It’s one of the most infuriating and damnable reflexive weasel-word phrases the Albanese government has been trotting out constantly since October 7, 2023. It in no small part fed the hateful, febrile atmosphere, as well as the almost complete institutional failure, that led directly to Bondi massacre and the brutal murder by a pair of Islamic fanatics of 15 Jewish Australians.
…and Islamophobia.
This has been the stock-in-trade response of nearly every politician, but most especially those on the left, every time they’ve been asked to condemn antisemitism. It’s honestly sickening.
An Islamophobia distraction driven by Labor politics clouded the judgment of Anthony Albanese and his ministers, and ultimately weakened the government’s response to a two-year explosion in antisemitism ahead of the Bondi Beach terror attack.
It should not have taken Australia’s worst terrorist attack and the massacre of 15 Jewish-Australians and bystanders at a Hanukkah family holiday event on a Sunday afternoon to stop the left’s false equivocation between antisemitism and Islamophobia.
It began the night Muslim-dominated Western Sydney erupted into spontaneous celebration as Hamas’ horrifying snuff videos spread across the internet. It was undeniable the next night, when a mob of Sydney Muslims stormed what was meant to be a vigil for the victims of the latest Islamic terror enormity at the Sydney Opera House and bellowed “Gas the Jews!”
Anthony Albanese, who couldn’t even bring himself to comment on October 7 for over 24 hours, only heaped more ignominy on himself in the following days and weeks. Albanese and his ministers couldn’t name the real problem without dragging in a manufactured counterweight. Every statement on rising attacks against Jews came laced with the obligatory nod to “…and Islamophobia”.
The outcome was so predictable it could almost have been planned. Institutions from schools to universities to police got the message loud and clear: it’s open season on Jews. Jewish safety was nothing compared to the glass-jawed sensitivities of another community whose numbers and electoral weight Albanese’s team clearly prized more.
The pattern was there from the start. After the Opera House disgrace, with crowds openly celebrating the Hamas slaughter, Labor figures dithered. When the Sydney Harbour Bridge was turned into a platform for Hamas flags and calls for Jewish blood, ministers and MPs marched alongside. Recognition of Palestinian statehood – effectively rewarding Hamas for their savagery – followed soon after.
All the while, the government treated antisemitism as just one hate to be weighed against another in the scales of electoral importance.
“If a Hindu temple were attacked, for example, it would not be appropriate for the federal government to state ‘We condemn Hinduphobia and antisemitism’. To put it in that language diminishes the importance of the condemnation, and neutralises it to meaningless words that do not address the problem.”
That was the blunt assessment from Executive Council of Australian Jewry President Daniel Aghion. Jewish leaders had warned against the false equivalence. Albanese’s team ignored them.
Even more damnably, the Albanese government refused to appoint a special envoy on antisemitism unless they got to pander to Muslims as well. As if dozens of Muslims had just been murdered at Lakemba mosque on Ramadan, or Muslim schoolchildren were forced to go to school under the watch of armed guards or Muslim homes and businesses were burning across Sydney. The equivalency was so false that the only response it merited was a swift punch on the nose.
Instead, Albanese got his oily, hateful way: the appointment of a special envoy on antisemitism was deliberately held up until a matching Islamophobia role could be created for political balance. The delay stretched into months. By the time Bondi Beach ran with Jewish blood, the signal had already been sent: institutional Australia was to treat the two as moral equals.
Education Minister Jason Clare and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke both represent western Sydney seats packed with Muslim voters. Their departments oversee what gets taught about the Holocaust and how universities handle antisemitic thuggery. Yet teachers feel free to drop The Diary of Anne Frank from the curriculum rather than upset students from Middle Eastern backgrounds. That is the direct fruit of years of equivocation from the top.
The Albanese response to the Bondi massacre itself was as feeble as it was (and is) disgusting. Weeks passed before a royal commission was even ordered. Meanwhile, the return of so-called ISIS brides was waved through with barely a murmur.
Voters noticed. They noticed Anthony Albanese (rightly) booed and heckled at Bondi, while Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce were welcomed with cheers and open arms. Support drained from Labor toward One Nation: the only party willing to name Islamic extremism without apology. Pollsters explicitly identify Bondi as the single biggest trigger behind One Nation’s poll rise.
The royal commission is now hearing how Albanese’s political fixations crippled the response long before the Muslim father and son struck. Submissions detail the deliberate pairing of antisemitism and Islamophobia roles, the months of foot-dragging and the refusal to confront the source of the violence.
The commission’s final report is due in December. If it whitewashes the government’s failures in the name of ‘even-handedness’, it will compound the original betrayal.
The lesson is brutal but simple. When leaders refuse to call things by their proper names, the worst elements take the hint. Jewish Australians paid the price in blood at Bondi. The rest of the country is still paying in eroded trust and a security apparatus that spent two years more worried about optics than reality.
Albanese’s weasel words delivered exactly the weakness they were designed to avoid – or, the horrifying possibility that cannot be discounted, not.
