In December 2009 Kim Dalton, the Head of the ABC TV, personally intervened and revoked the film’s offer. In a letter written in February of 2010 Kim Dalton finally gives the official reason for the revocation.
One was To See If I Am Smiling, showing the psychological affect that the Israeli military experience has on some women soldiers.
The Friends of the ABC got to work to re-instate the contract for broadcast and their first move was to inform Senator Ludlam of the Greens Party about the situation. He made the decision to challenge the Managing Director of the ABC Mark Scott in the coming Senate Estimates of May 2010.
The Integrity of Hope
In August 2010 The ABC publish there response to Senator Ludlam. They resort to an unsubstantiated attack on the editorial integrity of the film.
The United Nations Office of Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, B'tselem The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, The Israeli Statistic Bureau are some of the organizations the filmmaker gathered her information from. Doctor Noah Bassil, Acting Director of the Centre for Middle East and North African Studies, was consulted on the film's accuracy in regards to historical data.
The documentary was presented at the International Peace Research Conference 2010 held in Sydney. Jake Lynch the Director of Centre of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney said that Hope in a Slingshot was "a signal contribution to peaceful media representation of this conflict.
All the resources used to research the film's maps and statistics are transparently stipulated and dated in the final credits of the film.
Despite having one of Australia's finest publicity agents on the job - Tracey Mair - not one interview or story was generated in the main stream media. The unverified attack of the editorial integrity of a film once accepted by the ABC and curiously rejected 7 months later was not considered interesting enough to publicize. No journalist in the main stream media was willing to touch this topic. Although the independent media and dedicated truth seekers were loyal supporters there simply was not enough of them.
Although what was at stack was the broadcast of a film that addresses the gaping hole in information in the main stream media about the Israeli - Palestinian conflict (which is the military occupation of the Palestinian people in that region), the Arabic Australian community was notably silent during this important battle with the ABC.
When using the term 'Arabic Australian Community' what is being addressed here is generically the community as a whole. Leaders of this community did not utter a word of support. One can assume that they did not care enough to support it for some reason or another. Maybe the community as a whole had no faith that success was possible. Whether is was apathy, an off shoot of racism (the film maker is not Arabic) or intellectualized non action because the film does not not support the Palestinian narrative holistically, their input was sorely missed in this battle. Their input especially in the form of formal complaints to the ABC seen right through the three gruelling steps to the independent over seers, could have made all the difference.
JAKE LYNCH - 
BBC Editorial Policy seeks balance across all its media platforms. A contentious documentary can be aired as long as the ‘opposing view’ is considered to get enough coverage from its radio, other TV broadcast and on line platforms.
n September 2010 the ABC aired an investigation conducted by Panorama of the BBC called Collision Course – Gaza. (Its European name was Death in the Med). This investigation was supposed to uncover the truth behind the Flotilla Aid ships bound for Gaza in May 2010 when Israel stunned the international community by boarding the ship in International waters and killing 9 activists armed with bits of Iron railings and make shift weapons from the ships structure. This 48 minute program was so outrageously one sided that it caused a demonstration outside of the London BBC studios when it first aired in England. Nevertheless the ABC did not seem to consider it ‘contentious’ according to Clause 6.3.3. The timing of the airing of this program killed any credibility that the ABC may have been courting about their cancellation of Hope in a Slingshot for ‘contentious’ reasons.
