Mary Kostakidis has tried to end the dispute with the Zionist Federation by issuing a statement on X but it has led to a new round of contentiousness, reports Joe Lauria.
Mary Kostakidis appearing on CN Live!, where she has been a frequent guest. (CN Live!)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Mary Kostakidis, one of Australia’s most recognizable journalists, who was accused of “antisemitism” by the Australian Zionist Federation, has sought to end the standoff with the organization by apologizing for distress her critical reporting of Israel may mistakenly have caused.
Federation CEO Alon Cassuto filed a complaint last July to the Australian Human Rights Commission about two Kostakidis retweets from January 2024, both of which contain video of a speech by the now assassinated Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah in which he allegedly called for the ethnic cleansing of Israel.
In Kostakidis’ retweeted video, the late Hezbollah leader says: “Here, you don’t have future, and from the river to the sea, the land of Palestine is for the Palestinian people and for the Palestinian people only … “
Above this Nasrallah quote in one of her retweets, Kostakidis wrote: “Israeli govt getting some of its own medicine. Israel has started something it can’t finish with this genocide.”
Cassuto claims this is “antisemitic” and wants Kostakidis, who was a long-time presenter on the SBS evening news, to apologize, remove the allegedly offensive materials from her X account; promise not to post similar tweets in future and pay his legal costs.
The two sides entered into mediation but reached an impasse last month. That led Kostakidis to post a statement on X on Thursday despite there being no agreement. She said:
“Six months ago a complaint was filed against me under 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act over posts I made on X sharing a speech of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. A number of highly defamatory and gratuitous comments were made about me by several parties around the time of that filing.
On 11 December I engaged in Mediation with the Complainant at the Australian Human Rights Commission. The matter has not resulted in an agreement.
Consequently I have decided to post the following statement with respect to my posts of Nasrallah’s speech, the offence taken, and accusations I am an antisemite, in the hope that it resolves any dispute.
‘I condemn anti-Semitism and racism of any kind.
I did not, and do not, endorse the content of the speech made by Hassan Nasrallah, which I shared on my X account on 4 and 13 January 2024. I accept that some of his comments may be seen as anti-Semitic but that is not a barrier to reporting them.
To the Jews and/or Israelis in Australia who took my posts as an endorsement, I am sorry for their hurt, distress and pain.’”
Alon Cassuto, CEO of the Australian Zionist Federation, at a press conference on July 14, 2024 in which he announced action against Mary Kostakidis. (Australian Zionist Federation/YouTube)
Cassuto responded on X the next day:
“In July 2024, I lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission against former journalist Mary Kostakidis after she shared a call by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah for Jews to be ethnically cleansed ‘from the river to the sea.’
This rhetoric, from a proscribed terrorist organisation, constitutes unlawful hate speech, deeply offending and intimidating our community. Yesterday, Ms Kostakidis apologised for the hurt she caused and acknowledged that the content of Nasrallah’s speech she reposted was antisemitic.
She did so, while continuing to regularly post deeply offensive content, including conspiracy theories about the firebombed Adass synagogue in Melbourne. As a result, I am considering my options.
Let’s be clear about what Ms Kostakidis’ statement does say: when Hassan Nasrallah declared, ‘Here you don’t have a future. From the river to the sea, Palestine is for the Palestinians only’, it was antisemitic hate speech. Echoing such calls in Australia constitutes unlawful hate speech.”
Kostakidis responded to Cassuto in an email statement to Consortium News and later elaborated on it in a tweet on Sunday. She went into an explanation of Nasrallah’s remarks and said both Cassuto’s response and an article in The Australian newspaper were mistaken. She wrote:
“An error both have made is deeming I apologised for my post, which is not the case – I apologised for any distress and hurt it caused. There is a very big difference and I’m surprised The Australian failed in their comprehension of the statement.
Apologising for the post would be an admission I should not have posted the speech, and as such that I would not re offend, so to speak. That is not the case. Journalism cannot be tailored around not causing offence. In this case, the complainant sought legal redress for hurt feelings, which the law permits.
Alon Cassuto asserts Nasrallah’s speech was unlawful, and ‘echoing’ his call is unlawful, thus implying my post was unlawful. I disagree with both assertions.
Another error in his understanding of my statement is that I accepted the excerpt of Nasrallah’s speech ‘was antisemitic’. I in fact stated some of his comments ‘may be seen as’ antisemitic. That is contested, and here is why:
In the clip of the speech I posted Nasrallah did not call for all Jews to leave. He clearly called for dual passport holders to leave. This is an important distinction and goes to the heart of the Middle East conflict.
He is objecting to the long term circumstances that have lead to the genocide – the push to drive Muslim Palestinians out through demographic engineering, with the mass expulsion of Palestinians born there (and rendered stateless), with no right of return, and dual citizenship for Jewish people born anywhere in the world (and, as we know, periodic massacres Israel refers to as ‘mowing the lawn’).
Furthermore, in Julian Assange’s half hour interview of Nasrallah some years ago, the Hezbollah leader articulates his vision for a just peace: one State, where Jews, Muslims and Christians ‘live in peace in a democratic state’ – live together with equal rights. Is that antisemitic? It is certainly anti- Israel. Is being anti-Israel unlawful?
Hassan Nasrallah during a discussion with Iranian officials in 2019. (Khamenei.ir, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
That goes to the heart of the push to redefine antisemitism to include criticism or rejection of the apartheid state which at present is conducting a genocide.
With regard to the offence at the phrase From the River to the Sea, Israel also uses that phrase, enshrined in law — sovereignty only for Jews from the River to the Sea, and it was the stated policy of the Likud Party since its inception.
Zionists take umbrage at any other party daring to make assertions they regard as their own exclusive God given right. This is not what was granted to Israel in 1948 and they have ignored every UN Resolution since with respect to their creeping land theft.
Since this complaint against me was lodged, there have been 2 Findings/Orders issued by the ICJ confirming the illegality of the occupation, and ICC arrest warrants issued. Israel and its supporters have deemed the ICJ, ICC, UN Secretary General, UN Rapporteur, Amnesty Int’l, HRW, B’Tselem, and The Pope among others are all antisemites, so I am in good company. …
We have all shared Israeli leaders’ far worse comments in regard to the Palestinians — threats they are actually carrying out.
Can you imagine how distressed Palestinian Australians are at the comments of Israeli leaders? No one gives that a thought. Palestinians all over the world have to worry about more than their own feelings. Their families may be under rubble, not counted in what is likely now a grossly inadequate death count.”
The ball is now in the Federation’s court. While Cassuto issued an apparently uncompromising response to Kostakidis’ bid to end the dispute, he did say, “I am considering my options.”
The conflict between them is extremely significant. In the current circumstances, can a journalist report on critical, even controversial statements about Israel’s behavior in the ongoing genocide it is committing without fear of breaking the law because it offends a group?
Can a journalist comment that the “Israeli govt [is] getting some of its own medicine. Israel has started something it can’t finish with this genocide,” without being dragged into court? Is free speech and press freedom being sacrificed in slavish devotion to a state that demands to be shielded while it commits humanity’s worst crimes?
Some of these questions may be answered by the outcome of the Kostakidis-Zionist Federation case.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
“In July 2024, I lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission against former journalist Mary Kostakidis after she shared a call by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah for Jews to be ethnically cleansed ‘from the river to the sea.’”
With this statement, Alon Cassuto implies that Mary Kostakidis is a former journalist, either because she has violated journalistic standards (she has not), or because he and his organization are doing all that they can to ensure that she never works as a journalist again. I doubt they will succeed in their aim.
The majority of Palestinians and minority of Jews have a predominantly semitic genome.
Anti Semitism is a crime.
Anti Zionism* is a moral duty.
(*= anti Genocide, anti Racism, anti Apartheid)
Thank You Joe
In overtly totalitarian systems critics of the regime, its leaders, or its practices are banished, imprisoned, or killed. In covertly totalitarian systems, (or allies of covertly totalitarian systems) critics of the regime are censored, banned, removed from their means of making livings, castigated and banished from the public realm, rendered effectively into untouchables and unpersons, while the violence and depredations of the covertly totalitarian systems continue and are justified or ignored. It works the same way everywhere.
Go to HELL, murderous Zionists. What you are inflicting on Palestinians…the exact SAME FATE should befall you…and the sooner, the better. YOU are the animals…
As an Australian this article is an excellent expose of the Zionist cover & reach in Australia – let alone the World.
As an octogenarian I never thought I would see the day when most of the so called first World countries & ALL
of Five Eyes would support Israel in Genocide ! Jan 2025 – Well over 100,00 Palestinians have been killed & injured and their Cities bombed to oblivion. Israel has thumbed its Nose at the World – it couldn’t give a Damn.
Mainly responsible is the War Mongering uSA who are supplying ALL the Munitions & Financial support. Fuck the uSA & Israel. I’m looking forward to when Iran is pushed to hard & responds – they are capable of wiping Israel of the Map!
“And everybody wants you to be just like them”….it all took place on Maggies farm as well. “The Centrists Cannot Hold” (Patrick Lawrence). I know two things it can’t hold together, the set consisting of east and west (the world) and the set comprised of only the west. Yeah, I’ve heard of the block universe, but it seems like the current ideology-setters won’t be happy until there’s a block western mind [Oz included]. No, the center has always needed to reach out, to the left and to the right.
Powers-that-be-people, you know very well when all the ATACMS and Storm Shadows are used up, the simplemindedness of the all-praise-the-center zeitgeist will be sorely tempted, given its logic, to resort to the last thing left on the shelf.
The western center at the moment is way too rigid, and will not let go of its far fetched stratagems aiming to keep the east fettered.
Melbourne, Australia is a hotbed of Zionists. Historically these Zionists hold a great deal of power over Australian politicians. In May, 1985 , a Mr. Isi Leibler, on behalf of the Zionist State Council invited myself as Mayor of South Melbourne, to join the Zionists in celebrating Israel’s 37th Independence Day on Tuesday 7th May 1985.
I refused this invitation on the grounds that Israel was an artificial State, founded on a racist principle – that Palestine was not the homeland of the Arab Palestinians who live there, but of all Jews – whether European American, Australian etc. (see Melbourne “Herald” article by Shane Green “Anti-Israel mayor hit” 12/6/85 (p.3).
Naturally, Mark Leibler, the Federation’s President found a stooge Zionist to send me a letter saying that I was anti-semitic and he therefore was going to stand against me at next Council elections. Did him like a dinner at these elections.
Lets call a spade a spade, Israeli Zionists are Fascists. They run a Fascist State. And I will never ever apologise to a Fascist. I received some very supportive letters from the Palestinian Red Crescent Organisation and General Union of Palestinian Workers Central Committee in Australia. Also, received supportive letters from Jewish people in the community.
Hope Mary stays strong.
+
Glory Anne Fahey! I wish you’d come across the pond to the USA! We need people with your clear vision, moral fiber, genuine teeth and true spine! Bravo!!! May the Force be with you!!!
Hear hear!
What this dispute identifies but does not explicitly declare is that the problem is not about Judaism versus Islam. It is semitic Palestinians being persecuted by European immigrants. The Palestinians can be Jewish or Islamic or Christian or Babi or Zoroastrian. It makes no difference. It is European colonization of Palestine which is the problem.
If you think there is a right of free speech in western European countries, you have been living in a different world to mine.
You don’t apologize to Zionists. You tell them to go fuck themselves, as you would a Nazi.
The problem is…the Western enablers lack the gonads to stand up to Zionists. It wasn’t OK to murder Jews and it ISN’T OK to murder Palestinians.
Pretty much, they are not amendable to reason. Wholly emotional is their only response.
Amen. Mary is terrific but it was incredibly poor judgment and totally unmerited for her to apologize to that a-hole bunch. And, yes, Zionism = Nazi-ism on steroids.
The first rules when dealing with the zionists and wokerati is: think before you publish, and then never, ever apologise.
“Zionists and wokerati” – what does that even mean? Are you trying to say that Zionists, the most racist people on earth, are some? What possible definition of woke do you have that would make that true? Calling Zionists woke is like calling MAGA types of Ukrainian Nazis woke – they’re all birds of a feather.
A very good rule of thumb.
The myth of a “Chosen people” and a “Promised land” is just that, a myth.
History is written from the viewpoint of winners of battles. The bible,
which did not exist in its current form until the 4th century, particular the
first five books of the Old Testament, was written by Jews for Jews. The
United States, too, should hang its head in shame over this matter.
Absolutely.
There must certainly be Jewish folk in Australia, who are intimidated and hurt by what would theoretically be their own federation, in its support for the immoral, inhuman, and frankly godless behaviour of the state of Israel.
One would think, right?