Stand With Kostakidis, as the Zionist Federation Attempts to Suppress the Truth

Right now, the Albanese government, in cahoots with the opposition and the mainstream media, are continuing to suppress information about the barbaric genocide the Israeli state is perpetrating upon the Palestinians of Gaza, which comprises of mass killings and a manufactured famine.

When the genocide commenced early last October, the media blackout was instant. And for those not privy to the local sway the Israel lobby has here, it was a shock to their reality, as all and sundry were banned from mentioning the human extermination program livestreamed on our phones.

Our elected officials then set about running a scare campaign around rising antisemitism, which conflates criticism of Israel’s mass atrocities with prejudice against Jews. And recent weeks have seen this disinformation intensified, especially with the appointment of an antisemitism envoy.

To state the obvious, Mary Kostakidis is one of Australia’s most respected journalists, and she has no problem with speaking truth to power.

So, over the last ten months, Kostakidis has written on X about truths regarding the Israeli-perpetrated genocide in Gaza, which have been left neglected by our media, and she’s also shared articles and footage that buck the lies we’re being feed by the mainstream.

Yet, Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive Alon Cassuto has now lodged a complaint against Kostakidis with the Australian Human Rights Commission, accusing her of having breached the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) (RDA), in speaking out against the worst atrocity since the Holocaust.

A public service against disinformation

“In an effort to silence me, the Zionist Federation have filed a complaint with the AHRC for racial vilification, aided by a reporter who can’t do his own research,” Kostakidis wrote on X last Sunday, following an article by journalist Chip Le Grand published in The Age that morning.

The former SBS presenter added that the organisation is attempting to frame her “as a rape and Holocaust denier” in order to silence her speaking out against the “apartheid state”, which has “herded a couple of million people into a ghetto/open air prison” and then “launched a genocide”.

Kostakidis has also shared articles that disprove disinformation initially propagated by Israeli and US officials and news outlets that suggested the Hamas 7 October incursions into Israel involved mass systemic rape and 40-odd beheaded babies, which are now well understood as falsehoods.

The Zionist Federation have cited 100 of Kostakidis’ posts in its complaint. But one in particular has been highlighted as it featured Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah stating that there was no place for Jews in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories, which are Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel has been bombing Hezbollah positions in Lebanon over recent months, threatening a broader regional war. And Kostakidis posted footage of a speech by Nasrallah, a key figure in the conflict, and she commented that his speech was an example of Israel “getting some of its own medicine”.

To put this in a bit more context, Israel has been carpet bombing and ground invading the Gaza Strip for the last ten months, in order to exterminate the Palestinians, who can’t escape because Israel has built a wall around the region, and it has also cut off food supplies, which has created a famine.

Short memory, must have a…

Zionist Federation of Australia head Cassuto wrote on X on Sunday that he would be lodging the complaint with the AHRC, outlining that Nasrallah’s statements were “not only deeply offensive and intimidating to our community but also cross the line into unlawful hate speech”.

Cassuto also suggested that Nasrallah had used the “from the river to the sea” phrase that has been so controversial since Israel, the occupying force, started its mass slaughter of the captive, walled-in Palestinian community of Gaza, as these words have been used in a chant calling for a free Palestine.

The hypocrisy around this charge is Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party have always officially employed this statement to assert Israel’s claim over Palestinian land. Indeed, the 1977 Likud Party Platform states “between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty”.

“Material seen by this masthead includes comments about the Zionist lobby exerting “toxic influence” over Australian media companies, and Britain’s House of Commons and Israel controlling the US military and Congress,” said Le Grand in his article about Kostakidis’ X feed.

But Chip might be surprised to find out that an increasing number of people are coming to the same conclusion regarding the Zionist Lobby and its toxic influence over the AUKUS powers’ institutions and media. And in fact, some of them might even consider his article to be proof of this assertion.

But to his credit, Le Grand did give voice to the other side of the argument being made, when he quoted Kostakidis’ response to his questions.

“What are you saying that we shouldn’t hear what the other side has to say?” Kostakidis asked Le Grand. “The point of that tweet was to say that Israel is inviting an escalation, it’s inviting retribution, because it is conducting a genocide.”

Idiot wind

Unfortunately, for the Zionist Federation of Australia not a lot of people are going to buy this campaign being run against Kostakidis, as she’s long been providing the public with information it can trust, and that’s especially so during this current climate of political and media disinformation.

Obviously, the reason that the Zionist Federation and Cassuto have come after Kostakidis at this point in time, when tens of thousands of Australians are posting similar such messages on X, is that Kostakidis’ voice carries authority, and much of the constituency consider her to be in the know.

As for the complaint, it’s been made under section 18C of the RDA, which maintains it is unlawful for a person to publicly act in a manner that’s “reasonably likely” to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a person or a group based on their “race, colour or national or ethnic origin”.

This is the notorious section of the RDA that the Abbott and Turnbull governments waged an unsuccessful war against over the years 2014 through to 2017, seeking to remove “offend” and “insult” from the section, in order to allow for at least some acts of racism in the public sphere.

During the commencement of the campaign to water-down the hate speech law in 2014, then attorney general George Brandis infamously said, “People do have a right to be bigots. In a free country, people do have rights to say things that other people find offensive or insulting or bigoted.”

A breach of section 18C is not a criminal offence, but rather a civil one. And the AHRC will attempt to resolve the matter through its conciliatory processes, but if this doesn’t settle the dispute, it could be referred to the Federal Court, in which case, if the Zionists were successful, Kostakidis could be fined.

And as the old poem goes: First they came for Kostakidis, and I did not speak out. Then they came for the others seeking justice and self-determination for the Palestinians, and I still did not speak out. Then they came for me, and Albanese had sold out the entire country by that stage.