Mary Kostakidis, a national TV news presenter in Australia for two decades, has asked a federal judge to throw out the Zionist Federation’s charge against her of racially vilifying Jews, reports Joe Lauria.

Embattled Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis has filed her formal defense against the charge by the Zionist Federation of Australia that she is an anti-semite, telling a federal judge the allegation of racial vilification is really intended to smear legitimate criticism of Israel and stifle free speech.

In her 29-page filing, Kostakidis argues that her reporting on Israel’s actions in Gaza did not target Jewish people but the Israeli government. Her posts on X had nothing to do with the “race or national or ethnic origin of Jewish Australians and/or Israeli Australians,” she says.

The Zionist Federation of Australia “instituted the present proceeding vexatiously and without reasonable cause and in bad faith,” the defense argues.

At the heart of the case is whether criticising Zionism, the secular political movement behind the establishment and governance of the state of Israel, is the same as an anti-semitic, irrational hatred of Jews.

The term “Zionist” is not even defined in the Zionist Federation’s complaint against her, and “may bear a range of meanings,” Kostakidis says. “One definition of Zionism is the ‘aim to establish a Jewish state by taking over as much of historical Palestine as possible and leaving in it as few Palestinians as possible,” she says, quoting from Israeli historian Ilan Pappe and Jewish-American scholar Noam Chomsky in their book On Palestine.

“Zionism is a political philosophy or ideology and not a race or an ethnic group,” the defense says in its filing to Australian Federal Court in Melbourne on Nov. 29.

At issue in this case – and in the three-year battle by critics of Israel against the organised suppression of their views – is whether criticising a government’s conduct disparages an entire ethnic group.

Kostakidis cites a similar case to hers this year in which a Muslim cleric in Sydney was tried under the same law as in her case. The cleric was found to have made anti-semitic statements, however the judge in the case, Justice Angus Stewart,  ruled significantly 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. The conclusion that it is not antisemitic to criticise Israel is the corollary of the conclusion that to blame Jews for the actions of Israel is antisemitic; the one flows from the other.”

That question is very much in the spotlight in the Kostakidis case.

Israel and its proxies, like the Zionist Federation of Australia, insist that holding Israel to account is equivalent to some of the ugliest forms of antisemitism. The ZFA claims Kostakidis social media posts have “spread and endorsed antisemitic conspiracy theories, including that: Israel has control of, or significant influence over, the US Congress, the US Government, the US military, the US media, UK politics and the narrative in the Western World (including Australia)."

The ZFA complaint focuses on two Kostakidis retweets on X that were critical of Israel. Seeking to divine Kostakidis’ intent to harm Jews, the ZFA alleges,

“The Respondent made the 13 January Post because of the race or national or ethnic origin of Jewish Australians and/or Israeli Australians.”

The outcome of the Kostakidis case could have ramifications beyond Australia. It could either help liberate people to criticise a government conducting what human rights groups, scholars and UN bodies call genocide, or help justify and shroud Israel’s actions in Gaza by silencing a prominent critic.

International significance

Thus the case takes on international significance as a test for press freedom and the protection of speech to publicly criticise Israel. The outcome of the high-profile proceeding could help set a precedent on whether a journalist can be dragged into court in future for doing the job of holding the state of Israel to account.

Since the rise in 2023 of a worldwide protest movement against Israel’s ongoing atrocities in Gaza, Israel and its allied Western governments and police have engaged in a blatant crackdown on speech critical of the Israeli government.

The heavy-handed reaction to criticism of Israel’s response to the 7 October, 2023 attack can be seen as part of an alarming Western assault on press freedom and free speech that began with the 2012 arbitrary detention and later imprisonment of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange for his revelation of US state crimes and abuses.

This was followed by US government use of social media firms to curb political speech following the 2016 US presidential election and then emerged in police and legal action against Western voices condemning Israel’s mass murder of Palestinians.

These repressive moves have taken place in several Western countries. In Germany, police in Berlin shut down a Palestine Congress in April 2024 at which former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis was to speak and in February 2025 a meeting with UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese was forced to relocate in the German capital because of intense police and political pressure.

A Berlin court ruled the shutdown of the Palestine Congress was unlawful, rejecting the city government’s argument that “the police were right to act preemptively as they predicted criminal statements would be made at the conference, specifically incitement to hatred, dissemination of propaganda or use of symbols of unconstitutional and ‘terrorist’ organisations,” Al Jazeera  reported.

Under  Section 86a of the German Criminal Code it is illegal to display any signs or symbols in support of Hamas and uttering the phrase “from the river to the sea” has also been banned under the same law that bans the swastika.

In Britain, authorities using the Terrorism Act of 2000 have stopped British journalists Richard Medhurst, Craig Murray (also a former British diplomat) and Asa Winstanley at the airport to interrogate them about their reporting on Gaza, while holding the threat of prosecution under the Terrorism Act over their heads.

The group Palestine Action was designated a terrorist organisation in Britain for its non-violent protest against a Royal Air Force plane conducting surveillance missions to aid Israel’s war on Gaza. Under the Terrorism Act, anyone who states support for Palestine Action, including holding placards denouncing genocide, is subject to arrest. To date, about 2,000 people have been preposterously arrested in Britain for doing so.

The High Court of England and Wales is considering Palestine Action’s petition for a judicial review of its proscription. On the last day of the hearing last week, a three-judge panel, which at the last minute had been substituted for a judge seen as too sympathetic to Palestine Action, removed the group’s lawyers from the courtroom at the Royal Courts of Justice so that it could see secret evidence from the government.

The case against Palestine Action is a major test of whether a Western state will defy its own citizens’ right to free speech in order to shield a foreign government committing mass atrocities.

In a setback for British Zionists, a tribunal in October 2024  found that Professor David Miller was wrongfully dismissed by the University of Bristol for statements critical of Israel. “We have managed to establish that anti-Zionist views qualify as a protected belief under the UK Equality Act,” Miller said  in response to the ruling.

In the United States, university students have been arrested, expelled and deported for exercising their right to protest Israel’s actions in Gaza. Disciplinary action has been taken against faculty and events canceled. Presidents of leading universities have been publicly humiliated by a US congressional committee and several were forced to resign for not cracking down hard enough on campus free speech.

In Australia

Because of her fame in Australia, targeting Kostakidis in a lengthy and expensive legal case appears to be a key part of Israel’s strategy to make an example of her by muffling a prominent voice raised against its behaviour in Gaza. Silencing voices who dare speak out allows Israel to proceed in Gaza unimpeded.

On the other hand, a victory by Kostakidis could hinder Tel Aviv and its allies’ rampage against the freedom to criticise it.

Kostakidis’ case is part of a string of questionable incidents of anti-semitism in Australia since October 2023, some of which have been dismissed by the police as “fake terrorism” or exposed as setups by Zionist provocateurs.

A case similar to Kostakidis is in federal court in Sydney in which two University of Sydney academics have been accused by three other faculty members of racial hatred against Jews because of social media posts. They are being accused under the same law as in the Kostakidis case.

The defendants’ lawyer told the court in October that it was “quite audacious” to conflate the academics’  criticism of the state of Israel with hatred of Jews.

“This court heard … an extraordinary proposition that Zionism and Jews are so perfectly synonymous that Zionism should be construed as a race for [the] purpose of section 18C” of the Racial Discrimination Act 0f 1975, the lawyer said. “What the pleadings do is to assert that in calling for peace in Gaza, calling for ceasefire, Dr Riemer is calling for violence” against Jews.

The barrister for the university, which was also sued, told the court:

“Zionism is at its core a political concept. If you identify with Zionism you may be offended when you read these posts. But if it’s not to do with your race, your colour or your ethnic origins, then you are excluded as a candidate for establishing a breach [of the Racial Discrimination Act].”

The judge in the case refused to dismiss the case however,  ruling that the issues in dispute would have to be decided at trial. While the judge acknowledged that Zionism was a political concept, he said Jewish Australians might feel differently when they hear Zionism being criticised. This was said while Israel has been committing barbaric acts in Gaza for more than two years.

One setback for Australian Zionists came in the victory this year of journalist Antoinette Lattouf against her unlawful termination from a temporary job at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. A judge in a federal court in Sydney  ruled against the ABC for wrongly dismissing the radio presenter after she shared an instagram post from Human Rights Watch that accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.

The judge awarded Lattouf AU$150,000 in a case that undermined the organised campaign in Australia, like in many countries today, that is attacking legitimate critics of Israel’s conduct in Gaza as being anti-semitic. Senior ABC executives had testified at trial that they had been flooded with complaints – even though none of the contested content had been discussed on air – and that pressure had mounted to get rid of the presenter, which they did.

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers later revealed that the flood of complaints was the result of a coordinated campaign by pro-Israel lobby groups via WhatsApp. The campaign targeted the ABC’s chair and managing director to have Lattouf sacked. The Australian journalists union MEAA stood behind Lattouf, questioning the national broadcaster’s independence from outside influence.

Kostakidis argues in her defence filing that a WhatsApp group discussed going after her for her social media posts critical of Israel.

Her filing says that on “6 December 2023, after the Respondent [Kostakidis] made a post on X on the same date, a member of a private WhatsApp group formed by Jewish creatives (Creative WhatsApp Group), wrote in the group chat, ‘what can we do!?’, to which another member replied, ‘Perhaps this is suitable for lawyers group …’” In a later WhatsApp chat “on 14 January 2024, a member of the Creative WhatsApp Group wrote in the group chat, ‘Is there no legal avenue against her?’”

Refused to dismiss

In October, Judge Stephen McDonald denied a motion by Kostakidis to dismiss the case, lending credence to the bold charge by the Zionist Federation of Australia that one of the best-known and most respected journalists in Australia is guilty of racial hatred because she dared criticise Israel’s actions in Gaza. Numerous governments, United Nations bodies, human rights organisations and genocide scholars have all judged those actions to be genocide.

Kostakidis is nationally known from her nearly two decades as a television news presenter on the SBS Network. In her defence filing, Kostakidis challenged how the ZFA defines her in its complaint, reducing her to merely “a former newsreader for SBS World News” who “operates, and at all material times operated, a public account on the website X (formerly Twitter).” Kostakidis points out that she is “a journalist and commentator; … was part of the management team that developed SBS Television; … presented the flagship SBS World News for almost 20 years; and … is an advocate for press freedom and human rights.”

In its complaint the ZDF accused Kostakidis of making allegedly offensive remarks in two tweets in January 2024. The Federation alleges these remarks violate Section 18C of Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act, which _“_makes it unlawful for someone to do an act, publicly, that is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate, or intimidate another person or group of people, based on their race, colour, or national or ethnic origin.”

Section 18D however “provides exemptions that protect freedom of speech in certain circumstances, such as artistic works, scientific debate, and fair comment on matters of public interest.” Alon Cassuto, the Australian-Israeli citizen who is the ZFA chief executive,  filed an initial complaint in July 2024 to the Australian Human Rights Commission about the two Kostakidis retweets, both of which contain video of a speech by the now Israeli-assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan 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 anti-semitic and wants Kostakidis to apologise, remove the allegedly offensive materials from her X account; promise not to post similar tweets in future and pay his legal costs.

After both sides were unable to reach a mediated reconciliation, the ZFA filed a  case against Kostakidis in federal court on 8 May this year.

In arguing that the case against her is vexatious, Kostakidis’ filing points out it took seven months until July 2024 for the ZFA to lodge a formal complaint to the Human Rights Commission about her January 2024 retweets; that the ZFA did not contact her to complain or ask her to remove the posts before filing the complaint and that the ZFA held a press conference that it published on YouTube on 24 July, 2024 before filing the complaint.

The defence argues that in its statement that day, the ZFA itself published the very posts it claims were so offensive that it warranted a formal complaint against Kostakidis. The ZFA also knew Kostakidis “was a journalist and commentator on events and matters of public interest” and that she “was reporting and commenting on events and matters of public interest” in her social media posts, in which she only referred to the “Israeli govt” and “Israel.”

The ZFA complaint cites only the two Kostakidis retweets of January 2024, but it adds an annex of 59 additional tweets it argues bolsters its case that Kostakidis violated the Racial Discrimination Act and shows she allegedly has a tendency to be motivated by anti-semitism. Trying to establish Kostakidis’ intent to harm Jews appears to be a key part of ZFA’s strategy, as difficult as it is to prove intent.

In his refusal to dismiss the case in October, Judge McDonald essentially gave the Zionist Federation a do-over to better define the allegedly “offended group” of Jews in Australia. In his amended complaint, Cassuto changed “There are approximately 115,000 people in Australia who identify as Jewish” to 115,000 who “identify as being of the Jewish race or of Jewish ethnic origin (Jewish Australians).” He says there are “approximately 11,000 people in Australia of Israeli national origin (Israeli Australians).”

Cassuto says in the amended complaint that the “vast majority” of both Jewish Australians and Israeli Australians:

“1. consider themselves to be Zionist

2. feel a personal connection to the State of Israel and the Israeli people

3. have concern for the safety of Israelis.”

These are the groups that the ZFA claim were the victims of Kostakidis’ tweets. For these figures, the ZFA relied on a study commissioned by the president of Israel. The ZFA was involved in the study’s distribution.

The parties will appear before Judge McDonald on 18 December to set a trial date, which is most likely to begin towards the end of 2026.

Republished from Consortium News, 11 December 2025