Erin Molan at the Ynetnews studio
Amid rising anti-Israel sentiment in the global media, one voice is cutting through the noise: Erin Molan, a former Australian sports journalist turned advocate for truth and justice. Molan, who is visiting Israel for the first time to participate in the "Ironlinks - Speaking Up for Humanity" event at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in Tel Aviv, has emerged as a staunch defender of the country, challenging global narratives with clarity and conviction, often at great personal cost.
Molan, best known in Australia as the first woman to host the Footy Show and a prominent figure in sports media, had little prior connection to Israel or its politics. "I had to ask someone what the kippah was called just two months ago," she admitted in an interview with Ynetnews.
"I have no association or affiliation, I have no bias, I have no agenda, I'm not Jewish, I'm not from Israel. Anything that you could possibly think of to come at me with won't work. I am an Australian who's never been here before. Now I have a lot of Jewish friends, but before October 7, I had one school mom friend, and I really didn't know anyone else in the Jewish community that well. What I do is speak the truth, and I stand up for what is right. It blows my mind that the rest of the world doesn't see it as clearly as I do, and it scares me as well."
Her advocacy began after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel which left over 1,200 people and saw 251 people taken hostage, sparking the ongoing war against the terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.
The horrors of that day resonated deeply with Molan, who saw parallels with her late father, Major General Jim Molan, a highly respected Australian military leader and former senator who passed away months before the Hamas onslaught.
She describes waking up in the middle of that fateful night with her young daughter beside her, the horrifying news of the Hamas attacks in Israel compelled her to do something she hadn’t done since losing her father earlier that year—she reached for the phone to call him.
"I don't really believe in spirituality or signs or anything like that, but Dad was this incredible ally of Israel," Molan shared. “He came to Israel many times, and after my editorials started going viral, my mom sent me this screenshot. Dad had come to Israel in 2014 to investigate the war [Operation Protective Edge] and the headline of his investigation with a bunch of foreign retired generals was 'They put us to shame in how they conduct warfare."
As one of Australia’s most experienced military leaders, having commanded forces in Iraq and East Timor, his unwavering moral compass left an indelible mark on his daughter. "Even when he was fighting ISIS or al-Qaeda, we would say to him as kids, 'Why do you have to follow the rules when they don't?' and Dad would say, 'if we don't follow the rules and stand up for what we believe in, what's the point? What are we fighting for? We're fighting to protect what we believe in, and if we stoop to their level, if we do what they do, if we throw away what matters to us, then there's no point. We might as well not even fight to save anything because we don't have anything.'"
With her father’s principles in mind, Molan examined the events of October 7 and Israel’s response, leaving no doubt in her mind. “There are enough experts in the world who also have no agenda who say that when it comes to minimizing civilian casualties, Israel does it almost better than anyone else in the world,” she said.
"I feel so sorry for a country that has had some of the most appalling things in the world done to it. The depravity, the evil, the horror of it, and I look at a reaction of a world that should be saying, 'What can we do to help you?' Instead, the world went, 'How can we make this your fault? How can we condemn you?' And that's crazy," she said.
Molan’s clear-eyed assessment and her willingness to speak out set her apart from other journalists in Australia and globally, but she also revealed a sobering reality about her industry. "I know for a fact that a lot of people in the media will send me messages who are on different networks and who host different shows and say, 'That was amazing what you said, I wish I could do that too.' I think a lot of people are scared about the reaction," she said.
Get the Ynetnews app on your smartphone: Google Play: https://bit.ly/4eJ37pE | Apple App Store: https://bit.ly/3ZL7iNv
"They're scared that they might get threats as well, they're scared that they might lose contracts or lose jobs, they're worried about polarizing themselves. I'm much more worried about a world that allows terrorism to flourish than I am about anything personal. You can have everything in the world, but if terrorism is allowed to continue at the trajectory it's going with the support of seemingly the masses in the world, particularly young people, we are completely screwed. Nothing else matters."
6 View gallery
Palestinian bulldozer smashes through the border fence with Israel during the October 7 attack
After her first editorial condemning the October 7 Hamas attacks, Molan said she was unprepared for the wave of backlash that followed. She had previously faced threats during her career as a sports broadcaster, but the response to her pro-Israel stance was on "another level."
"I was the first woman to host football and sport, so you can imagine some of the awful things that I would get online—people threatened to rape my unborn child, to kill me—utterly ridiculous," she shares.
"I could never have imagined it would be so bad that I would need a police escort to go to work. I needed to give my six-year-old daughter to her father for a period of time because there were so many random but really specific death threats. There were ones about my daughter's preschool, there were ones about 'I know you go to this area, I know you live here.' I went to the police and these weren't considered to just be idiots in their mom's basements sending messages. There were pretty serious players in this space."
Family and friends suggested she avoid the topic altogether for her own safety, but Molan stood firm. "That's not me. I'm not capable of that. I have this kind of perspective and mentality with anything—pick your hard," she explained.
"I look at this as choosing the hard of speaking out now with the chance that it might make a difference, it might help in some tiny way to shift the narrative, which in turn will help canvas support, which in turn will help heap pressure on Hamas, which in turn will help free the hostages, end the threat, etc. or I can be silent now, and my hard will be 5-10 years down the track when terrorism, the claws of it, which we've already seen, have come to my country, have come to Europe, have come. It's not an Israeli problem. It's a problem of Australia and Europe and the U.S. and all the democratic world. It's a problem for Islamic countries, it's a problem for everyone. Everyone in the world is impacted negatively by this, and right now we can say, 'Oh, it's far away.' It's not. It's already here."
6 View gallery
Torah scroll salvaged from of a Melbourne synagogue torched in an antisemitic attack
(Photo: Tania LEE / AFP)
When asked about the recent surge in antisemitic incidents in Australia, including the arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue and other instances of vandalism, Molan didn’t mince words. "It's crazy. It's very simple to explain in my opinion," she said. "You're always going to have people who have bad intentions. But when I look at the response of the Australian government, buying into such falsehoods and perpetuating them—Israel's committing genocide or Netanyahu's a war criminal—what it says to every person in Australia is that they must be evil."
Molan expressed deep disappointment in the Australian government’s response to the Middle East crisis, describing it as "utterly disgraceful." "There have been moments of real national shame that I have felt us turning our back on an ally, on a country that has been incredible to us for many, many years, and it really shames me," she said.
However, she believes the gap between the Australian public and its politicians is significant. "I genuinely believe the vast majority of Australians stand with Israel and stand against terror. The issue is that we have a very loud vocal minority, like anywhere else in the world. If we are silent, the people who are rational, who understand the conflict, who understand the difference between good and evil, then we allow way too much space for them to take up. One should not be swayed by the pro-Palestinian riots and protests. The silent majority knows the truth," she explains.
"I used to cover car racing, and I would do an eight- or ten-hour car race and all I would put in my one-minute news package at night would be the crashes because that's the big spectacle, that's the best thing to watch, not reality. Fifty cars did not crash, including the car that won, but I'll show you those because I want you watching because it's advertising, you've got to generate engagement. I look at that with the antisemitism in Australia as well, it gets headlines. Yes, it's been horrific in so many ways, but it does not by any stretch of the imagination represent the vast majority of people in my country."
Like many modern conflicts, the war in Gaza is being fought not only on the battlefield but also in the court of global public opinion—a front where Israel has struggled, facing widespread protests, international condemnations and even arms embargoes.
When asked what Israel could do differently to address global perceptions, Molan responded with a mix of frustration and clarity. "I look at what you went through on October 7," she says, "for a country to have to think, 'We need a PR strategy for this.' is absolutely batshit crazy. You suffered the worst loss of life since the Holocaust. It wasn't just killing people; it was evil, malicious torture. It was children watching their parents die and then burned alive. I can't comprehend the level of depravity that I witnessed in those videos and at those sites, and the world wants you to figure out a plan to come out looking like the good people?
"The vast majority see this for what it is, but when you've got algorithms, social media, when you've got very rich, influential countries that wish you harm, who support terrorism, putting millions and billions of dollars into this space, the issue is not your lack of good PR. You as a country and a people don't need PR. You were massacred by evil terrorists. You need the evil players to stop being able to do what they do, which is attempt to mindwash the masses."
Molan also shared a poignant moment from her advocacy journey. "A regular bloke, and he's Australian, he's not Jewish, wrote to me, 'My morals haven't changed and my values haven't changed, but after watching your clips, the side that I now know they align with has.' How powerful is that? It's just a shift where people go, 'I care about kids in Gaza.' The way to save them is to stop the terrorists, not condemning Israel or flying the flags of Hamas in the streets or at your university, or at our Christmas celebration. The way to save the kids that we all apparently care about is to eradicate the terrorists who are killing them."
Molan argues that the coverage of the war in Gaza in Australian media often misses the mark, leaving critical truths overshadowed by misleading narratives that many Australians, occupied by their everyday lives, lack the time or resources to dig deeper into.
"I was in the car the other day driving and the start of the ABC bulletin was something to the effect of, 'We are on day 400 and something of Israel's illegal invasion of Gaza,'" she said. "It wasn't an illegal invasion. The terrorists came in and murdered over 1,000 people and stole people, 100 of whom are still there. Israel's trying to get its people back and trying to stop the terrorists from doing the same thing over and over and over. But if you're just listening to that, and you're not as engaged, then that's your narrative.
"People quote the death toll as though it is fact rather than saying these are Hamas numbers. What they should say is 'we're not saying they're not right, but they're not renowned for being particularly accurate people.' I watch news shows that spout as fact things that are not true. I feel like the mainstream media has gone absolutely crazy.
Molan has faced speculation about whether her outspoken support for Israel played a role in her dismissal from Sky News Australia earlier this month. However, she says making that link "wouldn’t make sense" given other staunch pro-Israeli voices on the network.
Although the experience was initially "gut-wrenching," Molan is looking ahead and exploring new platforms and opportunities. "I feel this incredible sense of gratitude, hope and excitement. I feel like this is a blessing in disguise. I'm so excited about what's to come," she concludes.