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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sparked outrage for using the horrific shooting at a Hanukkah event in Bondi Beach to further his agenda of blocking the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Just hours after the shooting that killed 15 people and hospitalized 38, Netanyahu boasted that he had been warning Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for months that his policies are accelerating antisemitism. “Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire. It rewards Hamas terrorists,” he said. He then likened the policy to a “cancer” and said that it was a sign of “weakness.”
“You let the disease [of antisemitism] spread, and the result was the attack on Jews we saw today,” Netanyahu said at a press conference. He went on to say that attackers like the ones responsible for the Bondi Beach shooting “attack us because they attack the West,” and linked the shooting, without evidence, to the killing of U.S. service members in Syria this weekend.
Albanese rejected this framing, reiterating his calls for a two-state solution and saying that his only job now is to “promote unity” after the attack. “This has been an extraordinarily traumatic 24 hours. My job is to provide support for the Jewish community, is to make it clear that Australians overwhelmingly stand with the Jewish community at this difficult time.”
Australia recognized a Palestinian state in September, but conditioned it on the destruction of “the terrorist organization Hamas” and the potential state’s “recognition of Israel’s right to exist.” This and other countries’ use of Palestinian statehood as a bargaining chip was heavily criticized by proponents of Palestinian rights at the time, who said that state officials were drawing a strict boundary for Palestinian sovereignty based on Israel’s demands.
Still, Israeli officials were outraged by the calls for Palestinian statehood, and have spent months openly calling for collective punishment against Palestinians and further colonization of Palestine in response.
Netanyahu’s comments sparked fury. “I am disgusted that the Israeli PM links Australia’s principled support for a Palestinian State with yesterday’s terrorist attack in Bondi. Australia has taken extensive measures to prevent anti-semitism,” said Ben Saul, the chair of University of Sydney’s international law department and UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter terrorism.
Like Netanyahu, other pro-Israel figures blamed the movement for Palestinian rights, vilifying the use of words like “intifada,” which means “uprising” in Arabic. After the shooting, The New York Times published an op-ed by Bret Stephens saying: “Bondi Beach Is What ‘Globalize the Intifada’ Looks Like.” The Atlantic published a David Frum column titled: “The Intifada Comes to Bondi Beach.”
Advocates for Palestinian rights condemned this framing, saying it amounts to a cheap instrumentalization of the horrific massacre.
“While anti-genocide activists insist that all life is precious, the [New York Times] is suggesting that safety for Jews necessitates being complicit in permanent occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Palestinians. What absolute moral failure,” said Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat.
In an interview with Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, Jewish Council of Australia member Antony Loewenstein called Netanyahu a “disgraceful human being” in response to his comments, and pointed out that Israeli officials were also drawing ties, without evidence, between pro-Palestine protests and the attack. “This kind of connection is absolutely disgraceful.”
Loewenstein said that the Israeli government is fueling antisemitism globally by using Jewish identity as justification for committing heinous acts of violence.
“Now, we don’t know, obviously, enough details about last night’s horrific attack, but it’s clear that — and I’ve thought this and said this for years, Amy — that what the Israeli government is doing in Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank and beyond endangers everybody, Jews particularly,” Loewenstein said.
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