Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, December seventeen, twenty twenty five. Thoughts and prayers.
Speaker 1: It's the easiest and most glib of social media platitudes.
Speaker 1: I'd like to be seen expressing sorrow, but I won't
Speaker 1: be going deeper. After the death of George Floyd, it
Speaker 1: was a black square when the Iranian government murdered girls
Speaker 1: for removing their veils, it was a performative haircut. Now
Speaker 1: it's a lengthy post expressing shock and horror. It's something
Speaker 1: that Jews have been telling us to expect, that racism
Speaker 1: and suspicion morphing into bullets ripping through flesh. In the
Speaker 1: aftermath of the weekend's Bonda Beach massacre, in which fifteen
Speaker 1: people were murdered, including a ten year old girl, some
Speaker 1: of the loudest performative mourners were people who've spent the
Speaker 1: years since October seven, twenty twenty three, demonizing Israel and Zionists.
Speaker 1: At the same time, and there's been a flood of
Speaker 1: take care of yourself messaging from schools, workplaces and well
Speaker 1: meaning people on WhatsApp advising parents to shield their children
Speaker 1: from this news that's changed the world. They're going to
Speaker 1: inherit today the Australians. Yonni Bashan joins me to talk
Speaker 1: about how this story is changing as the sounds of
Speaker 1: sirens fate. At six point forty seven pm on Sunday night,
Speaker 1: bullets started flying at Bondai Beach, and well before any
Speaker 1: of us really knew what was going on, we were
Speaker 1: getting reports and calls about a big police event down
Speaker 1: at the beach. You and I both work at The
Speaker 1: Australian and across the country and in Sydney, all of
Speaker 1: our staff suddenly clocked on, even the ones who weren't working.
Speaker 1: I started filing stories. You raced down to Bondai Beach.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't long on Sunday before opinions started to flow.
Speaker 1: Once it was clear that this was a shooting, that
Speaker 1: it had targeted Jewish people at a Hunnaker event, and
Speaker 1: that many people were dead and seriously injured, social media
Speaker 1: started lighting up with the old cliche thoughts and prayers,
Speaker 1: people saying that they were shocked, and some of those
Speaker 1: people were also posting amazing eyewitness vision of what they'd
Speaker 1: seen that's been incredibly useful for us. What was your
Speaker 1: reaction as you started to see those opinions coming in,
Speaker 1: not just.
Speaker 2: Facts, I mean, I think in the vacuum of fact,
Speaker 2: opinion arrives. And we've seen that in so many other scenarios.
Speaker 2: We saw it during the Bondi Junction stabbing event. That
Speaker 2: was a mass casualty event, and everyone had an opinion
Speaker 2: on the motivation for that before we eventually found out
Speaker 2: who was behind it and what their motivation was. And
Speaker 2: we saw the same thing with the Link Cafes age
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, and there are still divided opinions over
Speaker 2: what was cruly motivating that. In the end, with this
Speaker 2: particular event, I took a moment when I was down
Speaker 2: at the beach to sort of catch up on the facts, because,
Speaker 2: as you would know, there are so many sources of
Speaker 2: information rushing in at the same time, and when you're
Speaker 2: standing at a police court and waiting for an event
Speaker 2: to happen, such as are coming out or an eyewitness
Speaker 2: to turn up, you can get lost in what's happening
Speaker 2: around you, and you can forget that there are other
Speaker 2: sources of information coming in from the hospitals, from the
Speaker 2: police headquarters, from the politicians, and so I just took
Speaker 2: a beat to step back, go through my phone, have
Speaker 2: a look at Twitter, have a look at Instagram, see
Speaker 2: some of the footage that was coming in. And that's
Speaker 2: when I saw some of the opinions cropping up on
Speaker 2: my screen. And what surprised and slightly galled me was
Speaker 2: that the people who were expressing these opinions, the thoughts
Speaker 2: and prayers, the shock, not so much remorse, but certainly
Speaker 2: they're surprised that an event like this would happen at
Speaker 2: Bondo Beach were the very people who, in my mind
Speaker 2: and in the mind of a lot of Jewish people
Speaker 2: around Australia have been watching for the past two years,
Speaker 2: animating this discussion and animating it to an extent where
Speaker 2: we have felt unsafe, where it's been largely unsafe for
Speaker 2: us to express our Jewish identity in a really wholesome
Speaker 2: way and in a way that in Australia we've always
Speaker 2: been able to do. It's never been a problem to
Speaker 2: say to someone in this country that you're Jewish. It
Speaker 2: now has been a problem for the past two years,
Speaker 2: and it's something that I know a lot of Jews
Speaker 2: are self conscious about. You can imagine it You're having
Speaker 2: a conversation with someone you've never met before, and they
Speaker 2: might ask you where you're from, and if you say
Speaker 2: that you're from Israel, as I am at best, they
Speaker 2: might be uncomfortable with that because morally responsible people are
Speaker 2: supposed to have an opinion on wars that are taking
Speaker 2: shape around the world. We're supposed to have an opinion
Speaker 2: on Russia and Ukraine, We're supposed to have an opinion
Speaker 2: on Israel and Kamas, And so when you express that
Speaker 2: to someone, they don't really know what to say. And
Speaker 2: on the other end of that spectrum of people who
Speaker 2: have very strong opinions about that and might judge you accordingly.
Speaker 2: So it's been tough.
Speaker 1: It's been interesting watching you go through that. We're really
Speaker 1: good friends, and I often get extremely annoyed and angry
Speaker 1: on your behalf about slights that you're receiving or telling
Speaker 1: me about or that I observe, and you are, I
Speaker 1: think dealing with those with on a lot more of
Speaker 1: an even keel than I am. I'm enraged and you
Speaker 1: are dealing with it quite calmly. But do you actually
Speaker 1: feel calm? And has your opinion change since Sunday?
Speaker 2: I don't think my opinion has changed the the thread
Speaker 2: environment in this country. I think my feeling about the
Speaker 2: threat environment was always very much deligned with what our
Speaker 2: Jewish leaders had been warning and what the Israeli government
Speaker 2: had been saying for quite a long time, which is
Speaker 2: that a city in Australia will almost certainly come under
Speaker 2: some form of attack motivated by hatred towards Jews at
Speaker 2: some point in the future. And I remember distinctly, after
Speaker 2: Alex Rivchin's home was attacked, he was one of the
Speaker 2: first people to say, it's not a matter of if,
Speaker 2: but when. And I don't think anyone quite expected that
Speaker 2: what would happen at Bondi Beach A would occur, and
Speaker 2: be that it would be of such a significant scale,
Speaker 2: with such an intelligence failing underpinning at I think what
Speaker 2: we expected was stronger leadership on the issue of anti
Speaker 2: Semitism and what again remained so striking and galling about
Speaker 2: this situation. I've just come back from a press conference
Speaker 2: with the Prime Minister and I asked him, why haven't
Speaker 2: you announced that a suite of anti Semitism measures that
Speaker 2: can be instituted or rolled out at a point in
Speaker 2: the future. Why Are we having a conversation about gun
Speaker 2: laws right now? It seems rather like a distraction and
Speaker 2: he wasn't really to give a very satisfactory answer on
Speaker 2: that control.
Speaker 3: That's not true. The report is not accurate. The meeting
Speaker 3: yesterday had front and center a commitment Prime Minister today
Speaker 3: can be in a meeting a national cab following the
Speaker 3: evil anti Semitic terrorist attack directed at members of the
Speaker 3: Jewish community celebrating Hahne Gert Sydney's Blondo Beach. This is
Speaker 3: talking document that was.
Speaker 2: Present State prints to push you, and I can tell
Speaker 2: you from my conversations with people overseas, people in Israel
Speaker 2: and elsewhere, they have woken up this morning and texted
Speaker 2: me saying, are we really having a conversation about gun
Speaker 2: law reform? Twenty four hours after what happened to Bondopage.
Speaker 2: So I think that's really striking. And I do wonder
Speaker 2: as well if the information that we obtained from the
Speaker 2: press conference about the presence of an ISIS flag might
Speaker 2: provide the Prime Minister with an escape hatch down a
Speaker 2: separate path away from hardcore anti Semitism into just pure Judadism.
Speaker 4: I also confirmed that the vehicle which is registered to
Speaker 4: the younger male attained IEDs. But I also confirm that
Speaker 4: it contained two homemade ISIS flags.
Speaker 2: That would be a shame too, because this isn't just
Speaker 2: a matter of puatism. It's he shouldn't be attempting to
Speaker 2: separate what occurred, or he shouldn't try to delineate between
Speaker 2: this being an ISIS motivated attack, or this being a
Speaker 2: Hamas motivated attack or an Iranian motivated attack. It was
Speaker 2: attack that specifically targeted Jewish people, and that's not within dispute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the idea of antisemitism being racism, or being a
Speaker 1: deliberate targeting of Jews, and any attack on Jews being
Speaker 1: an act of anti Semitism, all those ideas are actually
Speaker 1: not that clear in the minds of some people apparently,
Speaker 1: but they're clear to me. Like the Hamas attack on
Speaker 1: October seven, was that resistance or whether he oppressed people
Speaker 1: sort of breaking out, No, it was an antisemitic terrorist
Speaker 1: attack clearly because the victims were Jews overwhelmingly. There were,
Speaker 1: of course, some non Jews who were caught up in
Speaker 1: the chaos, including some Muslim security guards and people like that.
Speaker 1: When those heartbroken emojis and prayer hands. I think what
Speaker 1: you've identified in a piece for The Australian is the
Speaker 1: hypocrisy of those people you were speaking about before. We're
Speaker 1: talking about people like Abbi Chatfield, Mary Costikidas, Randa abdel Fhatar,
Speaker 1: people who have spoken loud and clear about their dislike
Speaker 1: of Israel, their belief that Zionism is evil and that
Speaker 1: Zionism is somehow a genocidal project, as opposed to just
Speaker 1: being what it actually is, which is the belief that
Speaker 1: Jewish people deserve a homeland. So why do you think,
Speaker 1: given their views are pretty clear, I would say they
Speaker 1: were verging towards, if not actually anti Semitic. Why bother
Speaker 1: with the prayer hands and the broken hearts and the
Speaker 1: shock and horror.
Speaker 2: It's a great question, and that was again so surprising
Speaker 2: and striking about it. That's why when I saw it,
Speaker 2: I thought to myself, your hypocrites. You are the people
Speaker 2: who've been building this for the past two years. And
Speaker 2: I want to give these people that benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2: I want to imagine in my heart of hearts that
Speaker 2: this is not the outcome they wanted. And I don't
Speaker 2: think you would believe that either. I don't think most
Speaker 2: ripe thinking people would assume that this was an outcome
Speaker 2: that any one of these people wanted. These people are activists,
Speaker 2: and they have a specific goal in their mind, and
Speaker 2: they have a certain type of language and rhetoric that
Speaker 2: they're using. I guess the issue is is that Jewish
Speaker 2: leaders and Australians in general, you don't need to be
Speaker 2: an ally of the Jewish community to say this. They've
Speaker 2: been saying to these people, your language is hate field,
Speaker 2: you are using specific terms like globalized, the Intifada, and
Speaker 2: you were deliberately trying to cancel a certain group of
Speaker 2: people from polite society, those people being Zionis. This use
Speaker 2: of the word Zionism as a cover for Jews has
Speaker 2: been one of the most insidious phrases to enter the
Speaker 2: modern lexicon. I mean, the word Zionism has been around
Speaker 2: for decades, but it's usage now in common parlance has
Speaker 2: been such that I'm deeply cynical about the way that
Speaker 2: most of these people use it.
Speaker 4: To me.
Speaker 2: When I hear zionis, so just hear jew.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as you've written, it's a fancy word for Jew.
Speaker 1: But I'm assign I believe that Israel has a right
Speaker 1: to a homeland, just like I think that you are
Speaker 1: a feminist although you're not a woman, because you believe
Speaker 1: that women should be equal.
Speaker 2: That would be their cover, wouldn't it. Yeah, Well, when
Speaker 2: I refer to Zionist, I'm not specifically referring to Is.
Speaker 2: I'm referring to anyone who happens to have a belief
Speaker 2: system aligned with Zionism or who believes in Zionism. I
Speaker 2: think that's rubbish. I think they know what they're doing
Speaker 2: when they use the term Zionism. They're talking about us.
Speaker 1: Coming up more of my conversation with Jonni Bishan, I
Speaker 1: think there's something more cynical at the base of the
Speaker 1: blooming in content about Zionism or zios. It's I think
Speaker 1: a group of people who identified a vacuum in the
Speaker 1: culture or an opportunity in the cult to get a
Speaker 1: lot of likes and go viral. They were talking about
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter, then they were talking about trans rites,
Speaker 1: then they started talking about October seven. Some people in
Speaker 1: the kind of online commentary space I think on social media,
Speaker 1: and Runner abdel Feta would be one, have been talking
Speaker 1: about Palestine four years. This is clearly an issue that
Speaker 1: she deeply believes in even though I disagree. Abby Chatfield,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, was not a scholar of the
Speaker 1: Middle East before October seven, twenty twenty three. Clementine Ford,
Speaker 1: I would say, fits into the same basket. So isn't
Speaker 1: there a very cynical exploitation of this crisis in the
Speaker 1: Middle East where a really rational opinion to have would
Speaker 1: be this is horrible. I hate the fact that everybody's dying,
Speaker 1: and it's way too complex for me to have an
Speaker 1: opinion on.
Speaker 2: With or to just say what happened on October seven
Speaker 2: was horrible and I could never possibly support the actions
Speaker 2: of hamas prescribe terrorist group. And when I hear about
Speaker 2: the rapes that occurred at the Nova festival, when I
Speaker 2: heard about the indiscriminate killings or the families that were
Speaker 2: burned in their homes, yes, that is absolutely horrible. And
Speaker 2: then it would be just as justifiable position to say
Speaker 2: I also don't like war, and I don't like what
Speaker 2: Israel's done in Gaza, and I don't like seeing a
Speaker 2: really high civilian death count. That's something that no one
Speaker 2: wants to see. Israelis don't want to see it either.
Speaker 2: The part that's so perverse and deranged to me is
Speaker 2: that throughout this conflict, you and I would have encountered people,
Speaker 2: either at rallies or doing our jobs, or people we
Speaker 2: meet at the pub or wherever, who seem to just
Speaker 2: have a very galvanized view on this conflict. It's polarized.
Speaker 2: That would probably be the better word, in which if
Speaker 2: you have a view about Israel's war in Gaza, you
Speaker 2: cannot possibly have a view about Kamas. I've found it
Speaker 2: really hard to find a person who can say to me,
Speaker 2: I really don't like Kamas. Horrible people wish they weren't
Speaker 2: involved in anything to do with the administration of Gaza,
Speaker 2: wish they would just go away. I also don't like
Speaker 2: what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza either. I
Speaker 2: just wish this war'ld end. I'm finding a very limited
Speaker 2: number of people who occupy that middle space. Everything so polarized,
Speaker 2: but people don't talk about what doesn't rate. And we're
Speaker 2: in the same business. We're in the entertainment business. We
Speaker 2: want to speak to our readers about what they want
Speaker 2: to hear, and we want to also te them what
Speaker 2: we think they should hear.
Speaker 1: I think the tone of that conversation too, has really
Speaker 1: created a fear about news content or about coverage of
Speaker 1: this war among people who shouldn't be afraid of the news.
Speaker 1: I'm because I'm a parent exposed to a lot of
Speaker 1: communications directed at parents. Here's how you know, Five ways
Speaker 1: that you can talk to your kids about what happened
Speaker 1: at Bondi Beach. How about turning off news media for
Speaker 1: a couple of days, keep your kids close, and change
Speaker 1: the subject. Is the tone of communications I'm seeing and getting,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of that is very well meaning.
Speaker 1: And yeah, kids are scared. It is really scary. But
Speaker 1: I don't think that after the attack on Pearl Harbor
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties that parents in America or Australia
Speaker 1: turned their televisions off and told the kids not to watch.
Speaker 1: I don't think after JFK's assassination in the sixties or
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War, that parents were telling their kids they
Speaker 1: didn't need to worry about this, go and read a
Speaker 1: book like these kids are going to inherit the world
Speaker 1: that we've created for them. They need to know about
Speaker 1: what's going on. In my view, do you remember learning
Speaker 1: about the news? Are engaging with the news as a
Speaker 1: kid and what that was like for you.
Speaker 2: Well, I remember that, particularly in this country. I think
Speaker 2: we've been extremely lucky. We're not exposed to weekly terrorist
Speaker 2: attacks of the kind that I know are occurring in
Speaker 2: other parts of the world, and particularly where I'm originally from,
Speaker 2: in Israel, And I know that in Israel, similar efforts
Speaker 2: to shelter and mollycoddle children after a terrorist attack don't
Speaker 2: really exist. There's very much focus on resilience, in just
Speaker 2: getting out and living your life and thumbing your nose
Speaker 2: at terrorists by getting on with life. I just think
Speaker 2: that is something that we're not used to in this country.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if that should be I despise the
Speaker 2: term of the new normal. I don't think we're entering
Speaker 2: a new normal. I think this is an anomalous, horrific
Speaker 2: event that occurred on Sunday. It'll be up to parents
Speaker 2: as to what they want to expose their children too.
Speaker 1: But there's a way to talk to kids about these
Speaker 1: kinds of things where you focus on the heroes and
Speaker 1: the helpers. You talk about mister Akhmed, the tobacconists who
Speaker 1: tackle one of the shooters to the ground. You you
Speaker 1: talk about the Bond Eye detective who hid behind a
Speaker 1: tree and shots our crime dead. You talk about the
Speaker 1: off duty corps who rushed to Bond Eye, the uniformed officers,
Speaker 1: the ambulance, the off duty doctors who found themselves compressing
Speaker 1: wounds in doing CPR. In any dramatic event, you can
Speaker 1: always find a ray of light to help kids get
Speaker 1: through it. But they have a right to know what's
Speaker 1: going on.
Speaker 2: I think, of course they do. But I think you're
Speaker 2: right too that we should be maximizing the stories of courage, bravery, loyalty,
Speaker 2: service duty. Those are things that are missing from all
Speaker 2: the Hollywood movies now. All the Hollywood movies we see
Speaker 2: now about depressing things about betrayal and anger and murder,
Speaker 2: and we should be talking about more positive things, and
Speaker 2: we should be talking about the positives arising out of this.
Speaker 2: And the stories that are arising out of what occurred
Speaker 2: on Sunday are just utterly extraordinary, and they continue to
Speaker 2: develop in a similar fashion. We talk about how to
Speaker 2: solve this issue moving forward. In terms of educating people
Speaker 2: about anti Semitism. One of the things that surprises me,
Speaker 2: particularly about the left side of politics or the progressive left,
Speaker 2: is that they have been so willing to embrace certain
Speaker 2: minority groups. I don't need to name any particular one,
Speaker 2: but academic institutions, childcare centers, corporations have gone out of
Speaker 2: their way to accommodate certain minorities in the spirit of
Speaker 2: social justice and in the spirit of inclusion. Why is
Speaker 2: it so hard to do that for a minority population
Speaker 2: like the Jews, which is subject to actual violence, not
Speaker 2: just microaggressions. I don't understand why the progressive left has
Speaker 2: been so willing and capable to do that for some
Speaker 2: groups but not for others. In fact, the progressive left
Speaker 2: seems to be decidedly against doing that for the Jews.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how on earth did anti semitism, which is a
Speaker 1: form of racism, become a progressive value. It's ridiculous. I
Speaker 1: think the answer can only be that there's in our society, sadly,
Speaker 1: a latent fear and hatred of Jews, and if you
Speaker 1: scratch the surface, it comes bubbling up.
Speaker 2: I'm also somewhat convinced that there is a certain derangement
Speaker 2: that exists amongst these people in which they think that
Speaker 2: talking about Zionism and Zios and genocide and ethnic cleansing
Speaker 2: has no concert quins, and that they are entirely valid
Speaker 2: and justified in expressing themselves in that way. I think
Speaker 2: what I'd like to see from our Prime Minister, from
Speaker 2: our leaders, is someone to just say you have to
Speaker 2: stop doing that. This isn't a freedom of speech issue.
Speaker 2: This is an issue of hate and incitement. This is
Speaker 2: not protest anymore. There is a difference, and this is
Speaker 2: what I wrote about in the piece. There is a
Speaker 2: difference between protest and criticism of government handling of a
Speaker 2: war and incitement to violence. And for the people who
Speaker 2: still need to be convinced that their words have consequences,
Speaker 2: you just need to look at Bondo Beach. It's happening.
Speaker 2: This is real, and you don't just need to look
Speaker 2: at Bonda Beach. The Jewish community saw this coming. We
Speaker 2: saw it happening in Washington. Two people were murdered there,
Speaker 2: and we saw it happen in Manchester. It was only
Speaker 2: a matter of time before it came here. What we
Speaker 2: didn't know was that it was going to be an
Speaker 2: order of magnitude bicker over here several perhaps.
Speaker 1: Janni Bijon, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Johnny Bichan is a senior journalist with The Australian. You
Speaker 1: can check out his reporting right now at the Australian
Speaker 1: dot com dot a u