By Jeremy Salt

Mary Kostakidis is respected for her commitment to truth and justice. She defends the Palestinians because that’s where truth and justice lie.

In a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) has complained to the country’s Human Rights Commission that leading journalist and political commentator Mary Kostakidis of antisemitism by reproducing on her Twitter/X account remarks by Hassan Nasrallah urging Jewish Israelis to leave Palestine. This is what he said:

“Here it is going to be very difficult for you. 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. Here you don’t have a future. From the river to the sea the land of Palestine is for the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people only.”

As Ms Kostakidis is perfectly capable of defending herself against this attempt to silence her, let’s for a moment focus on the ZFA and what Nasrallah said.

The ZFA is a support group for a regime committing genocide in Gaza. Livestreamed, it is the clearest case of genocide in history and by far the worst since the Nazi genocide of Jews. The regime committing these war crimes and crimes against humanity has been found guilty of committing “plausible” genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ but in the eyes of most of the world it is genocide straight out, not ‘plausible.’

Israel has treated this ruling with contempt and continues to slaughter scores of Palestinians every day. The more or less official number of dead is now close to 40,000 but the real figure from all causes is much greater: an estimate in the Lancet medical journal puts it at 186,000 but even this is likely to be far lower than the true figure. The destruction is now so widespread, with many bodies lost forever under the rubble, that counting the number of dead accurately is almost impossible.

The ZFA’s loyalty to a murderous regime puts it in the category of genocide enabler. Its morality is confined to Israeli settlers who were killed on October 7 (many by their own military) or taken as captives in Gaza. Of the appalling crimes committed in Gaza by Israel, ranging from deliberate starvation and the spread of disease to daily massacres of civilians and the mass destruction of homes, hospitals, schools and UN buildings, the ZFA has nothing to say.

The destruction of university libraries, archives and hundreds of mosques, including the 7^th century Great Omari mosque, are not isolated events specific to Gaza but a continuation of the decades-old campaign by the Zionists to wipe out Arab-Islamic history and culture across Palestine.

Terrorized into moving from one part of Gaza into another, the Palestinians are even being bombed in their tents. Between 15-20,000 children have been killed, with an estimated 21,000 missing. Thousands have been left without relatives because all of them have been killed. None of this is of any apparent concern to the ZFA.

But let’s look at what Nasrallah is reported to have said: “Here you don’t have a future, from the river to the sea in the land of Palestine is for the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people only.”

The Zionists came to Palestine not to share the land but to take it – all of it. Through ethnic cleansing, massacres, assassination, murder and the never-ending settlement of occupied land they reached their goal. Benyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli parliament have made it clear that there will be no Palestine state between the river and the sea – only one Jewish state.

Having destroyed Palestine, how risible is it that the Zionists are outraged by Nasrallah’s statement. Why wouldn’t he want these Jewish settler-colonists to go away? Why wouldn’t any Palestinian or any Arab want them to go away?

The Zionists did not come to the Middle East to blend in. They did not want to fit in. They wanted to be in the Middle East but not part of it. They came in arrogance, as the representatives of a superior ‘western’ civilization. Their state was going to be a fortress against the barbarism of the surrounding Arab-Islamic world.

In fact, as representatives of the dark side of ‘western’ civilization, they have succeeded brilliantly. They are doing what European governments and the US have done right up to the 21^st century, which is to invade, occupy, massacre, dispossess and drive indigenous people off their land.

They have never apologized for what they have done, have never sought to make amends, and have cast aside, ignored or exploited every opportunity to make peace. What they have done without fail since 1948, year after year and decade after decade, is kill and destroy. They are currently attacking Lebanon and Yemen as well as Gaza. There are very few countries in the Middle East and North Africa that have not attacked in the past eight decades. Why wouldn’t anyone want them to go away?

Against the background of their crimes, only one word describes the attempts of the ZFA to smear Mary Kostakidis – the Yiddish chutzpah, which translates into English as effrontery or brazen, insulting cheek.

The ZFA has money, political influence, and open access to a media too frightened to condemn Israel for fear of being called anti-semitic, too. Its problem, one it does not seem to recognise, is that the smear of anti-semitism is now widely seen by Australians for what it is, a worn-out weapon wielded to silence anyone who speaks truth to power against Israel.

Mary Kostakidis is respected for her commitment to truth and justice. She defends the Palestinians because that’s where truth and justice lie, not with Israel and its representatives abroad. Many Jews in Australia and around the world share her views. The ZFA does not represent them. It is a propaganda arm of a genocidal state implanted at the heart of the Middle East.

Gaza is as important a turning point as any in modern Middle Eastern history. There will be no forgiving or forgetting ever for what Israel has done in Gaza. It has the blood of tens of thousands of children on its hands. This will be remembered for the next 2000 years. There is no going back for Israel now.

However long it manages to survive through force of arms it has condemned itself to permanent isolation in the Middle East. Increasingly it is a place where Jews do not want to live, not just because it is the most dangerous place in the world for Jews but because Zionism is the antithesis of their moral values.

Israelis can read the writing on the wall as well as anyone. Many with dual passports are already leaving and others will go as this struggle continues towards an undoubtedly bitter end.

– Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press) and The Last Ottoman Wars. The Human Cost 1877-1923 (University of Utah Press, 2019). He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.