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

When you have MPs like Zarah Sultana crying ‘from the river to the sea’ when making inflammatory speeches at demonstrations, this is a clear indication that antisemitism is allowed, tolerated and ever celebrated in the UK.

But most people protesting the war in Gaza don't 'side with Hamas'. In my case I side with the helpless women and children being harried from pillar to post, staved and bombed and shot and murdered in their thousands, as if their lives were nothing. Just as I sided with the poor women and children murdered, raped and abducted by Hamas in October 7. There is literally no justification for the level of utter wholesale destruction in Gaza, just as there was no excuse for the depravity of October 7, just as there is no excuse for the pitiless murders at Bondi Beach.

This is the problem; no latitude is given for the sincerely held political position that NONE of this is OK. The implication is that if you protest children being shot in the head as they queue at a water station in a war zone, you automatically support (or at least fail to condemn) October 7 or this latest atrocity.

I stand with the women and the children, wherever they are, whatever their race or religion. This world is being destroyed almost exclusively by the violent, territorial, egocentric ideologies of men. Ask almost any mother and all she wants is to be able to raise her children in peace and safety.

People only really seem to care about the ‘“many children killed in the Middle East” if they can blame Jews.

It's emerging now...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/bondi-beach-shooting-australia-live-updates-b2884632.html

I think of little Matilda, her beautiful face full of joy, and I think of little Hind Rajab trapped in a car surrounded by the dead bodies of relatives, screaming for help that never comes. I see no difference, no distinction. The only difference is that plenty of people think that if I condemn Hind's murderers, I am supporting Matilda's. I don't know of anyone who sees it the other way around.

How do you know this? Are they published?

I agree totally.

People who say this sort of things would have been standing in Nazi Germany saying "well the Jews deserve it for what they've done", and feeling morally superior.

It absolutely is. Incel behaviour is impacting on most women and girl. Flag shaggers terrorising immigrants is the norm.

Radical islam is a problem but I said that Islam is not a problem as it is not. You changing it from one thing to another is wrong. I never said radical islam is not a problem, I said Islam is not. You pretending all of Islam is a problem and all of Islam is radical is abhorrent. Why are you pretending that Islam is the same as radical islam? Care to explain?

Radical Christianity (flag shagging) is also a problem.

Look on prevent - all are included on there.

Denying it makes you look complicit.

This was a response to a particularly upsetting post, but I'm not going to go back and find it.

Absolutely my own stance, and I do wish that people would learn to differentiate between the two.

That article says:

Albanese has said there is “no evidence” that the pair are linked to Isis and acted as lone agents.

Of course that's correct and that is an absolute tragedy.

However, the current Israeli government have galvanised hatred against Jews with their actions in Gaza. People in the Jewish community even acknowledge this. Netanyahu has put Jews more at risk than ever. No doubt about it.

We don't have bollards at Christmas markets the length and breadth of the UK and Europe because of "incels and flag-shaggers".

All the books of the Abrahamic faiths state that disbelievers of that faith will be cast into hell/punished/are lowly. The above could be from any of them. It doesn't state they are sub human either. Only mentioning Christianity/Judaism + Islam as I'm familiar with those texts, could well apply to other religions too.

You can use Google. This MI5 update from October 2024 says:

"The headline split of our counter terrorist work remains roughly 75% Islamist extremist, 25% extreme right-wing terrorism. But under that headline, much has shifted. Straightforward labels like “Islamist terrorism” or “extreme right wing” don’t fully reflect the dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies we see.
We’re encountering more volatile would-be terrorists with only a tenuous grasp of the ideologies they profess to follow. People viewing both extreme right wing and Islamist extremist instructional material, along with other bits of online hatred, conspiracy theories and disinformation."

This is why, in the context of the rise of aggressive antisemitism both in the UK and as far away as Australia, it's important not to feed the Hamas propaganda machine's hatred of Israel. They have a clear agenda that they failed to achieve militarily but continue to pursue through social media influence.

https://www.mi5.gov.uk/director-general-ken-mccallum-gives-latest-threat-update#:~:text=Since%20March%202017%2C%20MI5%20and,beliefs%20and%20ideologies%20we%20see.

https://www.mi5.gov.uk/what-we-do/countering-terrorism

'Islamist terrorism is the most significant terrorist threat to the UK by volume.'

The son had previously been investigated for ties to an IS terrorist cell and IS flags were found in their house.

You are really revealing yourself.

Exactly, some people are in total denial at the size of the problem with Muslim extremists.

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 completely agree with the OP - especially on this. It’s so ironic that the left-wing ‘Free Palestine’ people, are the exact same people who bang on about the importance of lived experience, intersectionality etc in relation to any other group. And who wouldn’t dream of presuming to tell a Black person what to think about racism for example.

But when a Jewish person expresses discomfort with marches featuring hordes of Palestinian flags, or the ‘river to the sea’ slogans, we’re essentially told we’re just being silly or over the top. There’s precisely zero attempt to understand or empathise with the lived experience of Jews.

Yes, I'm sure the ISIS flags were just a coincidence.

You’d think if it was possible, more people would be able to do it.

Muslim extremists have been mass murdering western people (and even their own gay people, women, etc) long before the Palestine war.

However, the current Israeli government have galvanised hatred against Jews with their actions in Gaza. People in the Jewish community even acknowledge this. Netanyahu has put Jews more at risk than ever. No doubt about it.

No, people have been delighted to use the war in Gaza, started by Hamas, as an excuse for an absolute orgy of antisemitism. Every single military action undertaken by Israel is viewed in the worst possible faith, every lie and piece of flimsy propaganda by Hamas is believed.
It's blood libel for the 21st centry, and people wilfully ignore that there is a moral and legal difference between civilian casualties of war, and civilian victims of deliberate terrorism.

Agree.