Bondi attack is the cost of failure to confront antisemitism | Letters

Readers respond to Sunday night’s terror attack targeting Jewish families celebrating the first night of Hanukah at Bondi beach in Sydney, Australia

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.