A court ruling in Australia, an election result in New York and a military setback for Israel, all coming last week, signalled a serious turn of events for Zionism and its supporters, writes Joe Lauria.

The impunity with which Zionism invades and bombs its neighbours and shuts up its critics in Western nations was thrown into question perhaps as never before on 24 June 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 defences, 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 US involvement because it was not going to plan. US intelligence says the civilian nuclear program was only set back a few months and the Iranian Government has never been made more secure.

As Israel 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 US 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

Then at 8:15 pm on Tuesday, US East Coast time (10:15 am Wednesday in Australia), a federal judge in Sydney found the courage to stand up to the organised thuggery of Zionist lobbies by ruling that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation 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 levelled in Netanyahu’s arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. 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 “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 apologised 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

Still on Tuesday, at about 11 pm in New York City, a Muslim politician, who has vowed to arrest Netanyahu based on the ICC warrant if he sets 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 antisemite, Zhoran Mamdani has refused to renounce his strong support for Palestinians. His 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. US 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 criticising Israel. Israel has their livestreamed genocide to thank for that.

A beginning, not an end

Any one 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 antisemitism are losing their effect. The image of an all-powerful Israeli military is tarnished.

June 24, 2025 may be seen as the day on 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.

Republished from Consortium News, 26, June 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.