Australian broadcaster ordered to pay journalist sacked over anti-Israel post

The judge awarded Antoinette Lattouf $150,000.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) must pay a fine to a temporary morning show host for unlawfully firing her after she shared an anti-Israel post on social media soon after the war in Gaza began.

In December 2023, Antoinette Lattouf reposted a Human Rights Watch statement saying, “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war. The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war in Gaza.”

After a slew of protests by Israel supporters to ABC management, she was let go halfway through her five-day contract.

She later sued the broadcaster for $300,000 to $350,000 for what she called wrongful termination.

In his judgment, Justice Darryl Rangiah said that ABC had “abjectly surrendered the rights of its employee to appease a lobby group” for “spurious reasons” and without giving her the right to reply to the accusations.

ABC’s conduct “ignored the equally important statutory obligation of maintaining its independence and integrity,” he said.

He deemed that a penalty of $150,000 would be of “sufficient weight” to deter the broadcaster from “capitulation” to political pressure in the future.

The maximum fine could have been $375,000, he added.

In a June ruling, Rangiah said Lattouf had been unlawfully fired “for reasons including that she held political opinions opposing the Israeli military campaign in Gaza” and had ordered ABC to pay $70,000 in compensation.

ABC had offered up to $56,000 in compensation, and Lattouf’s lawyer said that at one point ABC had offered to settle for $85,000.

After the initial ruling, Lattouf repeated the anti-Israel charge to the press, saying, “Deliberately starving and killing children is a war crime. Today the court has found that punishing someone for sharing facts about these war crimes is also illegal.”

However, Rangiah had not said this, Sky News reporter Caroline Marcus commented in reaction.

“The judge made no finding of the veracity of your disputed claim from a known anti-Israel organization,” she said, referring to HRW.

She then ran a clip of Rangiah saying that Lattouf had known her post “was bound to be controversial,” and making it was “ill-advised and inconsiderate of her employer.”

Marcus also expressed concern that anti-Israel activists had “hijacked” what was simply a legal judgment on workplace rights.

Outside the courthouse, protesters stood waving signs and Palestinian flags trying “to portray Rangiah’s ruling as if it were a judgment on the morality of the Gaza conflict,” the Financial Review reported at the time.

While Marcus was reporting from the court steps, some in the crowd even accused the media of supporting “genocide” if they were not taking an anti-Israel line, she said.

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