Not only do we need to content with last Tuesday premiere of “Here Comes the Habibs” which portrays the Lebanese as hill billies, we woke up last Friday to the news of a Government Leaked Report intended for the National Security Committee, concluding that Sunni Muslim Lebanese who migrated to Australia during the Lebanese Civil War have proven to be prone to extremist views and terrorism.

The reaction from our Prime Minister was to claim ignorance of such a report. We await his response once he read the report and whether he will call to account whoever was responsible for making such ludicrous and unsubstantiated claims.

“There is so much vilification and demonization that one community can bear. And there is so much reparation that grass roots organisations can do.”

“Our resilience is being tested to its limits” said Fatma Hoblos, Media Officer of the Victorian Lebanese Community Council.

It’s quite irresponsible on the part of a Government bureaucracy to draft such an ill-founded, mischievous and divisive report that cuts deeply into an already fragile Muslim community trying to regroup and keep itself cohesive and unaffected by international events. But, for every progress made by efforts on the ground, we find ourselves returned to the trenches.

What was the purpose of such a report? Who commissioned it? What evidence was it based on?

What will happen now? We demand to have answers. We demand an inquiry to get to the bottom of this. We are not the Habibs of Channel 9. We are Australian citizens whose immigration to Australia dates back to the 1860’s and like many other immigrant communities we came to establish a better life for our children and grandchildren, we made significant contributions to Australia’s development and we won’t tolerate such short sighted and vicious reports that keep driving a wedge into our community and portray us as a threat to national security.

There are over 7 million Lebanese in the diaspora in several countries around the world. Why are the Lebanese being singled out in Australia as being inherently violent?

We await your response Prime Minister.

Fatma Hoblos

Media Officer

Victorian Lebanese Community Council Inc.

Mobile: 0404 667 056