Lebanon: US envoy faces backlash after telling journalists to ‘act civilised’

A senior US diplomat sparked outrage on Tuesday after telling journalists in Lebanon to “act civilised” during a press conference at the presidential palace.

“Please be quiet for a moment,” Tom Barrack, ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, told reporters after a meeting with President Joseph Aoun.

“The moment this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we’re gone. So, you want to know what’s happening? Act civilised, act kind, act tolerant, because this is the problem with what’s happening in the region," he said to journalists who had started asking questions all at once.

On X, the Lebanese Presidency issued a statement expressing “regret” over Barrack’s remarks, describing them as “inadvertently made from its podium by one of its guests”.

The office stressed its “absolute respect for human dignity” and affirmed its “full appreciation for journalists and accredited media representatives”.

Lebanese media organisations condemned the statement and demanded a public apology from the diplomat. 

The photojournalists’ syndicate denounced Barrack's remarks as a “direct insult” and the Syndicate of Lebanese Press Editors said the words were “completely unacceptable”, adding that “failure to issue [an apology] may prompt... a boycott” of his visits and meetings. 

The Union of Journalists in Lebanon said the statement was not a “mere slip of the tongue or an individual stance, but rather a reflection of an unacceptable superiority in dealing with the media and an implicit disdain for the essence of journalistic work”.

The statement went further, accusing the envoy of displaying “ingrained colonial arrogance towards the peoples of the region”.

Other journalists and commentators echoed this line of thought.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Mohamad Hasan Sweidan, a columnist at The Cradle Media based in Beirut, called the statement a “textbook colonial gesture”, adding that it was “part of a sequence reflecting how the West views people of the global south”.

Paula Yacoubian, a prominent journalist-turned-MP, said Barrack’s words “laid bare the collapse and decay of western diplomacy”, and co-founder of the media outlet Daraj, Diana Moukalled, said the remarks “expose an empty, paternalistic mindset that sees the Lebanese not as partners, but as ‘thugs’ who must be disciplined”.

In a post on Facebook, Riad Kobaissi, a news reporter at local broadcaster al-Jadeed,  responded to the statement: “Those who ask Lebanon to be a strong state must tolerate the questions of its journalists, not treat their attitude as animalistic.”

The outrage spread on social media and spilled into the streets.

Barrack cancelled his scheduled tour of the southern Lebanese towns of Khiam and Tyre on Wednesday amid protests against the diplomat and the US push to disarm Hezbollah.