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

What you don’t acknowledge is that trying to understand the thinking of terrorists is empathising with them.

Seriously? Better tell all those criminal psychologists they are in fact empathising with the criminals they are working with and not actually trying to understand their thoughts, motives, actions so they can understand criminal behaviour.

But the 'bearing' which you seem reluctant to articulate is:

'i don't agree with the country of Israel's actions so I will kill some Australian people because they share a religion which I hate'

And that, right there is the problem. It is anti-Semitism. It is irrational hate and it is inexcusable.

It was before Bondi.

I’m asking why you think the shooters behaved as they did given they have not personally witnessed anything in Gaza. That seems to be your take that children witnessing that today will understandably more likely be extreme.

So what was it for the two who committed Bondi shooting?

You have just defined irrational anti-Semitism.

So how are we to stand against it together?

Putting yourself in someone else's shoes to try to understand their thinking is what empathising is.

If someone's mind goes to "retaliation for Gaza" then they are thinking they understand the terrorists. When they could just label them for what they are which is murderous terrorists who hate Jews because of radicalisation not because of Gaza.

I hope all these cultural wagon hoppers stop the clear antisemitism now Bondi has shown what can happen.

If you want to prevent terrorism then it also helps to clamp down on open public support for terrorists.

Oh my God that's an incredible story. Thank you for sharing. What a beautiful soul <3

I do believe Muslims worldwide feel an affinity with other Muslims. There is a perceived grievance against the West and Isreal. Not all Muslims have this mindset, but it is fairly widespread.

The attack in Sydney is similar in nature to other attacks (9/11, 7/7, Manchester Arena, Orlando nightclub, Magdeburg Christmas market, Bataclan, Charlie Hebdo, Lee Rigby, Samuel Paty and many more).

I hope so too but the TikTok/Snapchat génération won't be reading up on antisemitism any time soon.

The bit you are choosing not to say out loud is that these attackers hate Jewish people for being Jewish, enough to murder them in cold blood.

Let's call a spade a spade.

How do you plan to support British Jews who have no locus, agency or responsibility and are justifiably frightened?

Jesus. That's horrendous. Why would anyone do that? Honestly those poor babies absolutely haunt me, I can't see their pictures without thinking of my own babies at that age and how terrified they must have been. And their poor mother. It's a fucking wicked world and no mistake :(

What, do you suggest the Bondi beach shooters might have had their family slaughtered in Gaza? The mental gymnastics are really something else.
Have you seen any Ukrainians randomly shooting Russians on other side of the world because their own families might have suffered?

It's their job to try to understand the criminals they are assessing.

It's not people on MNs job to explain the motivations of the shooters but they do so anyway in such a way that minimises antisemitism which was their primary motivation since they targeted Jews at a Jewish event.

Then look at what is radicalising them. Rhetoric, indoctrination, training, ideology. There probably is some of this in place.

But we DO understand these terrorists. They want to wipe Jews off the face of the earth. It's perfectly simple, and pre-dates the war in Gaza. Refusal to accept that is making people blind to what's going on right under our noses.

But that has no impact apparently. In all the ‘explanations’, all the ‘we’re only trying to undersand’s, not one as far as I can see strays from the explanation, the possible motivation being ‘Israel’. It’s never the activities on their own doorstep.

It seems to me that PP have expressed over and over how shocked and appalled they are, how anti-Semitic the attacks were, and how much they feel for the Jewish people in dealing with this.

People are trying to make sense of the senseless by casting around for “reasons.” But we all know that there can never be any reason for this. It’s down to pure evil. No one is saying that Gaza etc is responsible for the attacks or blaming Jewish people for it. People are wondering what motivated the terrorists. If it was the endless news cycle about Gaza, no one is saying that that is a good reason or makes any sense or is OK.

This is pretty much it in a nutshell!
gaza is just a blip in a long history of hatred towards Jewish people, whose only crime is apparently existing.
I have no idea why people would want to understand or explain this level of hatred towards another religion, surely it defies explanation or logic.

This, sadly. It is as simple as this.

Not sure why so many posters on this thread won't look this in the eye

I can help here.

They hate Jews.

Yes, they do. It’s in one of Isis’s insane “manifestos.”

Yep. There’s a kind of naivety in people thinking “there must be something more to it”

Have yet to see an anti taliban March or anti Sudan march or anti North Korea march 🤷🏻‍♀️

They may well exist, I certainly remember there being some marches around the Taliban / Afghanistan where I live, the huge and obvious difference being of course is that none of those countries are historical allies of Britain / the West. I think many Brits see Israel as "like us" - Western, wealthy etc.

You say yourself you want to see where you can make a difference and I think the same principle applies here. UK govt has v little influence in Sudan or NK - but could have with their ally Israel.

The biggest march I've ever been on was against the British government of course, the stop the war march.

I'm sure you are intelligent enough to realise this of course but for some reason you're overlooking it, probably your fear and anger overwhelming your objectivity which would be understandable I suppose.