Cassuto [Zionist Federation of Australia’s CEO] says he got what he wanted because Mary had already issued a qualified apology. He leaves out the timing. She made that apology before he went to the Federal Court. He called it insincere and sued anyway. Two years on, he points to the same apology as his reason for stopping. That is a man looking for the exit.
Call it what it was. This was lawfare. The court process was the weapon, and the target was wider than one journalist.
Every editor and journalist with something to say about Israel was meant to be watching.
From the outside, each move looks separate. A complaint here. A referral there. A story in a friendly newspaper, then a writ. Put them side by side, and you see a structure built to make criticism of Israel expensive enough that most people decide it is not worth the trouble.
The letters are polite. The threat underneath is not. Legal bills keep arriving, and behind them the possibility of losing everything. A case like this does not need to succeed to do its job. Once defending your own words puts your house at risk, the process is the punishment.
https://michaelwest.com.au/mary-kostakidis-stared-down-the-zionist-lobby-and-courage-won/
The Information Rights Project (Australian charity: https://www.informationrights.org/) had also organised a petition supporting Mary and 10,348 people signed. The petititon was twice to Canberra twice and the case put in front of over 16 members of parliament. They say:
Many of them did not know that an Australian journalist was being dragged through the Federal Court over her reporting.
This was never only about Mary. Australia has no bill of rights. The right to publish here is thinner than most people assume. Her case is a win for every Australian who values our democratic right to freedom of political expression.
Thanks, z_g, I forgot again. I’ll add the link above.