Former SBS newsreader claims ‘shopping list’ of anti-Semitism claims is ‘unanswerable’
Former SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis hopes to cut to ribbons allegations of racial discrimination based on a social media post stating Israel was ‘getting some of its own medicine’.
Former SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis is seeking to dismantle a racial discrimination case brought against her by Jewish community leader Alon Cassuto, arguing it relies on “unanswerable” irrelevancies and a “shopping list of historical facts”.
Kostakidis has argued through her lawyers that the Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive is seeking to abuse court processes by lodging a Federal Court claim that would ask the appointed judge to litigate on matters outside of the court’s remit.
Mr Cassuto launched a Federal Court bid against Kostakidis in April, advancing a complaint against her for sharing a speech by now-deceased Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, after previously taking her to the Human Rights Commission.
In his statement of claim, Mr Cassuto references international factors contributing to a national climate of anti-Semitism, which would require the court to judge whether “Hezbollah is committed to the destruction of the State of Israel and the killing of Jews”, based on its manifesto and past attacks on Israel.
Four of the seven core sections of the application address these background factors. It also prosecutes how the Hamas October 7 attack contributed to the rise of anti-Semitism in Australia, citing a report on rising incidents of hatred by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
In a strikeout application filed on Friday, Kostakidis sought to cut Mr Cassuto’s case off at the knees by removing 22 of the 28 points constituting his statement of claim.
“A statement of claim lays out the essence of an accusation, and our reply is to agree with an assertion or dispute the assertion, it helps the court assess what is going to be in dispute … (but) this is a shopping list of historical facts that, mostly, Mary would not have a comment upon. Yet it’s been forced into a court proceeding to be ruled on,’ Kostakidis’ lawyer and XD Law managing partner Mark Davis told The Australian.
“It’s unanswerable, and I think it will be unacceptable to the court. The nature of our strikeout application does not deny them the ability to put on a claim, it just removes irrelevancies from their claim. If there’s to be any chance of concluding it within a reasonable timeframe, it would be in their interests, as well as ours, if they get to the point.
“We don’t need to waste a court’s time battling through historical fact and dubious constructs of what Australian Jews think without any basis of us to substantiate that.”
Calling Mr Cassuto’s contextual narrative a “straw man arguments” creating a “lack of specificity” in the claim, Mr Davis said Kostakidis could not lodge a defence until revisions were made to keep the claim from being “essentially unanswerable”.
The strikeout application also seeks to remove the final summation of their central legal argument and annexures of social media posts by Kostakidis which “spread and endorsed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories”.
Her application will be heard at an interlocutory hearing in late July.
In January, Mr Cassuto said he was “considering (his) options” when the pair failed to reach an agreement at the HRC. Kostakidis posted an apology without admission at the same time, saying she accepted “that some of (Nasrallah’s) comments may be seen as anti-Semitic but that is not a barrier to reporting them”.
Mr Cassuto — an Australian-Israeli dual citizen — argued Kostakidis “ought to have disavowed the contents of the video” if she had shared it for reporting purposes.
Her post from January 4, 2024, was paired with the caption “The Israeli govt getting some of its own medicine”.
The case will provide legal judgment on whether the phrase “from the river to the sea” implies Israel has no right to exist, and if criticism of the State of Israel is inherently anti-Semitic. Kostakidis argued she was being made a pariah to create a precedent “weaponising Australian law in an attempt to curb criticism of Israel”.
In the video, Nasrallah urged Israeli dual citizens to flee the Middle East, saying they have no “future … from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea”.
“Here, it’s going to be very difficult for you if you want to be secure, if you want to feel secure. (If) you have an American passport, go back to the United States. (If) you have a British passport, go back to the UK,” Nasrallah said.
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