Don’t Blame the Australia Attack on Palestinian Statehood
Advocates for Israel are claiming that support for Palestinian statehood entails violence against Jews. That’s wrong—and it’s a recipe for terrorism.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, President Bill Clinton outlined a proposal for a Palestinian state. Since then, every president—George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump—has endorsed the idea. But after Hamas massacred Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, Trump backed off. And in September, as several Western countries moved to recognize a Palestinian state, Trump warned that to do so would reward Hamas for its atrocities.
Now, in the wake of Sunday’s mass shooting of Jews in Bondi Beach, Australia, many supporters of Israel have shifted their position again. Any endorsement of Palestinian statehood, they contend, is an invitation to antisemitic violence.
This is a false and dangerous argument. If you tell people that accepting Palestinian statehood is tantamount to promoting or provoking the murder of Jews, you’re erasing the nuances that make coexistence possible. You’re conflating Palestinian autonomy with opposition to Israel. You’re conflating opposition to Israel with hostility to Jews. And you’re conflating hostility to Jews with murder.
All of these conflations serve the interests of antisemitic terrorists. Their goal is to polarize the issue. They want to equate supporting Palestine with killing Jews. Prominent supporters of Israel are now, in effect, endorsing that equation.
ON AUGUST 11, Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, announced that his country would soon recognize a Palestinian state. Albanese said this plan was contingent on Palestinian commitments to demilitarize and to recognize Israel’s right to exist. He also stipulated that “there can be no role for Hamas in a Palestinian state.”
In an August 17 letter to Albanese, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Australia’s decision. “Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on this antisemitic fire,” he wrote. “It rewards Hamas terror . . . , emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets.”
On Sunday, after the Bondi attack, Netanyahu declared that his warning had come true. “I told him, ‘Your policy encourages terrorism. It encourages antisemitism,” Netanyahu said of Albanese. “You call for a Palestinian state, and you are essentially giving a prize to Hamas for the terrible massacre they carried out on October 7th.”
In the two days since Netanyahu linked Australia’s endorsement of Palestinian statehood to the Bondi attack, Fox News has aired a parade of politicians, anchors, and Israel advocates repeating the same talking point. Daniel Flesch, a Heritage Foundation analyst and former adviser to Israel’s U.N. mission, claimed that by “recognizing a Palestinian state,” Albanese had contributed to an “open season on Jewish people” in which “an attack like this is understandable.” Joel Burnie, the executive manager of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, told Fox, “There is a direct connection [from] what happened in Bondi yesterday to my government’s position on Israel.”
Mor Greenberg, a pro-Israel media adviser, told the network, “The Australian government rewarded the terrorists. They rewarded Hamas with a Palestinian state. What do you think happens when you reward terror? It just brings more terror.” On CNN, she elaborated: “When you reward terror, it just invites the next attack. And we saw that today.”
On Sunday Morning Futures, three U.S. senators lined up to echo the Netanyahu line. “To every Western government who’s recognized a Palestinian state: You’re rewarding killing Jews,” said Senator Lindsey Graham. “What happened in Australia should be a word of warning: When you appease those who kill Jews, you get more killing of Jews.”
Senator John Fetterman (D-Penn.), speaking after Graham, asserted that Australia’s call for “a two-state solution when Hamas refuses to disarm” was a “reward” for terrorists who “are actively trying to kill Jews.” And Senator Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) implied that supporting Palestinians meant hating Jews. “Americans are not antisemitic. Americans are not pro-Palestinian. They don’t want to see death to Israel,” said Hagerty.
On Monday, in another Fox News interview about the Bondi shooting, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) agreed with Netanyahu and Fetterman. “Australia and some European nations have recognized a nonexistent Palestinian state,” he lamented, calling this a “blatant reward for Hamas’s depraved attack on Israel.” Fox News hosts and pro-Israel commentators joined in drawing the connection. “Given the leadership right now of these Palestinian factions,” said Ari Fleischer, Bush’s former press secretary, “Any call for a two-state solution is a call for more violence.”
On Monday night, Graham was back at it, telling Sean Hannity that the blood of the Bondi victims was on Albanese’s hands. “Bibi told the prime minister, ‘If you recognize a Palestinian state after October the 7th, then you’re going to put the Jews of Australia in harm’s way,” said Graham. “And he did it anyway.”
IT’S PERFECTLY REASONABLE to argue that the Australian government hasn’t done enough to police and deter antisemitic acts, and that this may have contributed to the tragedy in Bondi. It’s also reasonable to insist that Palestinian statehood be contingent on a commitment to peace. But when that requirement is stipulated, along with the exclusion of Hamas, it’s hard to explain why statehood should still be ruled out.
As of this writing, no evidence has been produced to show that Australia’s recognition of Palestinian sovereignty influenced the Bondi shooters. Instead, at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon in Australia (i.e., Monday night in the United States), Albanese and investigators described evidence—in particular, flags found in the car of the alleged shooters—that suggested they were motivated by “Islamic State ideology.”
If Israel is going to live peacefully alongside its Arab neighbors, and if it’s going to remain Jewish and democratic, there will have to be a Palestinian state. And if you stand in the way, claiming that anyone who supports such a state must condone or encourage the killing of Jews, the danger is that more and more people, including those who support the Palestinian cause, will believe you.
The attack on the Jewish community at Bondi Beach is despicable and should be unambiguously condemned. There is no acceptance of violence in Australia and the nation is shocked and saddened by it. Australia has rallied around the Jewish community with vigils, massive donations of blood to blood banks to assist the injured and bipartisan support to revisit and strengthen our already restrictive gun ownership laws and hate-speech laws.
It is completely unwarranted, irresponsible and disrespectful for the Israeli government to try leverage this tragedy for their own political ends. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Moshe Sa'ar, was haranguing Prime Minister Albanese on Sunday with his critique of perceived failures of the Australian Government to protect Jewish Australians while victims and survivors were still being treated at the scene, there was still blood on the ground and most Australians were still trying to take it all in. The Prime Minister was still being briefed on the incident and Bondi was an active crime scene. It's obscene the haste with which Israeli political figures have weighed in with blame verging on insult heaped upon elected Australian officials.
The Israeli government has rushed to judgement linking the mass shooting to recent protests in support of Gaza and the Australian Government's steps towards recognition of a Palestinian State. The latest reporting about the gunmen is they are sympathisers of ISIS. ISIS does not support Hamas and doesn't see the establishment of a Palestinian State as a priority. So the gunmen were antisemitic but not likely to have been motivated by issues around Gaza or a Palestinian State more broadly. Those facts have no immediate utility in the furtherance of Israeli Government's war in Gaza and opposition to a Palestinian State but it won't stop them pushing the narrative that somehow in-principle support for a Palestinian State and voicing shock and concern for IDF's appalling human rights violations in Gaza is tantamount to condoning and encouraging antisemitic violence.
In Australia one can be against antisemitism and condemn it, deplore Hamas's attacks on Israel and call for them to stop, appalled by the Israeli Government's inhumane actions in Gaza and seek an end to them and for the establishment of a Palestinian State so long as it meets conditions to ensure peaceful co-existence going forward.
This reminds me of people who behave as if due process is a reward for only certain types of people. If Israel has a right to exist-- if a people has a right to a state, and the privileges accorded with sovereignty, then surely the Palestinians also have a right to statehood (whether with equal rights in Israel or with their own state).
This is a centuries old imperial sleight of hand: denying statehood so that infringement of sovereignty and denial of basic human rights can be rationalized. One can make a case that terrorism is an act of political desperation from a national identity that has been denied its sovereignty, and so continuing on that course, acting as if it is a "reward" for good behavior, is reprehensible. One does not "earn" human rights through any act other than being born human.