Kostakidis Reins Victorious, as Zionist Lawfare Attempt to Silence Criticism of Israel Fizzles

Renowned journalist Mary Kostakidis reins victorious, following an attempt by the local Israel lobby to sully her reputation in the courts, via a baseless complaint about a post the former SBS World News presenter made on social media that was somehow meant to construe that she was an antisemite, while Mary was actually on a roll of condemning Israel for its perpetration of genocide.

The Zionist Federation of Australia announced on 11 September 2026 that its CEO Alon Cassuto was dropping the case he’d lodged against Kostakidis in the Federal Court on 31 March 2025. The ZFA maintains that Cassuto sought to stop Mary’s posting and had failed to do so. But it also claims he’s satisfied by what he’d achieved and he’s now going to focus on the Antisemitism Royal Commission.

The court ruled last week, with each party’s consent, that the case be dismissed with no order on costs. This has brought to end to a complaint first lodged with the Australian Human Rights Commission by Cassuto in July 2024, which charged Kostakidis with having discriminated against Jewish people, in an act that involved conflating such prejudice with her criticism of Israel.

The lawfare waged against Kostakidis by the local Israel lobby is by no means the only attempt to silence the critics of Israel ever since Tel Aviv began the industrial-scale mass murder of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Lawfare is the strategic use of legal systems to intimidate critics into silence, and it’s been liberally waged by Zionists in a McCarthyite manner since late 2023.

“Rule 1: Don’t be intimidated”

“Over two years ago, in July 2024, in the midst of Israel’s genocidal assault on a captive people, a self-described ‘proud Zionist’ launched legal proceedings against me in the Australian Human Rights Commission – a requirement under Australian law before filing in the Federal Court under Racial Discrimination legislation when AHRC mediation fails,” Kostakidis set out in a post-case article.

The former SBS host explained that the ZFA held a presser about newly appointed CEO Cassuto making the complaint to the AHRC in 2024, which featured ZFA chair Jeremy Leibler, “a prominent surname over generations in Israel lobby leadership”, specifically setting out the purpose of the lawfare proceedings, when he stated that the case was intended to send “a very strong message”.

Kostakidis elaborates that the post that the ZFA focused on was her repost of another message on social media platform X that featured footage of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warning Israelis they weren’t safe, as his forces were then engaged in fighting against them. Mary added that she considers this post was raised, so it could be argued that she’d platformed a “listed terrorist”.

As Mary too sets out, the charge of discrimination against her relied on section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth), which “makes it an offence to offend someone, based on protected characteristics”. However, the race discrimination law “does not protect political ideology”. And Zionism is the belief system fuelling the Gaza genocide, Israeli expansionism and the federation.

“I had shared a clip of one of Nasrallah’s last speeches, on X, with a comment that he was giving the Israeli government some of its own medicine,” continued Kostakidis. “The post was clear and constituted a criticism of the conduct of the Israeli government. My transgression? I had dared equate the threat of a listed terrorist, with the genocidal conduct of the state of Israel.”

Zionism is the late 1880s European philosophy that Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl popularised. It advocates for the creation of a Jewish state in historic Palestine. Since the late 1960s, the Israel lobby has been conflating criticism of Israel in respect of its persecution of the Palestinians, as if this somehow equates to antisemitism, or prejudice against the religion of Judaism.

Yet, this equation doesn’t result in charges of Islamophobia when critiquing Muslim majority Indonesia over its occupation of the West Papuan people.

The flaccidity of Zionist lawfare

“What makes this type of case extraordinary, is that the courts are being used to attempt to gain legal protection for Zionism – an attempt that will ultimately fail categorically as more and more judgements are handed down, in particular if and when there is a full bench decision,” Kostakidis further set out in her 14 September 2026 piece.

“However, in the meantime, Australians must be prepared to lose the roof over their head defending themselves against accusations of antisemitism to protect their right to political speech,” she added.

And this is the point about lawfare, whilst Kostakidis has come out victorious, and the Zionist Federation weighed up its options to find it would not succeed with its litigation that had already involved multiple discovery hearings, Mary was dragged across the hot coals of public scrutiny for years, as she was charged with antisemitism, albeit on the basis of exceedingly slim evidence.

Cassuto claimed last week that he was “substantially satisfied” with the outcome of the case he lodged against Kostakidis, which suggests he sought to publicly slight her. However, the Israel lobbyist failed to tarnish Mary’s name, the post raised as evidence of antisemitism failed to portray this, the ZFA is being considered as having failed in its endeavour, and its ultimate intentions are in doubt.

A McCarthyite witch hunt that sees critics of Israel charged with prejudice has continued at apace ever since the ABC sacked journalist Antoinette Lattouf over her posting about Israel starving the Palestinians in December 2023. Writer Randa Abdel-Fattah, pianist Jayson Gillham, academics Nick Riemer and John Keane and cardiologist Peter MacDonald have all been targeted too.

All of these cases are broadly understood to be a part of a societywide attempt by Zionists to silence criticism of Israel, as it has been slaughtering innocent civilians en masse for three years, with its ultimate aim being the extermination of the Palestinians. However, whilst Zionists aren’t succeeding in silencing the public on Gaza, they do have the ability to keep waging these dubious battles.

Losing badly

Kostakidis’ legals XD Law asserted in a 12 September 2026 statement that the manner in which Cassuto ended the proceedings, with no apologies or deeds, but with the assertion that he was “substantially satisfied” was “the most deceptive” statement they’ve ever seen, because “the short correct version is Alon lost badly,” and “he achieved nothing of any legal consequence”.

XD Law adds that despite the Zionists litigation against Kostakidis, and indeed, all of the sackings and suspensions that have taken place in this country over the last three years, “Australians are still relatively free to speak their minds without being overly concerned about what Mr Cassuto thinks”, as “Mary stoically never ceded an inch to him”.

Following the breakdown of the AHRC conciliation process, Kostakidis did apologise for any hurt feelings that Zionists may have felt due to her social media posts, however she did not delete her messages, or did she concede that she was sorry for making them. Cassuto then had 60 days to file the matter to continue the challenge in the Federal Court, of which he did on the final day.

But the hardball lawfare approach the local Israel lobby has taken to critics of Israel’s apartheid and genocide regime is failing, as their targets have not been silenced, and rather, the process of tarnishing people’s reputations, via the conflation of political criticism as religious prejudice, has been widely exposed.

“The action was launched to bully me into genuflection – to silence political expression and to chill speech by creating a legal precedent and fear of being targeted with bankrupting lawfare,” Kostakidis said, in the wake of her victory.

“A humiliating withdrawal by them in my case is a blow to that ‘pride’ they keep referring to,” the Australian journalist concluded.

“Pride, the most heinous of the 7 Deadly Sins, the one from which all others, including wrath and greed, spring, and the basis of Dante’s unforgettable Inferno.”