Kostakidis to Go Before Court, After Judiciary Recognises Anti-Zionism is Not Antisemitism  

Mary Kostakidis should hold her head up high right now, because of all the Australian journalists that are honestly calling out the holocaust that Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinians, the Israel lobby singled her out to attempt to silence via the Federal Court, because obviously she’s been making the most impact amongst this group, and in a time of genocide, to remain silent is complicit.

Kostakidis, however, probably feels the heat of the Israel lobby breathing down her neck. 

The Zionist Federation of Australia lodged its legal action with the court on 31 March, and it involves the same complaint the colonial organisation first raised with the Australian Human Rights Commission, and the case is set to go before the court in three weeks for a 29 July 2025 strikeout hearing.

Zionist Federation chief executive Alon Cassuto filed the complaint with the AHRC in July 2024. He claimed that multiple posts Kostakidis had made on social media platform X contained “extreme and hateful speech” towards Jews or were antisemitic, and the complaint in particular focuses on a repost the journalist made, while citing section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth).

Yet, the case is going before the Federal Court in July 2025 in a much different political climate then when it was initially lodged with the AHRC, which saw the conciliation process being terminated without resolution late last year.

The reason the temperature around Mary’s case has dropped is due to the fact that the heinous extermination process in Gaza is now much more entrenched, and the planet’s leading genocide scholars have recognised the crime of genocide is in progress.

Indeed, the case is now proceeding at a time when the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is losing hold of the national psyche, especially as it’s proceeding in the wake of the recent Federal Court victory of journalist Antoinette Lattouf, which recognised the Israel lobby had hunted her down, while Federal Court Justice Angus Stewart has ruled anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.

Calling out mass murder isn’t racist

The strikeout hearing regarding the complaint against Mary taking place later this month is a special type of hearing that proceeds the guts of a trial, and it considers whether the entire case should go ahead, in part or in whole, in terms of whether the legitimacy of the claim brought by the Zionist Federation is worthy of pursuit.

Yet, in the near future, the Zionist Federation of Australia might be before the Federal Court in regard to the legitimacy of officially naming itself after a settler colonial political doctrine that is behind the mass bloodshed that’s occurring in the Gaza Strip, which the International Court of Justice ruled in January last year is a plausible genocide, while an ever-increasing amount of experts agree.

As barrister Greg Barns SC, one of the senior counsel’s representing Kostakidis, recently pointed out, it’s not just journalists calling out the genocide, as there are a hell of a lot of local legal minds willing to call out the mass murder, along with the accompanying McCarthyite witch hunt of vocal critics in the public sphere, which relies upon the false anti-Zionism equals antisemitism equation.

In the recent Federal Court case against Islamic preacher Wissam Haddad, whose posts it was ruled were antisemitic, Justice Stewart found that “the ordinary, reasonable listener would understand that not all Jews are Zionists or support the actions of Israel in Gaza and that disparagement of Zionism constitutes disparagement of a philosophy or ideology and not a race or ethnic group”.

“Needless to say, political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature criticism of Jews in general or based on Jewish racial or ethnic identity,” his Honour threw in for good measure.

The court further found that antisemitic comments dehumanising Jewish people in Haddad’s online content had to be removed.

Yet, as many readers will already understand, one would have a hard time attempting to find Kostakidis making any antisemitic remarks whilst scrolling through her feed on X, because she hasn’t done so. Mary has only criticised the political and criminal acts of the Israeli state.

The clincher with the Kostakidis case is that the Zionist Federation has focused on a repost containing a video of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in which he makes statements against Israel, as his organisation was then currently engaged in conflict with Tel Aviv, and the journalist added a few words suggesting the genocide was resulting in regional pushback against Israel’s aggression.

Just rulings rising

As was the case with Lattouf, many of Kostakidis’ fellow journalists have risen to her side, as have well-known politicians and legal professionals. The McCarthyite nature of her case has garnered international attention, while locally the Stand with Mary campaign has been launched, which includes a website that shows the breadth of support the respected Australian journalist has.

Former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr is captured on the site, saying, “I’m alarmed once more by the bullying of the Israel lobby.  It is intent on closing down opposition to the genocide in Gaza. If they succeed in characterising Mary’s reporting as offensive, who will be next? I guess anyone who uses the G word or calls out apartheid laws or racist settlers.”

As esteemed former barrister Jeffrey Lowenstein pointed out recently, Carr well knows what it’s like to come under the Israel lobby’s radar, as he recalled that the then NSW premier was subject to the most extreme “bully-boy and intimidatory tactics and pressure” of his life in respect of calls to prevent the 2004 UNSW peace award going to Palestinian Hanan Ashrawi, yet “Carr did not buckle”.

Whilst as per usual, Pulitzer-prize winning US journalist Chris Hedges didn’t hold back as he declared, “Mary Kostakidis is being lynched by the Zionist Federation of Australia for apartheid Israel. Speak out on Palestinians’ behalf, denounce the genocide, call for a ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel, demand a Palestinian state and you’re branded an antisemite.”

“Antisemitism’s weaponisation is meant to justify genocide and silence dissent,” added Hedges, who is well acquainted with what’s happening to Mary, as the same witch hunt is playing out in his country and across the western world. “Those who play this mendacious game will regret it. It paves the road for far-right extremists and protofascists extinguishing what’s left of our open societies.”

The prominent figures endorsing the Australia journalist is long, and even renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe is there, pointing out that the “famous Australian journalist” is being taken to court over what he declares is “quite tame” reporting on Gaza, and the fact the complaint has not yet been dismissed reveals how deeply the “moral panic” is around the anti-Zionism/antisemitism equation.

But again, as the complaint against Kostakidis goes before the Federal Court the climate has changed, as it’s been ruled that Lattouf was illegitimately sacked due to the same pressure once applied to Carr, whilst Justice Stewart has officially established in common law “that disparagement of Zionism constitutes disparagement of a philosophy or ideology and not a race or ethnic group”.