Antoinette Lattouf has been axed by the ABC for pro-Palestine posts

Popular ABC radio presenter Antoinette Lattouf has hit back after being sacked over her outspoken posts on social media.

Antoinette Lattouf was thrilled about her new gig on ABC radio. Picture: Instagram

ABC radio presenter Antoinette Lattouf has hit back after being dumped from the air for posting pro-Palestinian messages on social media.

“I am very disappointed by the ABC’s decision today,” Ms Lattouf said on Wednesday night, in a statement posted on social media.

“I believe I was terminated unlawfully. This is not a win for journalism or critical, fair thinking. I’m currently considering my legal options.”

Ms Lattouf had recently been filling in for Sarah Macdonald on ABC Sydney in the morning, but was given her marching orders by the broadcaster on Wednesday.

Ms Lattouf had posted on Monday about her new gig on ABC radio urging her followers to listen in as she was replacing the “fabulous” Ms MacDonald.

According to The Australian, ABC chair Ita Buttrose was “furious” she was put in the fill-in position in the first place given her inflammatory posts on social media about the Middle East.

Sources say complaints had been sent to the ABC board and managing director David Anderson.

Ms Lattouf, who is of Lebanese heritage and whose parents came to Australia as refugees in the 1970s, is outspoken on her social media accounts.

She drew intense criticism for repeatedly suggesting videos of pro-Palestine protesters chanting “gas the Jews” at the Sydney Opera House in October were unverified.

Last week an article she co-wrote in Crikey repeated the claim.

Lattouf is a former senior journalist with 10 and the ABC.

She is no stranger to controversy.

“Despite the enormous amount of attention and considerable response to the reports, third parties have been unable to verify the ‘gas the Jews’ claim, and further footage corroborating the chants has failed to emerge,” she wrote.

This is despite eyewitness testimony reported to NSW Police about the “gas the Jews” chant.

She also joined hundreds of journalists and signed the controversial open letter calling for all Australian newsrooms to treat unverified information from the democratically-elected government of Israel and terror group Hamas with the same “professional scepticism”.

Ms Lattouf, formerly a senior journalist with Channel 10 and the ABC and a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald is no stranger to controversy.

She founded the Media Diversity Network in 2017 with a mission to make the media “less white” and criticised the ABC for “covert discrimination” and treating ethnics like “box-ticking hires”.

Antoinette Lattouf. Picture: Instagram

Antoinette Lattouf. Picture: Instagram

In 2021 she called out the Kennedy Awards for journalism on social media for a 60 person judging panel that included five white men named Peter but only 15 women and no people of colour.

Her first book, How to Lose Friends and Influence White people, was published last year.

In 2019, television presenter Kerri-Anne Kennerley asked Lattouf whether she had “forgotten her pants that day” before asking her if she was “thirsty” live on air.

Ms Lattouf later told the Sydney Morning Herald she stayed silent despite being humiliated because she feared a backlash.

“I knew that she was denigrating me on air and it was awful but if I pushed back, I’d probably be framed as an angry brown woman and slut-shamed further,” she said.

“One of us would come out unscathed, and it wouldn’t be me.”

A spokesperson for the ABC confirmed she would “not be back on air” for her final two shifts filling in this week.

ABC rules state that staff must be impartial and not post ‘thoughtless’ messages on social media which could compromise this position.