The Bondi beach terror attack did not occur in a vacuum. It followed years in which antisemitism originating on the left has been minimised, sanitised, or treated as a conceptual misunderstanding rather than a real threat.

In Australia, language that Jews recognise immediately as dangerous has been repeatedly defended as nuance. Antisemitic imagery has been excused as metaphor. Threats have been recast as “context”. When Jews object, they are told they are conflating criticism with hatred – even when the language used would be unacceptable if directed at any other minority.

This indulgence has not been politically neutral. It has come disproportionately from progressive institutions that pride themselves on moral seriousness while declining to confront antisemitism when it appears within their own ideological camp. Media outlets, including this one, have been quick to police language on the right, but reluctant to interrogate how terms like “Zionist” are deployed as proxies for Jews themselves. The result has been predictable. Warnings were dismissed. Patterns were denied.

Violence did not appear suddenly. It arrived in an environment carefully prepared for it. If progressive politics cannot confront the antisemitism it tolerates – and sometimes amplifies – then its moral claims are hollow. Bondi is the cost of that failure.
Simon Tedeschi
Newtown, New South Wales, Australia

I am deeply saddened by Sunday’s horrific shooting. My grief is amplified by a broader grief for the fracturing of a most precious quality of our Aussie society – a thrivingly diverse culture that is respectful, peaceful and cooperative.

This has been such a core part of my life that I got teary when I heard that the heroic shopkeeper who disarmed one of the shooters was a local Muslim. What then opened the floodgates for all my grief was the pride expressed by members of his Muslim family for his bravery in the face of grave danger.

With xenophobia in many countries now displacing cross-cultural trust and compassion, this glimmer of promise in an otherwise deeply tragic moment in Australia’s history should be cherished.
Dr Eric van Beurden
Lismore Heights, New South Wales, Australia

When I was a child in New Zealand, I was victimised at school for being Jewish. Despite being thousands of miles away in Tasmania, where I now live, when I heard about the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, a deep grief came over me. On Sunday, I found myself frantically calling Jewish friends in Bondi, desperate to know that they were safe. I sobbed with relief that they were. But for many others, this was not the case.

As with the mosque in Christchurch, this is an act of grotesque violence against a peaceful group of people celebrating their beliefs in peace. My deepest concern comes from my experience as a victim of racism, and from knowing how easy it is to lose sight of an essential truth: these crimes do not come from whole communities, but from a tiny minority of outsiders.

I can only hope that Australians remember that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful too. Fear and hatred must not be turned toward any entire group of people. Both Muslim and Jewish communities are equally deserving of safety, dignity and protection.
Jerusha Sandler
Woodbridge, Tasmania, Australia