In the aftermath of the mass shooting at Bondi beach, the right is on the offensive. It is trying to blame the movement for Palestine for fuelling antisemitism and encouraging the attack. There are now 16 people dead following the horrific antisemitic attack, which targeted a Jewish community event marking Hanukkah.
Evidence is emerging that the two attackers were inspired by Islamic State, with handmade Islamic State flags found at the scene. They had also recently visited the Philippines, travelling to Mindanao, where an Islamic State group is active.
Anthony Albanese’s hand-picked antisemitism envoy, pro-Israel activist Jillian Segal, has tried to link the massive Harbour Bridge march for Gaza to the shootings.
Opposition leader Sussan Ley has joined in, accusing Anthony Albanese of failing to act on antisemitism, through failing to crack down on Palestine rallies that, she says, “have seen campuses occupied and Jewish students made to feel afraid”. Former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard has labelled Albanese’s push to change gun laws a “diversion” from his “failure” on antisemitism.
Segal is pushing for the government to embrace recommendations she delivered in July, which targeted opposition to Israel and called for funding to be withheld from universities, cultural institutions and artists.
Academic Greg Craven, who she appointed to prepare a report card on universities, even ridiculously declared that uni managements have been “morally complicit” because they have allowed “vicious protests” that send the message that “antisemitism’s all right”—without citing a single instance of antisemitism at a protest.
Segal has claimed that chants at rallies to free Palestine “from the river to the sea” and to “globalise the intifada” somehow encourage terrorism. But neither are a call for violence–they are the product of a mass movement for liberation from military occupation and apartheid.
Yet NSW Premier Chris Minns has flagged banning marches for Palestine by making a terrorism designation, because of what he says is the “combustible situation” in Sydney. But there is no talk of stopping politicians and supporters of Israel from turning the memorial site at Bondi Beach into a backdrop for speeches slandering the Palestine movement.
Once again we are seeing an orchestrated campaign attempting to conflate opposition to Israel’s genocide with antisemitism.
But the movement for Palestine, and the Arab and Muslim communities, are not to blame for the Bondi attack.
It is the scale of Israel’s own crimes in Gaza over the last two years, and the complicity of the Australian government, that breeds terrorism. For two years the world has watched as Israel murders children and families every day, bombing houses and tents, as it systematically starves almost two million people.
It has murdered desperate people trying to collect aid, targeted journalists and doctors, and sought to make life in Gaza all but impossible.
Its genocide continues despite the so called “ceasefire”, with almost 400 more Palestinians dead in near daily attacks since the ceasefire began in October.
There is no justification for terrorism. It kills innocent people and only results in more racism and repression. But the more Israel continues its massacres in Gaza and the West Bank, and the more Western governments back them, the more likely it is that some will be attracted to reactionary groups like Islamic State that claim to be hitting back against them.
In just the same way, the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 were the result of blowback from the US’s decades of imperialist violence in the Middle East.
Antisemitism
The shooting was a blatantly antisemitic attack, targeting the Jewish community at an event marking Hanukkah.
But the movement for Palestine has always stood against racism in all its forms and made it clear that the Jewish community as a whole is not to blame for Israel’s actions. Every demonstration for Palestine has been joined by Jewish contingents, and many have included Jewish speakers.
As the anti-Zionist Jewish Council of Australia has explained, “While many Jewish people identify as Zionist, many do not. There are a growing number of Jewish people worldwide, including in Australia, who disagree with the actions of the state of Israel and do not support Zionism.”
But the efforts of Zionists like Jillian Segal to conflate Jewish identity with support for Israel, and imply that all Jewish people support Israel’s crimes, do actually encourage antisemitism. They promote the lie that all Jewish people support a state that is responsible for genocide.
The efforts to brand opposition to Israel and Zionism as antisemitic have the same effect. They diminish the very real and dangerous antisemitism promoted by Nazis and far right groups as well as Islamic State–and set back the fight against anti-Jewish racism.
In the aftermath of the Bondi attack, we need to continue to oppose antisemitic conspiracy theories and any targeting of Jewish people.
Defend migrants
In the wake of the shooting, many migrants, particularly Arabs and Muslims, are also facing an outpouring of racist bile on social media, in workplaces and on the streets.
At Narellan in southwestern Sydney, Muslim graves at a cemetery were desecrated with pigs’ heads the day after the attack.
March for Australia’s Bec Freedom has called for deportation of both Jewish people and Muslims saying, “get your wars off our shores”.
Both Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter also blamed “an opening of the migration floodgates” for the attack. Katter said, “they are allowed to bring with them their hatred and their wars” and called for all migration from the Middle East and North Africa to be banned.
Yet it was a Muslim migrant from Syria, Ahmed el Ahmed, who has been hailed as a hero for wrestling the gun from the hands of one of the attackers and saving dozens of lives. He is still in hospital with gunshot wounds sustained as a result.
Racist violence was not introduced into Australia by recent migrants. Australia is a violent imperialist country founded on the massacre of Indigenous people—and police who shoot Aboriginal people today like Zachary Rolfe are never punished.
Australian Nazi Brenton Tarrant massacred 51 Muslims in New Zealand in 2019, inspired by the vicious Islamophobia pushed by governments and the mainstream media.
Australia has sent thousands of troops to the Middle East and Afghanistan in the last 20 years, who carried out well-documented war crimes. And Israel’s genocide in Gaza is very much Australia’s war too—the Pine Gap spy base in Alice Springs sends intelligence to the IDF, and Australia continues to export weapons parts to Israel.
Instead of scapegoating, we need to stay on the streets for Palestine, to force our government to impose sanctions on Israel and do everything in its power to end the genocide in Gaza. This will help end US imperialism’s arming of Israel, and the Western backing that allows Israel to continue its criminal actions.
We can’t allow the right-wing backlash to silence us. We need to keep building the movement for Palestine, and continue to stand against racism in all its forms.
By James Supple
