Caitlin Johnstone
ROGUE JOURNALIST
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It’s so gross watching the tail-wagging excitement of Israel supporters in response to the Bondi shooting. They’re so happy they have another rhetorical weapon with which to bludgeon pro-Palestine voices into silence. They can barely contain their glee. Netanyahu immediately scrambled to hold a press conference proclaiming that the attack was the result of Australia taking some steps toward the recognition of a Palestinian state. New York Times warmonger Bret Stephens penned an article titled “Bondi Beach Is What ‘Globalize the Intifada’ Looks Like,” arguing that the shooters probably “were taking to heart slogans like ‘resistance is justified,’ and ‘by any means necessary,’ which have become ubiquitous at anti-Israel rallies the world over.”
Iraq-raping war propagandist David Frum wrote a similar article for The Atlantic titled “The Intifada Comes to Bondi Beach,” saying the beach “has been repeatedly targeted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators” and denouncing the fact that “Many in the western world have interpreted post-October 7 anti-Israel actions within the framework of free speech.” The virulently Islamophobic Australian senator Pauline Hanson swiftly slapped together a statement claiming that “the weekly anti-semitic protests across our nation” and “our obnoxious universities” were “warning signs” that such an attack was coming. Sky News hastened to give a platform to Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sharren Haskel in an interview where she declared that “this is what it means” to allow protesters to chant “globalize the intifada”, saying that “if you let that continue and run in your streets,” you are inviting further terrorist attacks. Haskel has previously called pro-Palestine protesters in Australia “useful idiots” for Hamas.
Political dynasty princeling Chris Cuomo took to Twitter to assert that people who’ve been accusing Israel of genocide helped “fuel the hatred on Bondi Beach.” The Jewish Chronicle’s Stephen Pollard tweeted a video of pro-Palestine protesters in Birmingham with the caption “It you deny the connection between this and what happened at Bondi Beach you are part of the problem.”
A viral tweet from Australian right-wing social media personality Kobie Thatcher features a video of a pro-Palestine protest with the caption “This was Sydney, Australia, just 6 months ago. These scenes should have been an urgent warning.” From the earliest moments after this attack, Israel apologists have taken it as a given that it was an act of terrorism in response to Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza, but then framing the people peacefully protesting those atrocities as the problem. They’re openly acknowledging that the genocide is violently radicalizing people, but instead of coming to the obvious conclusion that Israel should therefore not commit genocide, they’re citing it as evidence that people should stop protesting the genocide. They could blame the shooting on the actual shooters. They could blame the people committing genocide for radicalizing the shooters. But instead they’re blaming the violence on the most peaceful people in the equation: the ones holding signs and saying violent massacres should NOT happen. It’s about the craziest, most evil manipulation you could possibly come up with.
After the Manchester synagogue attack this past October, I made the observation that , “Whenever western Jews get hurt these days you always see the Israel supporters having a big parade where they go ‘Okay that’s it, wrap it up, nobody gets to criticize Israel’s behavior anymore because you’re causing terrorism!’ And then everyone ignores them and goes back to protesting the genocide, because that’s ridiculous.”
We’re seeing that same parade again today, and it’s just as ridiculous now as it was then. Massacring civilians is wrong. It’s wrong in Bondi Beach, and it’s wrong in Gaza. Today, the worst people in the world are trying to claim that because the former happened, everyone needs to stop protesting the latter. This is pure, cynical manipulation designed to protect a genocidal apartheid state from criticism. It deserves nothing but a scoff and a dismissal.
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🇮🇱: *massacres children*
🇮🇱: *starves civilians*
🇮🇱: *bombs hospitals*
🇮🇱: *assassinates journalists*
🇮🇱: *kills aid workers*
🇮🇱: *kills starving civilians seeking aid*
🇮🇱: *lies about everything*
🇮🇱: *bombs 🇮🇷*
🇮🇷: *bombs 🇮🇱*
🌎: 🥳🙌🥂
🇮🇱: They hate us because of our religion😭— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) June 19, 2025
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This is a dispatch from our ongoing series by Caitlin Johnstone
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Photo Credit: GDA via AP
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