The conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is the test in the Zionist lobby case against Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis for her Gaza reporting and the outcome will be of great international significance, says Joe Lauria.

Consortium News YouTube

The above is an address by Consortium News Editor Joe Lauria, part of a program in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday about the case of a prominent journalist being brought to court by a Zionist lobbying group for alleged racial hatred against Jews because of her social media reporting on Gaza. 4 min., 12 sec. The transcript follows.

I‘m speaking from just outside Washington. I remotely watched the entire hearing last week in the case of the Zionist Federation of Australia vs Mary Kostakidis. You can read my  account on Consortium News**.** It was also  republished by Pearls and Irritations.

I want to make just a few points about this case.

First, I know Mary Kostakidis. Like anyone who knows her the idea that she is a bigot, or a racist or an antisemite is just totally absurd. The idea that she should wind up in a courtroom before a judge on a charge of violating the country’s Racial Discrimination Act is unfathomable. But then we must consider the upside-down period we’re living through.

It could not be more obvious what is going on here. Mary Kostakidis is opposing a genocide, what any decent person should be doing. But the government that is perpetrating that genocide has activated its “cells” around the world — these cells include powerful governments, intelligence agencies, law enforcement, influential mainstream media, online influencers and lobbyists, like the Zionist Federation of Australia — to punish anyone who is trying to stop Israel from committing its crimes.

That includes American university students getting clubbed over the head by riot cops; German anti-genocide protesters getting beaten in the streets of Berlin by police; the Palestine Action group being designated a terrorist organisation by the British home secretary; British journalists and activists being interrogated at the UK border and  threatened with prosecution under the Terrorism Act, the ABC  sacking Antoinette Lattouf and the Zionist Federation of Australia‘s action against Mary Kostakidis.

The central issue in her case will be whether criticising Israel is equal to antisemitic hatred. Mary’s barrister rightly focused last week on the 1 July case of Wertheim v. Haddad, in which Justice Angus Stewart ruled that:

“ … 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, and that it is not antisemitic to criticise Israel …”

It could not be clearer. But will the court in Mary’s case be swayed? That’s impossible to say at this point. The idea that the court is even taking the Zionist Federation of Australia seriously so far is troubling. If it does not throw the case out altogether, it will be alarming.

The conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is the test here and the outcome will be of enormous international significance. Thus the interest of US-based Consortium News. There is no comparable case in the US — not yet at least — of a journalist — and a very prominent one at that — being hauled into court and accused of racial hatred for taking a principled stand against genocide and the government carrying it out.

There is no doubt that there has been a huge shift in Western public opinion since 7 October 2023 about what Israel is doing. Many human rights organisations, even in Israel, Holocaust scholars, UN officials and some governments are calling it genocide.

Mounting public pressure on Western governments has made Israel’s accomplices belatedly react. They’ve dipped their toe in the water and are blaming Israel for the starvation in Gaza and some are vowing to recognise the existing Palestinian state.

It was a far different political environment back in July 2024 when the Zionist Federation of Australia brought its action against Mary Kostakidis.

Whether that growing public outcry will be heard in the federal halls of justice in Australia is the question.

The judiciary has the opportunity in Mary Kostakidis’ case to show up a craven and complicit Australian Government and take a stand against Israel and its minions that will reverberate across the West.

Republished from Consortium News, 3 August 2025

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