Erin Molan, the Australian TV presenter recently dismissed by Sky News, chose not to claim that her outspoken support for Israel was the reason for her firing, but she did discuss the backlash she faced, including threats directed at her family, during an interview with Channel 12, which aired yesterday.
In the interview, filmed during her first visit to Israel, Molan explained that she had become a vocal advocate for Israel over the last 14 months, following the horrific Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which ignited the ongoing war in Gaza. She said that the attack had made her feel compelled to speak out, as she could clearly distinguish right from wrong.
"I can see good versus evil, and I don't think it's complicated at all," she said. "I think that every death, every causality, every single life that's been lost in the Middle East since October 7 lays squarely and solely on the hands of Hamas and the people who fund them."
Earlier in December, Molan was dismissed from her position as a political news commentator for Sky News Australia, though the network described the end of her tenure as "amicable." The exact reasons for her firing were not disclosed.
Molan did not delve into the specifics of her dismissal, but she made it clear that she was "just getting started" and would continue to advocate "for every single hostage still held captive in Gaza."
While hosting her program, Molan had frequently expressed her support for Israel, including delivering a scathing monologue against the United Nations after its International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. She criticized the UN for what she saw as its hypocrisy regarding the treatment of Israeli women.
When asked by Channel 12's Dana Weiss why she chose to begin discussing Israel on her Sky News program, Molan explained that the October 7 attack was the turning point.
"How could anyone see what occurred on that day to children, to adults, to women, and not collectively as a world wrap their arms around Israel?" she rhetorically asked. On that day, about 1,200 people were killed, many of them civilians, and 251 were taken hostage by Hamas-led terrorists who attacked Israeli border communities.
Molan emphasized her compassion for the people of Gaza, stating, "I care no less about children in Gaza. No less."
"But I understand that the cause of all their pain are the terrorists who started this," she continued. "It's not rocket science to understand where the terror comes from, where the evil comes from, where the death comes from. So how others can't see that blows my mind."
The personal consequences of her public stance became evident, as Molan revealed that her six-year-old daughter had been targeted with threats from angry viewers.
"There's one thing that I love and care about more than my job, more than doing what's right, more than being the kind of person that I want to be and that I was raised to be, and that's my little girl," she said. "To think that I was putting her in danger, the thought of that terrified me."
Despite these threats, Molan chose to continue discussing Israel, realizing that "the thought of not speaking, the thought of the kind of world that if we don't speak becomes normal scares me so much more."
While she acknowledged that her support for Israel came at a significant personal cost, Molan refrained from suggesting that it was the direct cause of her firing from Sky News.
"I won't go too much into the detail of that, but they are not antisemitic at Sky. I'd say that absolutely," she said.
When asked about the support for Israel in Australia, Molan expressed her belief that most people actually do support Israel, but that many remain silent on the issue.
"I genuinely believe that the vast majority of people in Australia stand with Israel, I genuinely believe that," she emphasized. "But they're the quiet ones. And that's my issue...when you cower in fear when it comes to particularly this issue, they win."
Molan also shared her personal connection to the suffering of women in Israel, particularly after seeing images from the October 7 attack.
"I've been in two very violent relationships in my life, and I've never spoken about them until very recently," she disclosed. "I have been dragged into my car by my hair, by my partner at the time. And when I looked at those images on October 7 and I saw women being dragged by their hair, that really hit home to me."
She continued, "So when I see places like the UN who don't [care] about anything that happened to any women in Israel on that day, let alone the women who are still captive, then I tell them to screw their day of whatever it is that they're calling it this week to try and make it look like they care," she added. "They don't care."