The attempt to smear and silence Mary Kostakidis is both shocking and alarming
Jul 19, 2024
For those of us familiar with Mary Kostakidis’ untiring work for justice and human rights, the news that she has been accused of antisemitism beggars belief. And the attempt to silence her has alarming implications for all of us. That this is supposedly done to safeguard social cohesion in our multicultural Australia is difficult to believe. In fact, it will have the opposite of the claimed effect.
Mary Kostakidis is not only a fine journalist but she is also a principled one with the courage to speak up, when other journalists stay silent or meekly parrot the sanctioned version of events. Australia is fortunate indeed to have a journalist of her calibre and moral clarity. I wish we had many more journalists like her.
Accusing Mary of antisemitism brought to mind a brilliant talk on antisemitism delivered by the late Israeli historian Alon Confino, at the Italian Senate in Rome, in January 2023. Professor Confino served as the Director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies and a Professor of History and Judaic Studies at University of Massachusetts Amherst. In Learning the wrong lessons from the Holocaust, he says:
‘But this condition has been misused of late as a weapon of personal destruction against critics of Zionism and of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. This weaponisation of antisemitism is practiced against individuals, academics, journalists, professionals, and human rights organisations who dare to support equal national, political, legal, and civil rights for the Palestinians or to provide evidence-based reports about human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories.’
‘Accusations of anti-semitism in this regard are part of a clear strategy: to get us bogged down in discussions about whether or not certain words and idioms are antisemitic — or were articulated with antisemitic intent — in order to avoid the fundamental discussion about what actually happens on the ground; that is, how Israel violently denies Palestinian rights. The aim of weaponising antisemitism is distraction: to avoid speaking about how Palestinians live their life under occupation and instead to speak about Jewish victimhood.’
‘Accusing critics of Israel of being antisemites is such a distraction: it keeps serious people from doing their work to ensure equal rights to all the inhabitants who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and instead keeps these people having to explain over and over again that they are not antisemites. There will always be one more accusation of antisemitism when evidence will be provided of Israel’s denial of Palestinian equal rights. Who, we might want to think, is interested in weaponising antisemitism?’
‘Accepting the accusation of antisemitism directed at people who provide evidence of the violations of Palestinian rights — calling it by its proper name, apartheid, and demanding accountability — is built on the axiom that one of the Holocaust’s lessons is that Israeli Jews are always right. Regarding any human group as being beyond moral reproach and historical accountability is a form of worship wise people should avoid. Learning from the Holocaust that all human beings deserve a life of dignity and rights, except those whose rights are denied by Israeli Jews, is a moral travesty..’
The attempt to silence Mary Kostakidis has alarming implications for all of us. If a complaint can be lodged against a high profile journalist like Kostakidis, for publishing newsworthy information, what will this do to freedom of the press? How many journalists will self-censor? Will we be treated as children who are only allowed to read material deemed acceptable to the government or powerful vested interests? Will material freely available in the global media become off limits in Australia?
The complaint against Mary Kostakidis takes place in the context of the genocide in Gaza, a genocide for which human rights groups have no more superlatives, and against which many historians, scholars and journalists have written, across the globe, including in Israel. Offensive pronouncements are made by all sides and are reported, without the accusation of spreading hate rhetoric. I find the pronouncements made by the Israeli prime minister, a number of members of the Knesset, and some of the settlers’ leaders deeply offensive and downright genocidal. But I would never accuse those reporting them of spreading hate material and rhetoric. Such pronouncements, no matter how offensive, are newsworthy, and anyone who wishes to remain informed would want to read them. I do not want the government to curtail freedom of the press to spare my feelings.
As for social cohesion in our multicultural Australia, I fail to see how the complaint against Mary Kostakidis can help safeguard this. Australians with ties to the Middle East will see the complaint as an attempt to silence any voice that is raised in support of Palestinians. And those whose only tie to Palestinians is their common humanity will see it as an attempt to suppress their protests against a genocide. ‘Don’t bring an overseas conflict here’ we are told. But this is not a ‘conflict’ we can, or should, ignore. This is a nine-month mass slaughter that has continued unabated, with hitherto unthinkable impunity. And I think many Australians, like millions around the world, are more horrified by the unending images of starved, maimed, orphaned and murdered children than by a few supposedly offensive tweets.
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