The Australian government is using the Bondi Beach attack as a pretext to accelerate its repression of the Palestine movement. This response lays bare the state’s true interest: to protect and defend Australia’s complicity in the Gaza genocide.
By Jennine Khalik
December 18, 2025
MONDOWEISS
Protesters hold a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Melbourne, Australia, on December 10, 2023.
(Photo: © Diego Fedele/EFE via ZUMA Press/ APA Images)
When news broke of the Bondi Beach shooting, those of us in the global Palestine solidarity movement knew immediately what was coming. We’ve seen this pattern: when liberation movements challenge state power and when genocide is named and resisted, states seize on any incident, any tragedy, to justify criminalizing that resistance. Since October 2023, as Israel has carried out genocide in Gaza, Australia has built an apparatus to suppress Palestine solidarity: envoys, task forces, and “safety” initiatives that treat anti-genocide organizing as a threat.
We knew the Bondi shooting would be weaponized against us because Zionism – through Israeli state institutions, lobby groups, and complicit governments – has made Jewish safety inseparable from Israeli state interests. It is not because of any connection to Palestine, but because the victims were Jewish. Zionism has constructed a system where any harm to Jews, regardless of context or motive, becomes justification to criminalize Palestine solidarity and crush demands for liberation.
Within hours, despite minimal details and no established motive, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu blamed Australia’s recognition of Palestinian statehood, claiming it “pours fuel on the antisemitic fire.” After the shooting, he declared Australia had “let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.” Israeli officials claimed “the blood of the victims is on the hands of the Australian government” for not standing “unequivocally” with Israel. The New York Times published Bret Stephens’ op-ed: “Bondi Beach Is What ‘Globalize the Intifada’ Looks Like.” The Atlantic ran “The Intifada Comes to Bondi Beach.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke of those who seek to “extinguish light and promote darkness” – echoing Netanyahu’s framing of a “war between children of light and the children of darkness” to justify extermination in Gaza. By deploying the rhetoric of light versus darkness, it lays the foundations for a moral and legal framework where anything deemed threatening to the existing order – which, as we’ve established, includes Palestine solidarity – becomes a legitimate target for state repression.
Jillian Segal – Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism and an executive member of Australia’s peak Zionist lobby group, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry – drew an explicit line between a march across Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of Palestine to mass murder.
“We saw the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and now Bondi Beach, each a progression,” she said, linking the October 2023 Opera House protest and the August 2025 March for Humanity – where 300,000 people peacefully marched over Sydney Harbour Bridge – directly to the Bondi shooting.
Politicians and media amplified the connection without challenge. No evidence connected the attack to Palestinian movement work, but that didn’t matter. Suddenly, a shooting with no connection to Palestine had become proof that Palestine solidarity leads to mass murder, justifying repression that was already planned.
Within days, the government moved. Prime Minister Albanese adopted Segal’s entire proposed antisemitism plan – recommendations she had released in July 2025.
Her plan proposes defunding schools, universities, media outlets, and cultural institutions that “fail to act against antisemitism,” while monitoring the ABC and SBS, Australia’s public broadcasters, for “fair” reporting. The IHRA definition – which treats criticism of Israel’s policies, comparisons between Israel and apartheid South Africa, or claims that Israel is a racist endeavor as “antisemitic” – is now set to become the framework for cutting funding and terminating employment in Australia’s media.
Albanese announced sweeping new powers targeting “preachers and leaders who promote violence”, as well as organizations engaging in “hate speech promoting violence or racial hatred”. The Home Affairs Minister gained power to cancel visas for those who “spread hate and division,” allowing the government to deny entry to solidarity activists and deport organizers. Federal parliament may yet be recalled to rush through legislation. Under the guise of combating hate speech and violence, these are the tools to defund, deplatform and fire anyone organizing against genocide.
The government announced financial assistance payments for Bondi victims, mirroring the scheme established after October 7 for Australians impacted by Hamas attacks under the Australian Victim of Terrorism Overseas Payment – a scheme never extended to Australian-Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israeli forces.
The Education Minister announced a 12-month antisemitism education taskforce led by the former Chancellor of the University of New South Wales David Gonski, working with the Special Envoy, to reshape curriculums “from early education right through to universities” to address students making Jewish peers “feel unwelcome” – campus organizing for Palestine will be embedded as antisemitism in educational policy from childhood.
NSW Premier Chris Minns recalled parliament to pass laws allowing police to reject protest applications under a “terrorism designation”. He claimed mass demonstrations could “light a flame impossible to extinguish,” effectively designating Palestine protests – which have sustained nearly weekly demonstrations for over two years, making them among the most enduring solidarity movements in Australian history – as potential terrorism, giving police the power to ban them.
Minns also indicated that he is open to arming the Community Security Group – a private organization with documented ties to Israeli intelligence – to operate at public events, with Victoria already allocating $900,000 to the group in the wake of the Bondi attack. (An Australian Defence Force officer recently lost his security clearance for “divided loyalty” after CSG training in Israel). Essentially, a foreign-aligned militia could be deputized to police Australian streets and surveil organizers.
At the memorial for Bondi victims, an Israeli flag flies alongside Australian flags. The conflation is complete: Jewish safety becomes inseparable from Israeli state interests, and therefore solidarity with Palestinians becomes a threat, and criminalizing that solidarity becomes justified as protection. When a Jewish woman wearing a keffiyeh attempted to attend the vigil – wearing it, she said, because of the Israeli flag on display – police escorted her out. She knew people who died. This was her community. But “Jewish safety”, it turns out, means safety only for those who align with Israel, not Jews who stand with Palestine.
Meanwhile, Australia continues manufacturing and shipping weapons components to enable mass death in Gaza – a reality the government continues to deny. A shooting at an iconic national beach becomes terrorism and justifies sweeping powers. But Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza – mass killing of civilians, deliberate starvation, and erasure of entire families – is deemed self-defense. Palestinian liberation is an existential threat, while Israel’s genocidal violence is a supported policy.
The response to Bondi lays bare what the state has been building since October 2023: infrastructure to protect Australia’s stake in Israeli genocide from challenge. This serves Zionist lobby groups like the Executive Council of Australian Jewry that weaponize Jewish safety to justify Israel’s exterminationist policies. It serves a settler-colonial state defending another settler-colonial project. What’s being defended here is Australia’s complicity.
Ultimately, the response to this shooting accelerates what was already brewing: heightened powers, intensified surveillance, and violence against organizing, now legitimized. State repression doesn’t require a connection between incident and response. It requires opportunity.
When news broke of the Bondi Beach shooting, those of us in the global Palestine solidarity movement knew immediately what was coming. We’ve seen this pattern: when liberation movements challenge state power and when genocide is named and resisted, states seize on any incident, any tragedy, to justify criminalizing that resistance. Since October 2023, as Israel has carried out genocide in Gaza, Australia has built an apparatus to suppress Palestine solidarity: envoys, task forces, and “safety” initiatives that treat anti-genocide organizing as a threat.
We knew the Bondi shooting would be weaponized against us because Zionism – through Israeli state institutions, lobby groups, and complicit governments – has made Jewish safety inseparable from Israeli state interests. It is not because of any connection to Palestine, but because the victims were Jewish. Zionism has constructed a system where any harm to Jews, regardless of context or motive, becomes justification to criminalize Palestine solidarity and crush demands for liberation.
Within hours, despite minimal details and no established motive, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu blamed Australia’s recognition of Palestinian statehood, claiming it “pours fuel on the antisemitic fire.” After the shooting, he declared Australia had “let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.” Israeli officials claimed “the blood of the victims is on the hands of the Australian government” for not standing “unequivocally” with Israel. The New York Times published Bret Stephens’ op-ed: “Bondi Beach Is What ‘Globalize the Intifada’ Looks Like.” The Atlantic ran “The Intifada Comes to Bondi Beach.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke of those who seek to “extinguish light and promote darkness” – echoing Netanyahu’s framing of a “war between children of light and the children of darkness” to justify extermination in Gaza. By deploying the rhetoric of light versus darkness, it lays the foundations for a moral and legal framework where anything deemed threatening to the existing order – which, as we’ve established, includes Palestine solidarity – becomes a legitimate target for state repression.
Jillian Segal – Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism and an executive member of Australia’s peak Zionist lobby group, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry – drew an explicit line between a march across Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of Palestine to mass murder.
“We saw the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and now Bondi Beach, each a progression,” she said, linking the October 2023 Opera House protest and the August 2025 March for Humanity – where 300,000 people peacefully marched over Sydney Harbour Bridge – directly to the Bondi shooting.
Politicians and media amplified the connection without challenge. No evidence connected the attack to Palestinian movement work, but that didn’t matter. Suddenly, a shooting with no connection to Palestine had become proof that Palestine solidarity leads to mass murder, justifying repression that was already planned.
Within days, the government moved. Prime Minister Albanese adopted Segal’s entire proposed antisemitism plan – recommendations she had released in July 2025.
Her plan proposes defunding schools, universities, media outlets, and cultural institutions that “fail to act against antisemitism,” while monitoring the ABC and SBS, Australia’s public broadcasters, for “fair” reporting. The IHRA definition – which treats criticism of Israel’s policies, comparisons between Israel and apartheid South Africa, or claims that Israel is a racist endeavor as “antisemitic” – is now set to become the framework for cutting funding and terminating employment in Australia’s media.
Albanese announced sweeping new powers targeting “preachers and leaders who promote violence”, as well as organizations engaging in “hate speech promoting violence or racial hatred”. The Home Affairs Minister gained power to cancel visas for those who “spread hate and division,” allowing the government to deny entry to solidarity activists and deport organizers. Federal parliament may yet be recalled to rush through legislation. Under the guise of combating hate speech and violence, these are the tools to defund, deplatform and fire anyone organizing against genocide.
The government announced financial assistance payments for Bondi victims, mirroring the scheme established after October 7 for Australians impacted by Hamas attacks under the Australian Victim of Terrorism Overseas Payment – a scheme never extended to Australian-Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israeli forces.
The Education Minister announced a 12-month antisemitism education taskforce led by the former Chancellor of the University of New South Wales David Gonski, working with the Special Envoy, to reshape curriculums “from early education right through to universities” to address students making Jewish peers “feel unwelcome” – campus organizing for Palestine will be embedded as antisemitism in educational policy from childhood.
NSW Premier Chris Minns recalled parliament to pass laws allowing police to reject protest applications under a “terrorism designation”. He claimed mass demonstrations could “light a flame impossible to extinguish,” effectively designating Palestine protests – which have sustained nearly weekly demonstrations for over two years, making them among the most enduring solidarity movements in Australian history – as potential terrorism, giving police the power to ban them.
Minns also indicated that he is open to arming the Community Security Group – a private organization with documented ties to Israeli intelligence – to operate at public events, with Victoria already allocating $900,000 to the group in the wake of the Bondi attack. (An Australian Defence Force officer recently lost his security clearance for “divided loyalty” after CSG training in Israel). Essentially, a foreign-aligned militia could be deputized to police Australian streets and surveil organizers.
At the memorial for Bondi victims, an Israeli flag flies alongside Australian flags. The conflation is complete: Jewish safety becomes inseparable from Israeli state interests, and therefore solidarity with Palestinians becomes a threat, and criminalizing that solidarity becomes justified as protection. When a Jewish woman wearing a keffiyeh attempted to attend the vigil – wearing it, she said, because of the Israeli flag on display – police escorted her out. She knew people who died. This was her community. But “Jewish safety”, it turns out, means safety only for those who align with Israel, not Jews who stand with Palestine.
Meanwhile, Australia continues manufacturing and shipping weapons components to enable mass death in Gaza – a reality the government continues to deny. A shooting at an iconic national beach becomes terrorism and justifies sweeping powers. But Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza – mass killing of civilians, deliberate starvation, and erasure of entire families – is deemed self-defense. Palestinian liberation is an existential threat, while Israel’s genocidal violence is a supported policy.
The response to Bondi lays bare what the state has been building since October 2023: infrastructure to protect Australia’s stake in Israeli genocide from challenge. This serves Zionist lobby groups like the Executive Council of Australian Jewry that weaponize Jewish safety to justify Israel’s exterminationist policies. It serves a settler-colonial state defending another settler-colonial project. What’s being defended here is Australia’s complicity.
Ultimately, the response to this shooting accelerates what was already brewing: heightened powers, intensified surveillance, and violence against organizing, now legitimized. State repression doesn’t require a connection between incident and response. It requires opportunity.
OPINION
Netanyahu is exploiting the Bondi Beach massacre to build support for the Gaza genocide and is fueling antisemitism in the process
Benjamin Netanyahu is blaming the attack at Bondi Beach on Australia's support for Palestinian statehood. He conflates Jewish safety with Zionism to garner support for Israel, but in doing so, he enlists all Jews as agents of Palestinian oppression
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By Jonathan Ofir
By Jonathan Ofir
December 18, 2025
MONDOWEISS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads a cabinet meeting, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on March 12, 2023. (Photo by Marc Israel Sellem/POOL)
On September 21, Australia officially recognized the State of Palestine. This recognition coincided with that of several other Western countries, including France, Canada, and the United Kingdom. This is, of course, a problem for an Israeli government that “flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan River.”
So what better than a massacre of Jews on Hanukkah to undermine this effort?
At an Israeli government meeting following the Bondi Beach massacre, Netanyahu admonished the Australian government and its Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, for its supposed role. This rhetorical attack aimed not only to delegitimize support for Palestinian statehood but also to garner support for the continuing genocide in Gaza. It does not seem to matter that the shooters, a father and a son of Pakistani Muslim background, are reported to have been inspired by ISIS and not a Palestinian cause as such. Israel never misses an opportunity to incite against Palestinians.
This is what Netanyahu said during the three and half minute long rant, in English. He started like this:
“On August 17th, about four months ago, I sent Prime Minister Albanese of Australia a letter, in which I gave him warning, that the Australian government’s policy was promoting and encouraging antisemitism in Australia. I wrote: ‘Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire. It rewards Hamas terrorists. It emboldens those who menace Australian Jews, and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets. Antisemitism is a cancer. It spreads when leaders stay silent. It retreats when leaders act. I call upon you to replace weakness with action, appeasement with resolve’.
Instead, Prime Minister, you replaced weakness with weakness, and appeasement with more appeasement. Your government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia, you did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country, you took no action, you let the disease spread, and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.”
So, following the Bondi Beach attack, Netanyahu is basically saying, “I told you so.”
The “appeasement” narrative is one that Netanyahu likes a lot, because it alludes to the appeasement policy of Britain towards Nazi Germany under PM Neville Chamberlain, who sought at the time to play soft with Hitler. The analogy turns Palestinians into Nazis, and those who seek to ‘appease’ them, weaklings and antisemites. For Netanyahu, antisemitism is a cancer, and who embodies it? Palestinians.
Netanyahu continued to apply pressure on Albanese, and in turn, any other leaders in the West who are considering supporting the Palestinians:
“We saw an action of a brave man, turns out a Muslim brave man [Netanyahu first claimed he was Jewish], that stopped one of these terrorists from killing innocent Jews. But it requires the action of your government, which you’re not taking, and you have to, because history will not forgive hesitation and weakness – it will honor action and strength. That’s what Israel expects of each of your governments in the West, and elsewhere. Because the disease spreads, and it will consume you as well. But we are worrying right now about our people, our safety, and we do not remain silent”.
And he then expanded his analogy to lump the Bondi Beach attack in with recent news from Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon:
“We fight those who try to annihilate us. They’re not only trying to annihilate us, they attack us because they attack the West. In Syria, we saw yesterday two American soldiers killed, and one American interpreter killed as well, killed because they represent our common culture. Now as a result of this, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the following. He said ‘let it be known, that if you target Americans anywhere in the world, you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life, knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you’. We send our condolences to the people of America, and I want to say that our policy is exactly that policy. That’s why those who target Israelis, target our soldiers, try to kill them, or try to hurt them and wound them, as happened in Gaza yesterday – we take action. They will spend the rest of their brief, anxious lives knowing that Israel will hunt them, find them, and ruthlessly dispose of them. That is American policy, this is Israel’s policy. It’s our policy in Gaza, Lebanon, anywhere around us. We do not sit by and let these killers kill us.”
This is thus also a message to the U.S., we are one in our imperialist alliance. Netanyahu is signaling to Albanese, Australia, and anyone else who is thinking about aligning with the Palestinians in any form or shape, that they will be aligning with those who seek to annihilate Jews.
Netanyahu is playing an all-or-nothing game, and it’s forcing governments that seek to be liberal to choose a side – with Israel, or with the Palestinians, since Israel is so clearly bent on their destruction. Albanese was asked about Netanyahu’s accusations on ABC. Sarah Ferguson asked:
“Let me just talk to you about antisemitism. I want to bring up what Prime Minister Netanyahu said today. He singled you out personally, he said, for ‘pouring fuel on the antisemitism fire by recognising a Palestinian State’. Do you accept any link between that recognition and the massacre in Bondi?”
Albanese: “No, I don’t. And overwhelmingly, most of the world recognises a two-state solution as being the way forward in the Middle East.”
Albanese is clearly trying not to respond with fury to Netanyahu’s demeaning provocations, but Netanyahu is seeking to divide the world, are you with us or against us – and with us is against the Palestinians.
And it is exactly this rhetoric from Israel that arguably fuels antisemitism, or at least anti-Jewish animus.
This is because it seems impossible to protect Palestinians or even offer symbolic support for their national aspirations without being labeled a coward, an appeaser, or an antisemite seeking the destruction of the Jewish people. When these accusations set the terms, many feel that proving their worth against Israel’s claims is pointless. This dynamic also sustains hostility toward the Jewish community.
In 2015, after an attack in France on a Jewish supermarket, Netanyahu said to French Jews: “Israel is your home”. It caused considerable discontent among the Jewish community at the time, which is probably why he didn’t repeat it now. But he’s still posing as the strong leader of all Jews, whom the “weak” leaders should take example from, as it were. When such self-appointed ‘Jewish leaders’ conflate Judaism with Zionism and insist on unquestioning support for Palestinian destruction as proof of solidarity, people will often side with humanity—supporting those facing genocide, not those perpetrating it—and grow resentful of anyone demanding support for such actions.
We are already seeing the Zionist exploitation of the massacre to target Palestine solidarity in Australia, as well as internationally. We will likely also see a further crackdown on Palestinians from the river to the sea.
Following the massacre, mourners descended upon Bondi Beach to remember the victims. Jews waving Israeli flags were permitted, while anti-Zionist Jews wearing a kuffiyeh were distanced by the police. It was a message to all that the lessons drawn from this will likely be the Zionist ones.
Many are now once again listening to Netanyahu’s violent incitement, as if he weren’t wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity. He has been granted moral authority once again, even if for a fleeting moment, as head of the self-proclaimed Jewish state. He is using it to berate the world about how to be on the right side of history, while actively commanding a genocide.
On September 21, Australia officially recognized the State of Palestine. This recognition coincided with that of several other Western countries, including France, Canada, and the United Kingdom. This is, of course, a problem for an Israeli government that “flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan River.”
So what better than a massacre of Jews on Hanukkah to undermine this effort?
At an Israeli government meeting following the Bondi Beach massacre, Netanyahu admonished the Australian government and its Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, for its supposed role. This rhetorical attack aimed not only to delegitimize support for Palestinian statehood but also to garner support for the continuing genocide in Gaza. It does not seem to matter that the shooters, a father and a son of Pakistani Muslim background, are reported to have been inspired by ISIS and not a Palestinian cause as such. Israel never misses an opportunity to incite against Palestinians.
This is what Netanyahu said during the three and half minute long rant, in English. He started like this:
“On August 17th, about four months ago, I sent Prime Minister Albanese of Australia a letter, in which I gave him warning, that the Australian government’s policy was promoting and encouraging antisemitism in Australia. I wrote: ‘Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire. It rewards Hamas terrorists. It emboldens those who menace Australian Jews, and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets. Antisemitism is a cancer. It spreads when leaders stay silent. It retreats when leaders act. I call upon you to replace weakness with action, appeasement with resolve’.
Instead, Prime Minister, you replaced weakness with weakness, and appeasement with more appeasement. Your government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia, you did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country, you took no action, you let the disease spread, and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.”
So, following the Bondi Beach attack, Netanyahu is basically saying, “I told you so.”
The “appeasement” narrative is one that Netanyahu likes a lot, because it alludes to the appeasement policy of Britain towards Nazi Germany under PM Neville Chamberlain, who sought at the time to play soft with Hitler. The analogy turns Palestinians into Nazis, and those who seek to ‘appease’ them, weaklings and antisemites. For Netanyahu, antisemitism is a cancer, and who embodies it? Palestinians.
Netanyahu continued to apply pressure on Albanese, and in turn, any other leaders in the West who are considering supporting the Palestinians:
“We saw an action of a brave man, turns out a Muslim brave man [Netanyahu first claimed he was Jewish], that stopped one of these terrorists from killing innocent Jews. But it requires the action of your government, which you’re not taking, and you have to, because history will not forgive hesitation and weakness – it will honor action and strength. That’s what Israel expects of each of your governments in the West, and elsewhere. Because the disease spreads, and it will consume you as well. But we are worrying right now about our people, our safety, and we do not remain silent”.
And he then expanded his analogy to lump the Bondi Beach attack in with recent news from Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon:
“We fight those who try to annihilate us. They’re not only trying to annihilate us, they attack us because they attack the West. In Syria, we saw yesterday two American soldiers killed, and one American interpreter killed as well, killed because they represent our common culture. Now as a result of this, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the following. He said ‘let it be known, that if you target Americans anywhere in the world, you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life, knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you’. We send our condolences to the people of America, and I want to say that our policy is exactly that policy. That’s why those who target Israelis, target our soldiers, try to kill them, or try to hurt them and wound them, as happened in Gaza yesterday – we take action. They will spend the rest of their brief, anxious lives knowing that Israel will hunt them, find them, and ruthlessly dispose of them. That is American policy, this is Israel’s policy. It’s our policy in Gaza, Lebanon, anywhere around us. We do not sit by and let these killers kill us.”
This is thus also a message to the U.S., we are one in our imperialist alliance. Netanyahu is signaling to Albanese, Australia, and anyone else who is thinking about aligning with the Palestinians in any form or shape, that they will be aligning with those who seek to annihilate Jews.
Netanyahu is playing an all-or-nothing game, and it’s forcing governments that seek to be liberal to choose a side – with Israel, or with the Palestinians, since Israel is so clearly bent on their destruction. Albanese was asked about Netanyahu’s accusations on ABC. Sarah Ferguson asked:
“Let me just talk to you about antisemitism. I want to bring up what Prime Minister Netanyahu said today. He singled you out personally, he said, for ‘pouring fuel on the antisemitism fire by recognising a Palestinian State’. Do you accept any link between that recognition and the massacre in Bondi?”
Albanese: “No, I don’t. And overwhelmingly, most of the world recognises a two-state solution as being the way forward in the Middle East.”
Albanese is clearly trying not to respond with fury to Netanyahu’s demeaning provocations, but Netanyahu is seeking to divide the world, are you with us or against us – and with us is against the Palestinians.
And it is exactly this rhetoric from Israel that arguably fuels antisemitism, or at least anti-Jewish animus.
This is because it seems impossible to protect Palestinians or even offer symbolic support for their national aspirations without being labeled a coward, an appeaser, or an antisemite seeking the destruction of the Jewish people. When these accusations set the terms, many feel that proving their worth against Israel’s claims is pointless. This dynamic also sustains hostility toward the Jewish community.
In 2015, after an attack in France on a Jewish supermarket, Netanyahu said to French Jews: “Israel is your home”. It caused considerable discontent among the Jewish community at the time, which is probably why he didn’t repeat it now. But he’s still posing as the strong leader of all Jews, whom the “weak” leaders should take example from, as it were. When such self-appointed ‘Jewish leaders’ conflate Judaism with Zionism and insist on unquestioning support for Palestinian destruction as proof of solidarity, people will often side with humanity—supporting those facing genocide, not those perpetrating it—and grow resentful of anyone demanding support for such actions.
We are already seeing the Zionist exploitation of the massacre to target Palestine solidarity in Australia, as well as internationally. We will likely also see a further crackdown on Palestinians from the river to the sea.
Following the massacre, mourners descended upon Bondi Beach to remember the victims. Jews waving Israeli flags were permitted, while anti-Zionist Jews wearing a kuffiyeh were distanced by the police. It was a message to all that the lessons drawn from this will likely be the Zionist ones.
Many are now once again listening to Netanyahu’s violent incitement, as if he weren’t wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity. He has been granted moral authority once again, even if for a fleeting moment, as head of the self-proclaimed Jewish state. He is using it to berate the world about how to be on the right side of history, while actively commanding a genocide.
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