Spare us your shock … you did this, brick by rhetorical brick. By Yoni Bashan in The Australian.
Now they’re all shocked. The progressive activists. The influencers. The Greens. The podcasters. All those impeccably right-on people who’ve spent two years making “Zionist” – or “Zio” – the dirtiest word in the Australian vocabulary. Who marched down Oxford Street during the Mardi Gras holding a sign that said “Globalise the Intifada”.
Well, congratulations. The Intifada’s here. Globalised. Mission accomplished. …
But there’s something that needs to be said:
Here’s what needs to be said to the people who’ve spent two years treating Israel as a uniquely evil state. Who’ve made “Zionism” synonymous with racism and slavery and every conceivable sin. Who’ve said Zionists should not be platformed, should not have culturally safe spaces, should essentially be drummed out of polite society. Who’ve chanted “from the river to the sea” at rallies, in parliament, and posted it on their Instagram stories with little watermelon emojis:
You built this. You laid the foundations, brick by rhetorical brick, post by viral post, march by march with your inverted red triangles and your signs bearing the words “Zionists are neo-Nazis”.
What exactly did you think “intifada” meant? It means blood. It has always meant blood. And now they’ll be cleaning up the blood on Bondi Beach for weeks. …
Classic example:
Mary Kostakidis finds it all “deeply shocking”. The former SBS newsreader who’s spent months promoting conspiracy theories about the “Zionist lobby”, who reposted a tweet earlier this year claiming the “genocide” in Gaza is the real cause of underlying anti-Semitism. Which, even if Mary didn’t mean this, sounds to me like: Jews supporting Israel bring it on themselves.
But Bondi? What happened? Shocking. …
History, so pay attention:
Anti-Semitism has always been like this. It never goose-steps into the ball dressed as anti-Semitism. It doesn’t wear a sign. It arrives in the costume of the moment. As nationalism. As anti-capitalism. As social justice. It makes itself sound reasonable, even righteous. It speaks in the gentle language of decolonisation and human rights.
And then people die; that’s how this story goes.
Yes, you can criticise Israel. You can oppose settlements and protest civilian casualties in Gaza. But there’s a difference — and it’s a life-or-death difference now — between protest and incitement. Between holding a government accountable for its conduct in war and demonising an entire people.
Because when people talk about Russia and its war in Ukraine, none of it metastasises into graffiti on Russian restaurants. Into harassment of Russian students. Into boycotts and firebombings. Or bullets on beaches.