The reactions to the Bondi Beach terrorist attack has shown how racist many posters are here.

[TheTamerShrew]

I’m posting because I’m struggling with how racism against Jews is being talked about here following the recent terrorist attack in Australia. What I’ve seen, again and again, is minimisation: it wasn’t really about Jews, it was more complicated than that, let’s not jump to conclusions, other groups have it worse. All the familiar caveats come out remarkably quickly when the victims are Jewish.

I want to say clearly: racism against Jews is racism. Full stop. It doesn’t become less serious because it’s uncomfortable, politically inconvenient, or doesn’t fit neatly into how some people understand racism. And it doesn’t need to compete with other forms of racism to be real or worthy of being named.

What I find particularly painful is how often antisemitism is explained away rather than confronted. We would rightly challenge this pattern if it happened after an attack on almost any other minority group. Yet when Jews are targeted, there seems to be an urge to dilute, reframe, or downplay what’s happened.
I’d really ask people to pause and self-reflect on why that might be.

Why does naming antisemitism feel harder?
Why is there a rush to qualify it, contextualise it out of existence, or deny it altogether?
Why is Jewish fear so often treated as oversensitivity rather than a rational response to a long and very real history?

Acknowledging racism is not an accusation against everyone else. It’s the first, necessary step in confronting it. If we can’t even name antisemitism when it’s staring us in the face, we have no chance of challenging it, let alone preventing it.

We don’t make the world safer by minimising hatred. We make it safer by recognising it honestly, even when that recognition makes us uncomfortable.

I hope this can be read in the spirit it’s intended: not to shut down discussion, but to ask people to explore and self reflect.

See the attached photo: in order to become Anti-racist, one needs to first acknowledge racism

A whole post of anti Jewish sentiment, total lack of knowledge of Jewish history, total lack of empathy for Jewish people, all nicely topped off with a declaration of ' I'm not an antisemite '.

Standard.

They’re all just not very nice individuals apparently, nothing in common with one another whatsoever. Nothing to see here.

I feel the same.

Hamas is the army in Gaza! They were fully armed and kept their ammunition and rockets in the miles and miles of tunnels underneath Gaza. Civilians stood no chance with Hamas protecting themselves and their own families in those same tunnels.
Hamas are still killing any Palestinians who disagree with their terrorism and the world is deaf, dumb and blind to it.

I wish people could understand how simply exhausting it all is. Not just constantly living in fear but the complete despair when seeing the reaction to something like this.

Every time something happens, people tie themselves in knots to insist it may not be targeted at Jews. Some news reports avoid mentioning what the event was, so it sounds like a random shooting, for as long as possible. Vile social media comments on articles about murdered ten year olds calling it a false flag or making jokes so awful that I can't even type them on here.

Then there's the really weird issue where, even when it's confirmed to be targeted towards Jews, people try very hard not to mention Jews. It happens everywhere. Holocaust memorial comments where Jews are not mentioned. Platitudes about how thoughts are with "all impacted" by what happened at Bondi beach without mentioning the Jewish community at all.

As someone who has always leaned to the left, most of my social media friends are posting things like this:

"This was a horrible event but let's remember that ALL violence is wrong, no matter who it is aimed towards."

"Violence is never the answer. Let's remember the innocents around the world who are suffering."

"What happened at Bondi Beach was wrong, just like what has been happening in Gaza is wrong."

I'm looking at people who post multiple times a day about Gaza who cannot post a single expression of sadness at Jews in Australia being attacked without having to 'but Gaza' or "but ALL" it.

A lot of these people participated heavily in the BLM movement, and were very critical of anyone posting "All lives matter" - often calling the phrase racist. I have no idea how it's any different.

How many people have to die before we're allowed one day? One hour? One post? One moment just to be sad about it happening without having to also climb over ourselves to clarify that other things in the world are bad too?

I don't have the words to express the overwhelming gratitude I felt upon seeing Ahmed al-Ahmed, the hero who tackled one of the gunmen, saving many lives. As soon as I saw his name, I told my husband with relief, because I have seen how a certain group of people use attacks against Jews to further their hatred towards Muslims.

However, there's also a lot of my very progressive friends whose only comment on the situation is that it was a Muslim who helped. No sympathy or horror expressed for what happened to the Jewish families. Just a single line, reminding everyone not to blame Muslims. It feels very dismissive, from people who are normally so politically involved, that it is the only thing they decide to say. I really think there should be space for both.

And showing blinding ignorance too.

So what was the history that you think explains the murderers' decision to target Australian Jews of all ages, from children to Holocaust survivors?

This is what I was saying I was afraid of in my earlier post. Really frightening. Don’t let it slide - as another pp said, contact the Campaign Against Antisemitism and kick up a stink.

So the Christchurch terrorist who massacred innocent people in a mosque was justified because of terrorism carried out by other Muslims?

The commenter here was saying even though they were anti Israel government they believe the Bondi Beach attack to be an awful act of antisemitic violence. How on earth have any of you conflated that with justification?

I have not heard a single person describe this event as anything other than antisemitic, just my personal experience. Would like to see links to anything (not from the extreme fringes) that denies the antisemitic nature of this attack.

Who do you think Hamas are? The Gaza branch of the WI?

And here, right here, is the ridiculous, deliberately patronising defence of the indefensible. Sickening.

What did an Australian ten-year-old and an Australian Holocaust survivor have to do with the dreadful situation in Gaza?

I’ve noticed the same thing.
”All lives matter” has been deemed unacceptable whataboutism by many, yet when Jews are attacked it’s “oh, male violence!” or “religions are the issue!”, and of course “yes, but Gaza!”.

War is ugly , millions of women and children are dying all over the world daily in wars that most people here have never heard of or been reported on by the media, politicians and those in power dictate what we are told.
some of these wars are occasionally mentioned but normally brushed aside with but Palestine.
some of these conflicts are actually genocide ( one involving Christians being systematically wiped out as we talk) .
im afraid it’s not a case that people don’t care but that this is not the only conflict .

It's horrendous for anyone brought up in a mixed community to understand. I have a family member who was part of the allied forces going into the camps to rescue survivors. Two of my fellow pupils at primary school had parents who'd come to the UK before WW2 so had a Jewish surname. My family member had studied religion and understood a lot about customs of different religions. My mother was very amused when a member of the Plymouth Brethren knocked on the door one Saturday afternoon to hear the polite response that in this house no one discussed politics or religion on the dooxrstep. When offered a Bible they're always surprised when I show my school Bible. We were taught about different religions at school and while it's important to respect other religions I am against misogyny against women. If we want world peace then it's important that we educate women and give them the opportunities to take part in world peace. So even though I was brought up in a religious environment it was a very positive influence in my life.

And you'd be right, inamarina, not least because the excuses are retrospective

The whole point is that the hatred comes first, with the focus being decided upon and then "justifications" sought out to support the enactment of that hatred ... "justifications" which are, sadly, all too readily supplied by those of a similar mindset

@EasternStandard you have perfectly illustrated my point. You seem to confer more value to those who were murdered on Bondi beach to those that were murdered in Gaza. Why do you think you do that? Surely all life is sacred. Murder is murder. Innocent victims are innocent victims.

Innocent people were murdered yesterday, simply for being Jewish. Instead of being outraged, people are rationalising it. It's despicable, and I don't remember seeing it in other terrorist attacks.

Nope, not justified, absolutely not.

But explicable right? In a kind of "Well, when Islamic terrorists continue to murder people globally, you can't really expect there to be no repercussions" way. Not justifying it. God no, just demonstrating how 'understandable' it is. Gotta have that context. That's definitely what all right thinking people said after Christchurch.

(should probably edit to point out that this post may contain sarcasm)

Their website is down however scrolling down I see china, Russia, Pakistan and Islamic state.

I certainly don't see all Muslims.

They are actually very careful not to state just 'islamic' on anything. They are also clear these are large scale terrorist attacks and not the many many attacks carried out by individuals against individuals.

To be clear I abhor racism to all communities and my heart goes out to anyone affected by violence.

And?
There are always people who would put popularity above all else