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

I don't think so, it is just his attempt at once again trying to deligitimise the establishment of a Palestinian state and using an horrific attack on Australian Jews to do it, he is gross. The Australian Prime Minister has completely rejected his claim

Thank you; I shall, for as long as I witness marches in our streets that are designed to intimidate the Jewish population of this country, and people responding to a terrorist attack on Jews in Australia with "but Gaza", and Primal Scream displaying a swastika at their gig in North London, etc etc.

They personally experienced Australian authorities turning a blind eye to people celebrating Jews being killed on Oct 7, whilst chanting 'gas the Jews', followed by weekly protests since then in the city streets with 'from the river to the sea' signs and chants.

While I agree the marches have an unfortunate element in them which makes me reluctant to take part (and I never have) I am as devastated by the deaths of women and children in Gaza as I am by these awful murders in Australia. And it is a government doing it there so there is some moral obligation to try and influence that government to stop (as there is no point trying to influence terrorists, they aren't rational or reasonable). So if not by marching, how do you recommend people who want to protest the way the Israeli government is prosecuting its war on Gaza so so? How would you protest the actions of a government if your peaceful marches kept being overtaken by aggressive actors with an agenda?

And something else you'll notice about the aggressive actors on those marches - almost all bloody men. Which brings me back to 'men are the problem here', as I so often find myself led to that conclusion these days.

Not forgetting Glastonbury, the BBC's non action in stopping the broadcasting of Bob Vylan's screaming 'death, death to the IDF': a more blatant call for the death of Jews, broadcast to millions, hasn't been seen before in my (long) lifetime.

That's just dumb. If I meet a lion I want to have a good understanding of its instincts and motivations if I want to stand any chance of surviving the encounter. In fact a good understanding of the ways of lions is a good way to avoid meeting one in the first place. Doesn't mean I have to empathise with it.

This isn’t a great analogy. People tend to minimise threats from lions.

Now that man is a cunt and a fucking cynical one at that. I'm pretty sure he had a good long chat with his record label first to decide whether doing so would be overall good or overall bad for his career.

I also read about this amazing woman, Jess, who shielded a three year old girl with her own body. The girl wasn’t related (or known) to her. Both survived.

www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/bondi-beach-shooting-australia-couple-lost-track-daughter-feared-she-was-dead/

What on earth were they thinking with the swastika? But yes it’s spreading as you say. Was that before Bondi? Just so bad.

Nobody’s empathising with the terrorists. People are trying to make sense of an atrocity, trying to imagine what could possibly have come over them. It’s natural and human to wonder why, after seeing a needless act of evil. That is very different from empathising with them.

Nah. It's very much women too. It was also women who were seen scratching the eyes off the Bibas children's faces on posters on October 9th 2023.

’what has possibly come over them’. Look at the chants, the training, the ideology.

But that’s just the lazy response. Jews have experienced these situations many, many times in history. For Gaza, for the blood libel stories, for owning the banks, for having big noses. Whatever the story, the result is the same. Gaza is happening today, something else happened yesterday. It’s really short sighted to say ‘Jews are experiencing violence because of what is happening in Israel today’. This feels all too familiar to most of us.

I agree wholeheartedly with your description of Vylan. Whatever his record company agreed to or not, he relished what he was doing while whipping up the crowd, who should be well ashamed of themselves.
What makes me equally angry is that Tim Davie was there at the time and didn't pull the plug on the broadcast. Therefore millions around the world saw it.

Read my post again please. I did not say that was human. It is certainly not humane. What is human is that I can empathise with the Jewish community but I am guessing that those of us who are not Jewish do not experience the same depth of feeling just as you probably do not share the same depth of feeling of a Muslim who witnesses what is going on in Gaza. Or perhaps you think you do. Do you?

Well I don't have a host of perfect analogies at my fingertips. If you want to prevent terrorism you need to understand terrorists. Stands to bloody reason. Doesn't mean you have to empathise with them.

Yes; a broad acceptance that Israel is the enemy and, by extension, that Jews are fair game is becoming deeply ingrained in our culture and even applauded as virtuous. Social media has been carefully manipulated, with ease, by malicious agents with a clear goal in mind.

I was born not long after WW2 and despair to see this surge in antisemitism in my lifetime. I think part of the problem is that people think they know, based on history, what a fascist looks like: it's an angry white man. There are other forms of fascism that pass completely unapprehended, partly because the word "Islam" is confusing - any mention of radical Islam/Islamism triggers anxiety about "blaming all Muslims", hence the importance of differentiating the religion from the extremist ideology.

Well they do if they're terrorists yes, on account of terrorists not being very nice people.

Going by the responses to this thread then a growing number of people in the West do believe this.

The hard reality is that the Bondi Beach massacre is what happens when the protest calls by the Western useful idiots to "globalise the intifada "
are acted on.

Oh dear...

When you say 'imagine what could have possibly have come over them' it sounds like you think this was some sudden acti. The son has been associated with ISIS groups since back in 2019. All signs are that he and his father spent a month at a ISIS training camp in t the Philippines during November 2025. Footage of the shooting shows clear and deliberate targeting of the Jewish gathering and waving out of the way other people (with only those that tried to intervene shot).
I don't know how it could be any clearer that this was driven by am ideology with a hatred of Jewish religion, combined with the mindset (from the son) “Whether it be raining, hailing or clear sky Allah will reward you for whatever actions you do in his cause … this will save you on the day of judgement.”

Well I’m glad you admit the hate marches have been co-opted.

Honestly no idea - I focus on local issues so it’s more obvious to me that what I’m doing has an impact. I attend community council meetings and volunteer at the food bank and created a school library. I try to create a better world for the people I live with and hope that they remember that a Jewish woman was the one to show up sometimes.

Outside of travelling and actually helping, I’m not sure what there is to create actual change. I don’t see an awful lot of protests about any number of other violence going on right now so I guess usually people agree with me - but when it’s Israel it’s a different story and people get less lazy. I’d assume it’s due to endless antisemitism but that seems too easy. Have yet to see an anti taliban March or anti Sudan march or anti North Korea march 🤷🏻‍♀️