A failed mediation means a high-profile discrimination complaint over social media posts about Israel will now be decided in court.

The second attempt at mediation in relation to the discrimination complaint that Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive Alon Cassuto  filed against renowned Australian journalist Mary Kostakidas in July 2024 has ended in nonagreement. And as the case will now go to trial in late 2026, Kostakidis asserts she won’t be shying away from this fight, as there is “far too much at stake”.

Cassuto filed his initial racial vilification complaint against Kostakidis with the Australian Human Rights Commission, in respect of two social media posts critical of Israel that the journalist had posted to X. The CEO claimed the posts were antisemitic, and there was particular focus on one repost featuring a clip of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah speaking.

But when the  AHRC mediation process broke down in late 2024, the Zionist Federation head then filed what’s been dubbed a “vexatious legal action” against Kostakidis, at the same time that further mounting complaints were being lodged against Australian cultural figures who were speaking out against the genocide that Israel is continuing to perpetrate in the Gaza Strip.

These  multiple acts of warfare lodged by Zionists against critics of the Israeli settler colonial project have provided the nation with a keen understanding of how a US-style McCarthyite witch hunt plays out.

Requested by the Zionist Federation, the second mediation process having ended in nonagreement had followed an earlier attempt by Kostakidis to have the entire case struck out in mid-2025. This was after Cassuto had taken the complaint to the  Federal Court on 31 March last year, which was the final day he had to file the suit following the failure of the AHRC process to bring about a settlement.

The request to strike the case out was........

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