terrorism, racism or criminal offences. Yet is has been publicly accused of all of the above, together with creating a front group in the form of Jews Against Zionism and Anti-Semitism, broadcasting anti-Jewish racism, while being subjected to comprehensive state surveillance for several decades. The focus of the station’s surveillance is varied, as documented in files obtained in 2015 that cover the period 1975–1989, but programming and activities related to Palestine are clearly a key focus in the records. Across more than 1800 pages and 10 volumes, ASIO’s 3CR Community Radio — Propaganda Methods is chilling reading when you consider that 3CR is a federally licenced broadcaster and acknowledged media outlet. While there are numerous amusing asides throughout the redacted pages — such as when a bugged call crackles and the Palestinian activists comment that “it was from our friends, they are still new in the trade, they are learning” and the agent notes that they are “referring to ASIO — as they had the feeling their phone was bugged” (3CR ASIO Files, Volume 6, p.130) — the fact remains that the station and its volunteers were comprehensively spied on by a Federal Government agency, and that the station’s engagement with the issue of Palestine was a key reason.
Across nearly five decades of harassment, spying and legal challenges, the station continues to broadcast the only English-language weekly program dedicated to the Palestinian struggle, “Palestine Remembered”, which this year celebrates 21 years on air and is currently presented by Nasser Mashni, President of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network. Since October 2023, Nasser has been systematically vilified by various mainstream media outlets, accompanied by the reviving of the 1970s trope of 3CR as the “voice of terrorism”. A challenge to his participation on the panel of the ABC’s Q&A program was given widespread media coverage, with the program going ahead with pro and anti-Zionist panellists, no audience and a police presence. Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territory, referred to Mashni’s subsequent grilling on Q&A as akin to being in front of “an execution squad”. Today’s “Palestine Remembered” builds off a vast body of coverage by 3CR including interviews, event recordings and reports, together with dedicated shows such as “Palestine Voice”, “Palestine Corner”, “Arab Liberation News” and “Palestine Speaks” — all of which have attracted consistent, ongoing complaints.
While any current ASIO surveillance of 3CR is presumed but unknown, the current iteration of the ABT, the ACMA, which took over the functions of the ABT in October 1992 as outlined in the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, remains alert to the station’s coverage of Palestine. 3CR has received three Palestine-related requests from the ACMA in the last sixteen months and been required to provide details of a “pro-Palestinian” announcement, including the frequency of broadcast and a copy of the audio file, as well as copies of the show “Palestine Remembered”.
While the 1975 UN resolution declaring Zionism as racism was revoked in 1991, the state of Israel and Zionism more broadly are still subject to intense international scrutiny. The International Court of Justice continues to hear allegations of genocide brought by South Africa against Israel for their war on Gaza, the International Criminal Court is pursuing arrest warrants for both Hamas leaders and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while Human Rights Watch details how civilians in Gaza have been targeted, attacked and killed at unprecedented levels. 3CR’s issues are perhaps dwarfed in comparison to the challenges and pressures that other media outlets face in trying to accurately and fairly cover the issue of Palestine. In the last sixteen months, Australian mainstream media outlets have been found to be systematically dehumanising the suffering of Palestinians, sacking journalists for sharing Palestine human rights social media posts, and failing to give coverage to Palestinian victims.
When issues of public interest are absent, silenced or distorted, we see the power and control that information and communication wields, and how it contributes to the shaping of meaning and the construction of reality. When it comes to the Australian media and the issue of Palestine, this struggle with information and power has been starkly illuminated over the past sixteen months. Many commentators observe that the recent crisis in Gaza was likely one of the world’s worst, with over 17,400 children killed, and an unprecedented level of destruction of buildings and the environment, together with the obstruction of humanitarian aid to civilian populations. The global community’s response to this ongoing crisis matters. While a tenuous ceasefire holds, the wider issues of injustice and discrimination persist. Our access to information, reporting and education is central to our ability to understand, empathise and act in the face of one of the world’s worst atrocities. What we do now is built on our exposure to stories, access to information and our capacity to historically contextualise the present. The systematic silencing of Palestinian voices by the Australian media over decades has seriously impaired our ability to learn, know and act.
