There’s a long history of the Zionist lobby pressuring and bullying critics of Israel and they’re now upping tactics in a time of mass slaughter in Gaza, writes Kellie Tranter.
THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA is often called “the Fourth Estate” – supposedly the fourth power after the church, nobility and commoners – as its role is traditionally seen as a critical check on the actions of those wielding power in society.
Essential to its role is serving as a watchdog to hold to account the statements and actions (or inactions) of elected and other governmental officials and public figures.
The progressively increasing failure of the mainstream media to fulfil those obligations led to the recognition in the 1980s of the Fifth Estate, a loose expression for truly independent journalism.
The Fifth Estate has since exploded in size and importance in tandem with the expansion of the internet, social media and blogging sites, and independent journalism published in online news and opinion sites.
Major stories break on platforms like X and are documented live. Many of the very best analysts and experts are published on X, Substack and independent reporting sites. This is where independent journalists and news sites share their work to bring it to an ever-growing readership — important work that does not show up in a Google search unless you already know about it and how to access it.
We are at the frontier of this new freedom of information and the disquiet from both powerful interests and mainstream media is largely because their authority and credibility have been undermined by their own doings.
This has happened in Australia, particularly in the last ten years or so, as the failings of the mainstream media and its substantial capture by powerful interests have become apparent to much of the general population. In the case of what’s happening in Gaza, and Israel’s destruction of the territory and its people, they are oblivious to how distressed many Australians are at both the genocide and it being disregarded by both government and the media.
People also see principled journalists rebelling against the compromise of their ethical principles, whether fighting punishment by their employers for objective factual reporting or simply abandoning the strictures of working for media institutions with an agenda dictated by money and power instead of truth and accuracy.
Today, this Fifth Estate is our only saviour from a world of institutionalised informational propaganda.
True, there are some irresponsible “influencers” in the space and legitimate journalists operating there are continually having to watch their backs for threats of legal action and de-platforming. But the Fifth Estate has become and remains the best source of first-hand reporting of events and facts, usually by actual footage of a situation or event, but also of diverse intelligent and analytical commentary by academics and analysts who have escaped from or not been deterred by the official blanket of fear.
This is the broader background of the pro-Israel lobby Zionist Federation of Australia’s (ZFA) attack on journalist Mary Kostakidis with the allegation that two of her tweets on X were antisemitic.
In this case, it’s vital to understand what keywords mean. Zionism is a nationalist movement of Jews and non-Jews – in the U.S., often Christian fundamentalists – with the goal initially of creating, and now of maintaining, a Jewish national state in Palestine. Being pro-Israel usually means strongly supporting the existence of Israel and, in the case of the Zionist lobby, uncritical support of and obedience to the Israeli government of the day.
Zionist attack on Mary Kostakidis
The complainant, ZFO CEO Alon Cassuto, relies on two allegedly antisemitic tweets posted in early 2024 with links to a speech published by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, before he was murdered by the Israelis in Beirut on 27 September last year.
Cassuto alleges that by posting them she was endorsing what Nasrallah said – namely a call for the removal of Jews from Palestine – and was thereby guilty of antisemitism.
At the outset, I strongly suggest that you read the entirety of Kostakidis’ tweets since 7 October 2023. They are a body of systematic reporting of actual events, including speeches by political leaders on both sides, many of which tend to be underreported or completely overlooked by the mainstream media.
To my mind, those tweets that criticise Israel or support Palestinians are based not on politics or antisemitism but on genuine human concern for the victims of an orchestrated genocide.
At the ZFA press conference on 14 July 2024 announcing its legal attack, Jeremy Leibler, Cassuto’s lawyer and President of the ZFA, said the action is asking for an apology to the Australian Jewish community and for the offending tweets to be removed.
Said Leibler:
“But this is really about sending a message as well to hold Mary Kostakidis to account, someone with a very significant platform, [who] we believe is misusing her platform. We cannot bring conflicts from the other side of the world on the streets of Australia.”
Kostakidis has been forthright and consistent in statements in her own defence, emphasising that she was doing no more than reporting. More recently, she has publicly apologised for any hurt and distress her tweets may have caused to people who may have misinterpreted them, but she steadfastly refuses to resile from her reporting.
It was immediately obvious that the Zionist attack was primarily directed at punishing and silencing her, and by its chilling effect silencing other critics of Israel’s criminal actions.
On 17 July 2024, my first critique of the Zionist attack was published by Declassified Australia, including my guess at the longer term objectives of the attack.
Since then, the claim against her has attracted much justified criticism, both locally and internationally.
How the lobby operates
The power of a well-funded and often secretive political lobby group anywhere, including in Australia, is a matter of grave concern.
Even at the time of the foundation of Israel by the UN in 1948, President Truman expressed annoyance and frustration with the Zionist lobby’s interference in affairs of state.
According to Wikipedia:
‘Truman was, according to Roger Cohen, embittered by feelings of being a hostage to the lobby and its “unwarranted interference”…’
The lobby’s “pressure” persisted over the years and has partially transferred political power over U.S. foreign policy decisions affecting Israel to the lobby itself.
But whether they like it or not, Zionists do not have a monopoly on making claims of antisemitism and they misstate their representative authority when they seek a remedy on behalf of “the Australian Jewish community”.
In stating their position, the Zionists typically conflate their agenda with popular Jewish sentiment and sensibilities, but that is not actually the case.
On the contrary, large numbers of Jewish people in countries all over the world, including Australia, have led or joined protests against the genocide being perpetrated by the Israeli Government.
A U.S. Jewish online learning site concludes its article on Zionism with:
‘In the final analysis, it is nonetheless the reluctance of the majority of Jews worldwide to subscribe to its program in practice that has presented the strongest challenge to Zionism, and has proved the greatest obstacle to its ultimate triumph.’
This is consistent with public statements made by many Jewish groups and individuals even before 7 October 2023.
There’s a long history of Zionists’ deceptive attempts to conflate, for their claims of antisemitism, Zionists and the Israeli State with Jewish people as a whole. Any recent rise in antisemitism in Australia and beyond is substantially due to the Israeli genocide, propelled by the determination of pro-Israel lobby groups, purporting to represent the whole Jewish community when they do not, to maintain unreserved support for Israel irrespective of any level of atrocity it commits.
Our own government contributes by failing to recognise and explain that conflation to the Australian public, by its cowardice in failing to sanction Israel in ways that our obligations under international law demand and by its double standards in the respect shown towards Israeli and Palestinian communities.
Preventing abuse of legal procedures to silence free speech
It is time for our government to look at potential abuse of the anti-discrimination legislation to silence dissent by way of complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC).
Surely, there should be some sort of summary procedure to assess claims and determine whether or not the complainant has the authority to represent an entire group as claimed, whether there has been a genuine “harm” and whether or not the claim has “reasonable prospects of success” sufficient to warrant a tribunal or court proceeding on its lengthy and expensive path to a determination.
Use of a statutory procedure for the protection of individuals or a group by a political entity that does not truly represent an entire group as claimed, to pursue an ulterior motive, should be characterised as an abuse of process and sufficient to warrant a court or tribunal declining to exercise jurisdiction and summarily dismissing an application.
Without that protection the present law permits the wealthier, more powerful party to use the personal stress and vast expense of a contested claim to compel the other party to comply with its wishes, typically public admissions with promises of publicised self-effacement, expunging the record and future silence.
Mainstream media failures
All supporters of true democracy and real freedom of speech are behind Kostakidis and should make their views known. Many individuals in the Fifth Estate have done so but virtually none in the Fourth Estate, once more reflecting the latter’s timidity and failings.
The mainstream media in Australia, as well as the U.S. and UK, have failed to provide detailed balanced factual coverage of events in Palestine.
They have failed to look critically at the actions of Israel and Western governments as a whole and the individuals who comprise them. The Fifth Estate has.
The Fourth Estate not only failed to even acknowledge the crimes but also actively contributed to the threats posed to our critical right of freedom of speech.
The duty of the Fourth Estate is to provide comprehensive and accurate factual reporting and rational analysis of those facts.
Similarly, the Fourth Estate must protect journalists and their freedom to report.
The Australian mainstream media has failed abysmally to heed or answer the call to arms that the persecution of Mary Kostakidis represents, exactly as it did in the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Indeed, the silence of journalists of the Fourth Estate, combined with its affinity for the narratives of the rich and powerful, contributes to what seems to be a whole of government press-supported campaign to silence any voice critical of the official line.
And as for Mary Kostakidis? If you assume, contrary to all of the evidence, that the Zionists taint her as antisemitic then she is in good company: apparently the ICJ, the ICC, the UN Secretary-General, multiple UN rapporteurs, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, Israeli newspaper Haaretz and even the Pope are, too.
Kellie Tranter is a lawyer and a human rights activist. You can follow her on Twitter @KellieTranter.
This article originally appeared on Declassified Australia and has been republished with permission.
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