Quick thought on the Bondi Beach murders

Today witnessed yet another deliberate attack on members of the jewish culture in Bondi Beach, Australia.

It is likely that the perpetrators acted in anger over Israel’s genocide in Gaza and other Israeli crimes. If so, the murders reveal a profound ignorance and/or confusion on the part of the perpetrators, who clearly did not know that jewishness and the state of Israel are completely different concepts.

One is a culture, the other is a nation state.

They would not be alone in making this mistake, however. Ironcally, Israel also conflates anti-Israeli sentiment with anti-Semitism. As a matter of policy. This obviously encourages anti-Semites to attack jews not just whenever they want to hurt jews, but also when they are mad at Israel over something or other.

Worse, Israel’s deliberate conflation of jewishness and Israel as a state leads ignorant, poorly educated, and less intelligent people, who happen to have strong anti-Israeli feelings but are not necessarily anti-Semites to also attack jews in the foolish belief that in so doing they are attacking Israel.

Such attacks on jews immediately reinforce the mistaken perception that all anti-Israelis must be anti-Semites too, which, of course, is exactly what Israel wants to achieve and, indeed, does everything in its power to bring about.

This is important, so let me be crystal clear. Israel is keen to maximise confusion over jewishness and Israel as a state, because it helps to get Israel off the hook for its own many heinous crimes, such as the genocide of 70,000 people of Gaza. After all, which worldly and well-educated person would ever want to criticize Israel if the consequence is to be labelled a whacky anti-Semite?

The consequence of Israel’s policy of confusion is therefore that Israel gets to commit yet more crimes with impunity, which, tragically, then encourages yet more ignorant fools to attack innocent jews in far-flung places like Bondi Beach. This is a vicious cycle in which Israel contributes just as much - if not more - in terms of human lives lost as the terrorists.

As I explain in detail here, Israel and jewishness are NOT the same thing. You can criticize, indeed, you can even attack Israel without in any way being anti-Semitic. However, as long as Israel and dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semites and just plain stupid people continue to believe the two concepts are the same the dying of innocents will continue.

The End