For retweeting two tweets on X critical of Israel, famed Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis is facing charges of allegedly violating the country’s Racial Discrimination Act.

The complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission from Alon Cassuto, the CEO of the Zionist Federation of Australia, highlights just two Kostakidis retweets from January this year, both of which contain a video of a speech by Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah in which he allegedly called for the ethnic cleansing of Israel. 

One of the retweets is from independent British journalist Richie Medhurst, who was arrested at Heathrow airport and held for nearly 24 hours under the U.K. Terrorism Act this month.  Medhurst is one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s war on Gaza. The other tweet is from a user named Censored Men. 

The complaint was levelled under Section 18C(1) of the Racial Discrimination Act, which says:

“it is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

 (a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and

 (b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.”

Cassuto says Kostakidis should have made clear in her retweet of Nasrallah’s video that she did not agree or endorse it. He says Nasrallah was calling for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel. 

In the retweeted video, the Hezbollah leader says: “Here, you don’t have a future, and from the river to the sea, the land of Palestine is for the Palestinian people and for the Palestinian people only …” 

Above that Nasrallah quote in the Censored Men retweet, Kostakidis wrote: “Israeli govt getting some of its own medicine. Israel has started something it can’t finish with this genocide.” 

Cassuto told a press conference: “Those like Mary Kostakidis who have a status and a platform and a responsibility to lead, need to promote cohesion not division.”    

Zionist Federation President Jeremy Leibler added: “Mary Kostakidis has misused her platform to spread ‘conspiracy theories’ to deny the use of sexual violence by Hamas on the 7th of October.” 

However, Kostakidis cites in another retweet the conclusion of an exhaustive U.N. investigation that found no evidence of sexual violence by Hamas. 

If the matter is not resolved at the Human Rights Commission the Zionist Federation could file civil charges in court. Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, however,  ‘is drafting hate speech laws to include criminal rather than civil penalties,” The Australian newspaper reported in an article about the Kostakidis case. 

Kostakidis Responds

Kostakidis has denied the charges, tweeting that they amount to an “attempt to frame me as a rape and Holocaust denier.” She wrote on X:

“This because I have been sharing the reports of extremely highly regarded independent journalists who have written about the absence of credible evidence of the claims of ‘systemic, widespread rape’ by Hamas on Oct 7.

“To be clear, I have never said there was No Rape. It is something I could never say – it would be a nonsense for anyone to make such a definitive statement.”

An exemption under the Racial Discrimination Act says:

“18D Exemptions

Section 18C does not render unlawful anything said or done reasonably and in good faith: … (c) in making or publishing:

(i) a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest; or

(ii) a fair comment on any event or matter of public interest if the comment is an expression of a genuine belief held by the person making the comment.”

Regarding the retweet of Nasrallah’s video, Kostakidis told The Sydney Morning Herald: “What are you saying, that we shouldn’t hear what the other side has to say? The point of that tweet was to say that Israel is inviting an escalation, it’s inviting retribution because it is conducting a genocide.”

Kostakidis’ lawyers tweeted today: 

“XD Law are proud to defend Mary Kostakidis from the charges brought against her by the Zionist Federation of Australia under s18c of the Racial Discrimination Act … for sharing tweets about Gaza.

We filed her defence at the Human Rights Commission this week. Her instructions are clear – she will not be intimidated, she will not be gagged, she will not stop covering international events as she has her entire career. And that includes Israel, warts and all. 

‘The Australian Zionist Federation is weaponising Australian law in an attempt to curb criticism of Israel for its acts of genocide. I won’t be intimidated by them in the face of the slaughter of tens of thousands of children, hundreds of doctors, nurses, journalists and other civilians.’” — MK

The statement goes on to say: 

“Since the conflict in Gaza began Mary has been a force on Social Media giving live updates, sharing reports on the devastation there and accounts of ordinary people trying to survive it. And she is still at it.

Over the past 40 years Mary, the face of SBS news for 20 of them, has been a central figure in building a tolerant multicultural Australia. It is that reputation that her opponents are seeking to tear down because she has dared criticise Israel. 

‘Imagine a situation where we can criticise our own government’s policies and actions but not those of another state, depending on how powerful and cashed up their lobby groups are. They will continue to defame me in the press but please remember this is happening to journalists, academics and others all over the western world. We are on the right side of history and international law. I have no trouble standing up to bullies.’ — MK

Mary first heard that the complaint had been filed through an astonishing press conference conducted by the CEO of the Zionist Federation and a partner at the law firm bringing the action. Side by side they attacked her, her reputation and her life’s work without restraint.

Clearly her opponents have an eye to score public hits upon Mary irrespective of the commission proceedings. We have her covered in the courts.

There is no fundraiser yet but if you want to help defend Mary now do it in the public spaces where she is under attack. Defend free speech for all Australians. Defend social media. Defend Mary Kostakidis.”

Sawsan Madina, a former Head of SBS Television, wrote:

“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?”  

Does it look like Russia needs to grab more land?

Amongst the condemnations that were hurled at Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin even before their interview was aired, was this gem from an unnamed European foreign affairs spokesman to The Guardian: 

“A spokesperson for the European Commission said it anticipated that the interview would provide a platform for Putin’s ‘twisted desire to reinstate’ the Russian empire.

‘We can all assume what Putin might say. I mean he is a chronic liar,’ said the EU’s spokesperson for foreign affairs. …

‘[Putin] is trying to kill as many Ukrainians as he can for no reason. There is only one reason for his twisted desire to reinstate the now imperialistic Russian empire where he controls everything in his neighbourhood and imposes his will. But this is not something we are able to tolerate or are willing to tolerate in Europe or the world in the 21st century.’” [Emphasis added.]

The article warned that Carlson’s interview could actually be deemed “illegal” under last year’s European Digital Services Act.  The Guardian says:

“The law is aimed at stamping out illegal content or harmful content that incites violence or hate speech from social media. All the large platforms, bar X, have signed up to a code of conduct to help them accelerate and build their internal procedures in order to comply with the law. …

The onus is on platforms to ensure content is lawful, said a spokesperson for the digital tsar, Thierry Breton. … If a social media platform does not comply with the new EU law it can be sanctioned with a hefty fine, or banned from operating in the EU.”

The Russians Are Coming … Again

Military parade on Moscow’s Red Square, May 2017. (kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)

After the interview, the Western media predictably dismissed it for a variety of reasons, including that it promoted Russian “imperialism.”  The Economist wrote that Putin’s

“obsession — Russia’s historical claim to Ukraine — is backed by a nuclear arsenal. … He denied any interest in invading Poland or Latvia (though he previously said the same about Ukraine).”  

Western rhetoric about a resurgent “Russian imperialism” dates back to 2014, when Russia assisted Donbass in resisting the U.S.-backed unconstitutional change of government in Kiev. Western officials sought to characterize Russia’s action as an “invasion” that was part of a grand scheme by Putin to reconstitute the Soviet Empire and even threaten Western Europe. 

In March 2014, a month after the coup without making any reference to it to explain Russian actions, Hillary Clinton compared Putin to Adolf Hitler.  The Washington Post reported:

“‘Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the ’30s,’ Clinton said Tuesday, according to the Long Beach Press-Telegram. ‘All the Germans that were … the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they’re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people, and that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous.’” 

March 19, 2010: U.S. Secretary of State Clinton, Ambassador Beyrle and Under Secretary Burns with Russian Prime Minister Putin during a meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo just outside Moscow. (State Department, Public Domain)

Clinton later tried to talk down any comparison to Hitler beginning his conquest of Europe by saying Putin was not that irrational. But the notion that the Russian president is trying to reconstruct the Soviet Empire — and then threaten Western Europe — is often repeated in the West. 

forefront of keeping this idea afloat. 

Reconstituting the Soviet Empire would involve bringing the Central Asian Republics, Azerbaijan and Armenia, let alone the Baltics and the former Warsaw States, now part of NATO, under Moscow’s control. 

The Inevitable Fall of Putin’s New Russian Empire;” and Salon: “How Russian Colonialism Took the Western Anti-Imperialist Left for a Ride.”

The absurdity of the notion of a threat to the West by Russian “imperialism” is underscored every time many of these same Western leaders and media ridicule how disastrously Russia has performed on the Ukrainian battlefield and how, in the words of Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission president, Russia must resort to washing machine parts to keep its military going.

How can Russia be so weak and incompetent and yet be such an imminent and menacing threat at the same time? 

The late Russia specialist Stephen F. Cohen dismissed these fears as a dangerous demonization of Russia and Putin. Cohen repeatedly explained that Russia had neither the capacity nor the desire to start a war against NATO and was acting defensively against the alliance.

“How can Russia be so weak and incompetent and yet be such an imminent and menacing threat at the same time?” 

This is clear from the decades-long Russian objection to NATO expansion (which Putin raised with Carlson), coming in the 1990s when Wall Street and the U.S. dominated Russia, asset-stripping the formerly state-owned industries and impoverishing the Russian people, while enriching themselves.

It is clear from Russia backing the Minsk Accords, which would have left Donbass as an autonomous part of Ukraine, and not rejoined to Russia.

And it is clear from the treaty proposals to NATO and the United States offered by Russia in December 2021 intended to avert Russian military intervention. The West rebuffed Russia on all three diplomatic initiatives.

Dec. 7, 2021: U.S. President Joe Biden, on screen during video call with Putin. (Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

While realists in Washington and Europe increasingly admit Ukraine is losing the war, neocon fantasists, desperate to keep it going, have revived the theme of the Russian threat to the West to counter congressional reluctance to throw away more money and more lives.

Trumped-up fear of Russia has served U.S. ruling circles well for more than 70 years. The first three National Intelligence Estimates of the C.I.A., from 1947 t0 1949, reported no evidence of a Soviet threat, no infrastructure to support a sustained threat, and no evidence of a desire for confrontation with the United States.

“Trumped-up fear of Russia has served U.S. ruling circles well for more than 70 years.”

war scare was drummed up to save the U.S. aircraft industry, which had nearly collapsed with the end of the Second World War.

Then came the 1954 bomber gap and 1957 missile gap with the Soviet Union, now accepted as deliberate fictions.  In 1976 then C.IA. Director George H.W. Bush approved a Team B, whose purpose was again to inflate Soviet military strength. 

George Kennan, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow and America’s foremost expert on the Soviet Union tried to counter such exaggerations, including late in life when he opposed NATO expansion in the 1990s. 

Now we are being asked again to believe another fictional story of a Russian threat to the West in order to save U.S. and European face — and Joe Biden’s presidency. 

It is instead a projection to cover up its own authentic imperialism and the West’s perceived threat to Russia, a big part of what Putin was trying to get across in the Carlson interview. 

The Donbas status referendums in May 2014. (Andrew Butko, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)