A lively meeting at the Atlas Greek Cultural Centre in Marrickville drew around 250 people on August 2 to support former SBS presenter and journalist Mary Kostakidis, who is being sued by Alon Cassuto from the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA). Apart from several keynote speakers, there was poetry and music from Latin band Papalote.
Cassuto claims Kostakidis’ posts on X, last January, which contained excerpts from a speech by the now deceased Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, violated the Racial Discrimination Act. He alleges they were “reasonably likely under the circumstances to offend, demean, humiliate and/or intimidate Jews and/or Israelis in Australia,” Neos Kosmos reported on August 4.
Speakers from a range of backgrounds defended Kostakidis, repudiating ZFA’s attack on the democratic right of free specch, particularly in relation to criticizing Israel’s genocide on Gaza.
Jewish anti-Zionist Associate Professor Peter Slezak compared Kostakidis’ court case to the historic silencing of Socrates and Galileo in earlier times. “Today Gaza looks like Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb,” he said, adding that there is now a “Nazification of Israel”.
Jews Against the Occupation ‘48 activist Michelle Berkon condemned the Zionist lobby’s “relentless targeting of editors and journalists”. She said the “Zionist lobby resonates with the colonial oppression of Aboriginal peoples by white Australia”.
Antony Loewenstein, prominent Jewish anti-Zionist author and filmmaker, said “The Israel lobby … has powerful access to governments and the press. However, public opinion has fundamentally shifted on the question of Israel.
“A recent international poll showed that the majority of people world-wide, and in Australia, oppose the weapons trade with Israel.” He said the Zionist’s attacks on free speech “are leading to real anti-Semitism”, but that “overall, the community will not accept this attempt to suppress the Palestinian movement”.
Antoinette Lattouf, who was found to have been illegally sacked by the ABC for her pro-Palestine views, said attempts at suppression are the “price you pay for taking a stand”.
“Lawfare is designed to break your spirit,” she said.
Journalist Peter Cronau, from Declassified Australia, said: “The highest principles of journalism are at stake today. Mary’s prosecution is really a persecution. “The ABC and the mainstream media are scared of the Zionist lobby. Somebody had to be made a scapegoat, but we must defend Mary to the end.”
US-based journalist Chris Hedges, who sent a solidarity message via video, noted: “In the US and Australia, any kind of dissent is criminalised. But Mary’s fight is our fight and we must unite to stand with her.”
Kostakidis expressed her sadness at Israel’s murder of more than 200 journalists in Gaza. She said she is “confident we will win, no matter how long it takes. “We all need to stand up for the truth,” she concluded.
[For more information visit wwwstandwithmary.org.]