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 wonder how many of those who believe that 7th October terrorist attack was justified resistance or fake news or a false flag attack, also believe that the Bondi Beach attacks were justified resistance or fake news or false flag attacks.

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202512148264

My point is, you have to be insane to want to mass-murder Jews. Or anyone.

But the lion’s motives make perfect sense. It needs to eat or it will die. There is no part of murdering Jewish people (or anyone) that makes sense.

Or indoctrinated and radicalised.

See, to me, you have to have a wobbly mind in the first place to be susceptible to such ideas. I mean, do YOU think that anyone could persuade you into doing such things? I’m pretty sure no one could persuade me. I think you have to be a bit mad in the first place to be receptive to such utterly crackpot ideas.

Can't help smiling at the lion analogy.

The poster who made it would be standing in front of said lion thinking, What really motivates you I wonder? Is it the age old battle to be top predator or an instinct to protect the pride or maybe revenge for historical injustices? while the lion is thinking Dinner.

Again, I don't condone. Please explain where I condone as it is not my intention. I agree, Gaza has nothing - not much, anyway - to do with Australia. I have no idea why you think that.

@TheTamerShrew I can see what you are trying to do but the tone of your opening post comes across as very self important and lecturing. This site is used by thousands of people all who will have a different view and experience of racism. That’s why it’s such an emotionally loaded topic. Why do you think you have the need to ask people to reflect etc. ?

Sadly thats not true. You just need to be a despicable inadequate person, which is much more common.

The thousand or so Hamas terrorists plus ordinary Gazan civilians that participated in the 7th October attack weren't insane, they were simply indoctrinated by their belief system that the mass murder of Jews was the "right thing " to do.

Similarly the thousands of Germans who were actively involved in the actual genocide of Jews in the Holocaust plus the millions of other Germans who justified it weren't all insane. They were indoctrinated by Nazi ideology that this was the "right thing" to do.

We can see from this thread that there are many people today who are trying to explain away or justify the massacre in Bondi by asking "what about Gaza".

Not at all. Religion survives because it’s very good at teaching children. If you can normalise extreme views in childhood it’s an easy way to continue an ideology for thousands of years.

Those children do not have a wobbly mind, they just have adults with a strong agenda. It’s indoctrination and radicalisation. An adult too can be susceptible to the same.

As for what I could do, I’m a middle aged woman we barely commit atrocities, we can only hope people listen when we say this ideology makes us unsafe.

To add they rarely bloody do listen.

You would be surprised.

Look at the Milgram obedience experiments and the Stanford prison experiment.

My sad lion says can you please leave him out of this?

I just cannot get my head round anyone seriously thinking that killing Jewish people is the right thing to do, and the only way my mind can make any sense of it is to conclude that the perpetrators are all mad. Not saying I’m right, just saying what my instinct is.

Christ. I’m not sure I dare.

Really important post.

Antisemitism and Jewish history needs to be taught in schools in the same way that racism and Black history is taught. The recent attacks and attitudes on here need to be put into the context of 1000's of years of history. Maybe then we can start to look the situation right in the face and tackle it.

Seems like Western governments need to invest a lot more in de-radicalisation programmes.

I agree with this, I saw the video footage of that poor Jewish girl's broken body being spat on by the Palestinians watching as Hamas celebrated and drove past after having tortured, beaten, raped and murdered. It changed my opinion somewhat of the "poor marginalised group". They have no humanity; for any person to do that suggests that they are completely psychopathic. And of course it's women and girls who are the ones being murdered and raped. Hamas don't give a shit about them, even their "own" women never mind Jewish women. If the USA had had an attack on them like what happened on 7th October by a bunch of psychopathic Muslim men as those Hamas terrorists were, be sure the military response to that would have been far FAR worse and more genocidal than what the Israeli government have done.

I matched against the USA bombings of Afghanistan after 9/11 (and actually none of the bombers were from Afghanistan so they were bombing the wrong country and they knew it). The USA were not sanctioned and that was worse as they weren't even bombing the right place!!!

The Israeli government are responding to a heinous attack on their nation; they have gone too far but Hamas knew that they would do this, they knew it would kill all their people, mainly women and children and they did it anyway. So they are just as much to blame. The anti Jewish sentiment of our western media and all the idiots chanting from the river to the sea need to have a long hard look at themselves. This is never going to end well and as usual, it's innocent people who suffer.

I'm not over informed about racism but I was brought up not to generalise about people. My maternal grandmother told me to get to know the person and decide whether you like them or not once you get to know them. She told of, what would now be the Windrush generation, a woman from the Caribbean who started at their factory and how some people wouldn't talk to her or make rude comments. My gran said she was a wonderful woman with a great sense of humour and would do the works night in the pub with her.

It's the sme with Jews , I worked in an accounts firm , the owner and his sons were great, never thought they were better than us. In fact the only way you'd know they were Jewish was early finish on Friday. One of the seniors was Hindu and he'd bring treats into the office to celebrate their festivals.

I wish more places were like this.

It's time to stop blaming Jews for Netanyahu. He's a rule unto himself

I think you have to be a bit mad in the first place to be receptive to such utterly crackpot ideas.

Growing up around religious fundamentalism primes people for such radicalisation.

whymadam · Today 17:13

For people on this thread who cannot fathom what the tragic deaths of innocent Jewish people have to do with the ghastly situation in Palestine, go do some homework FGS! Note: this comment does not mean I justify anti-semitism, racism, violence etc, ok?

On this post you assert it's obvious that the murder of Jews in Australia is because of Gaza, and that it should be easy to understand why.

In no other terrorist attack have I known people to imply the victims had it coming because of a situation in a completely different continent and country.

Isn't it worth reflecting on the terrifying rise of antisemitism, in the wake of the latest event in Australia and many other violent acts here in the UK? (I'm not Jewish, by the way, in case that matters.)

I definitely did a term-long project on anti-semitism in WW2 - I remember having to critically analyse lots of hideous Nazi propaganda posters - but I do think a longer view of history of anti-semitism would be good, especially including the UK's own ignoble history as it's so easy for us to think this is something that happened 'over there' and we were the good guys who stopped the Nazis. England has been a terrible place for Jews if you take the long view of history.

Yes, the analogy doesn't stretch that far. Ditto fur, claws, etc!

Absolutely it is. But I dont need to be told to do that by someone posting on a forum. In fact, comments like the OPs can be extremely upsetting to people who have experienced racism or perhaps even have been directly or indirectly involved in such atrocities.