A court ruling in Australia, an election result in New York and a military setback for Israel, all coming on Tuesday this week, signaled a serious turn of events for Zionism and its supporters, writes Joe Lauria.
Donald Trump cursing out Israel on Tuesday morning, June 24, 2025. (CBC screenshot from YouTube)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
The impunity with which Zionism invades and bombs its neighbors and shuts up its critics in Western nations was thrown into question perhaps as never before on Tuesday as Zionism suffered a legal, a political and a military defeat all in one day.
A Military Defeat in the Morning
On Tuesday morning Washington time, President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Iran had agreed to a cessation of hostilities after an 11-day war that saw Israel seriously deplete its air defenses, undermine its economy and suffer the worst damage from enemy fire in memory.
A war that Israel — and especially its prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu — had lusted after for three decades had finally been launched. Netanyahu at last found an American president willing to join him in unprovoked aggression against Iran to extend Israel’s regional dominance well beyond the Jordan River.
That would require the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and the overthrow of the Iranian government to be replaced by a puppet regime led by Israel and the United States.
Instead, Israel had to cut short the operation despite U.S. involvement because it was not going to plan. U.S. intelligence says the so-far merely civilian nuclear program was only set back a few months and the Iranian government has never been made more secure.
As it touts itself as the most invincible (and “moral”) army, the failure to achieve its goals in Iran and the physical damage it took from Iranian missile and drone attacks makes what just transpired a humiliating military defeat for Zionism.
And though U.S. presidents have privately groused about Israeli leaders before, never has Israel been cursed out before in public by a president, as Trump did on Tuesday morning.
A Legal Defeat in the Evening
Josh Bornstein, attorney for journalist Antoinette Lattouf, speaking outside federal court in Sydney, Australia after Latouff defeated the Israel Lobby and the ABC on June 24, 2025. (Cathy Vogan for CN)
Then at 8:15 pm Tuesday, U.S. East Coast time (10:15 am Wednesday in Australia), a federal judge in Sydney found the courage to stand up to the organized thuggery of Zionist lobbies by ruling that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) had succumbed to intense pressure from Israel lobbyists to sack a radio presenter because she shared an instagram post from Human Rights Watch which accurately reported that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war.
That is the exact charge formally leveled in Netanyahu’s arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Australian judge ruled that the presenter, Antoinette Lattouf, was wrongly dismissed and that the ABC must pay her restitution.
Judge Daryl Rangiah said the ABC had “appease[d] … pro-Israel lobbyists” because Lattouf “held political opinions opposing the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.” Rangiah said that “the complaints [to the ABC] were an orchestrated campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists to have Ms Lattouf taken off air.”
ABC managing director Hugh Marks apologized to the public on air, saying, “Any undue influence or pressure on ABC management or any of its employees must always be guarded against.”
It was a major setback for a powerful Israel Lobby in a Western nation. These lobbies have been untouchable until now no matter what underhanded tactics they employ to create cover for genocide and wars of aggression by smearing and silencing legitimate critics of Israel.
A Political Defeat in the Night
Zohran Mamdani Speaking at a DSA 101 Meeting at the Church of the Village in NYC, November 2024. (Bingjiefu He/Wikimedia Commons)
Still on Tuesday, at around 11 pm in New York City, a Muslim politician who has vowed to arrest Netanyahu based on the ICC warrant if he steps foot in the city while he is mayor, defeated a Democratic Party machine politician in the party’s primary election for mayor.
Despite being repeatedly smeared as an anti-semite, Zohran Mamdani has refused to renounce his strong support for Palestinians, including refusing to retract his labelling of Israel’s war on Gaza “genocide.”
Mamdani’s electoral victory has incensed Zionists everywhere, setting off gnashing of teeth. “NY Democrats have fully embraced Marxism, antisemitism, anti-capitalism, and sheer insanity,” said fanatical Zionist Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler called Mamdani “a radical, antisemitic socialist.”
The election result shows that a sizeable number of voters in the city with the largest population of Jews after Tel Aviv don’t care anymore about the taboos constructed and enforced against criticizing Israel. Israel has their live-streamed genocide to thank for that.
A Beginning, Not an End
Anyone of these events alone would signify a momentous turning of the tide against decades of built-up injustice committed by Israel and its lobby. The baseless smears of anti-semitism are losing their effect. The image of an all-powerful Israeli military is tarnished.
June 24, 2025 may be seen as the day in which fear of Israel was overcome on a scale not seen before. There is a long road ahead filled with enormous obstacles, but this day could usher in an era in which Israel and its enablers are at last held accountable for their many crimes.
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.
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A good positive note in the endless conflict.
The superpowers could provide Iran a defense treaty (Russia/China) or an embargo of Israel (US/NATO), to remove the incentive for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. But of course the corrupt US/NATO governments would loose their bribe sources with an embargo, and Russia/China could not commit ground forces in such a tribalist cauldron.
But external pressure could forge an alliance across the Sunni-Shia divide, to embargo Israel and defend Iran.
An alliance surrounding Israel can synchronize forces, backed with the nuclear weapons of Pakistan/KSA.
We may hope that Russia and China can pressure the Sunni-Shia states to form an alliance in their common interest.
Of course the Sunni-Shia divide is deep, so Russia and China must incentivize the Sunni-Shia alliance:
1. China can guarantee oil market stability essential to both KSA and Iran;
2. China can provide BRI reconstruction aid in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen to calm Sunni-Shia conflicts there;
3. Russia can provide diplomacy and air defense arms.
Israel’s western allies are promised that the alliance will be expanded to include Israel upon a two-state solution. But until then the alliance imposes oil price hikes or embargoes on them to restrain Israeli aggression.
Oil price hikes for the US will be better than embargoes for KSA, to avoid losing its US bonds and investments.
So happy the terrorist state of Israel is finally getting it’s just do. The genocide taking place in Gaza is the just the latest in a long history of crimes against humanity. Ignore the ignorant remarks coming out of the mouths of U.S. politicians. They are all bought and paid for by Israel and “Nut En Yahoo.” The newly elected Mayor of New York says he will have Nut En Yahoo arrested if nut en yahoo comes to New York. The world would be a much better place if that sociopathic, psychotic, madman, Nut En Yahoo was rotting away in some shit hole prison.
Great to see this Joe, keep up the pressure.
These cry babies can not stand it, least of all cry baby Hogsbreath.
Fearless leader’s rude, ignorant behavior seems to finally be wearing even his supporters thin.
Let us all try to remind them constantly he is Their guy!
These cowards deserve everything thrown their way.
Read it and weep, Suckers!
“Pop the Cork!” CHEERS!!! Things have changed. March 30, 2025, *“[ON THE EVE] of an appeal hearing for Australian whistleblower David McBride, JOE LAURIA unpacked “the growing repression in contrast to 50 years ago.” Concluding, “There has to be a victory. There has to finally be victories. There’s got to be a tipping point. Where we win and they lose.” JOE LAURIA.
Three Months, later, “Three Blows Against Zionism in a Single Day!”
[A BEGINNING NOT AN END] “June 24, 2025 may be seen as the day in which fear of Israel was overcome on a scale not seen before. There is a long road ahead filled with enormous obstacles, but this day could usher in an era in which Israel and its enablers are at last held accountable for their many crimes.” Joe Lauria. *WATCH Joe Lauria’s outstanding delivery @ “A Time of Growing Repression,” in Australia @ hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/30/watch-a-time-of-growing-repression/
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We shouldn’t forget that the author of Israel’s perfidies resides in Washington D.C.
We are.in the belly of the capitalist beast, and a bit of indigestion won’t stop them.
Excellent article Joe. The undue influence which the Zionists have over our government is appalling. It is shocking and disgusting how many ardent Zionists (whether holding Zionist views because of bribery or out of ideology, mostly bribery I think) are inside our government. Recent revelations about how John Ratcliffe, CIA Director, is directly allied with Mossad and is, in the words of one report, “Mossad’s stenographer”. Many, many other examples abound. If the US is to have any hope of becoming a legitimate democracy, this infestation of Zionism must be eradicated from our government.
I sincerely hope that Israel is finally held accountable for their many crimes against humanity committed over the last 70 years.
Let them get better brakes soon because they are going to need them. I am very pleased that whoever is starting to de weaponize ‘antisemitism’ is helping to clear the air. We need freedom to say things as they are.
Trump has completely obliterated his own credibility.
People who wouldn’t speak out for fear will start coming out in their masses now. It only takes one person to turn the tide and thank goodness. Hope that small wave becomes a tidal wave very quickly.
The tide is indeed turning. No time to relax. The colonialists who made sure the Israel project was established will not easily back down. They must be defeated to the point they are never allowed to re-establish their fascist movement ever again. Humanity is on the verge of creating a new paradigm. It is within our grasp as long as we remain vigilant.
Awesome
Wow, apparently, even in horrible times the sun sometimes shines.
There is a god after all.
“In the Torah, sin is something more than a transaction in the soul, or even an act of wrongdoing narrowly conceived. It is an act in the wrong place. It disturbs the moral order of the world. The words for sin – chet and avera – both have this significance. Chet comes from the same verb as “to miss a target.” Avera, like the English word “transgression,” means “to cross a boundary, to enter forbidden territory, to be in a place once should not be.”
Rabbi Sacks
By their sins ye shall know them.
“to cross a boundary, to enter forbidden territory, to be in a place one should not be.”
I’ve a feeling that today Rabbi Sacks is in a place he richly deserves.
Headline from an article in MondoWeiss: zionism’s slow implosion under the weight of its own excesses. (MondoWeiss article 26.6.25) / How much more arrogance and impunity must we put up with?
The smear of “anti-Semite” is slowly losing its effectiveness, especially with the younger generations, the 20 y.o. to 40 y.o. crowd.
If being against handing Israel $5 billion per year to massacre thousands of Palestinian infants and toddlers makes me an anti-Semite, so be it.
Same for me Drew. People are beginning to find the “anti-semite” smear a bit of a misnomer.
There was a period of time when I was commenting that if the Jewish State did not cease its slaughter of the innocent that antisemitism will become a badge of moral courage. I no longer hold that view. Now I see Zionism as the cause of the insensitivity to human suffering that the Jewish State has unleashed upon people of the Holy Lands & antithetical to the moral foundations of Jewish religion & customs like save one person & save the village let us hope that we are witnessing a turning away from hate that only could enable the cruelties & suffering we are seeing become business as usual & its illegalities!!!!!
The “smear” is a trick, just as Shulamit Aloni, voted the 57th greatest Israeli in 2005, said it was. That’s the reason I refer to it as Auntie Shem-itic.
Excellent article Joe.
Bravo
A day that will live in infamy… Yay!
Brace for the response. Zionists like neocons have no reverse gear.
Neocons = Zionists