Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
After the Bondi Beach attack, there were public figures who
could not bring themselves to describe the victims as Jews or to call the
attack antisemitic. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was one of them.
In a statement released soon after the attack, Albanese said
only that his “thoughts were with every person affected.” He did not mention
Jews. He did not mention antisemitism. He did not say why the victims were
targeted.
Albanese had no difficulty recognizing a Palestinian state
that does not exist and never has. Yet he could not publicly acknowledge that
Jews were murdered because they were Jews.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did acknowledge
it. He also said he had warned Albanese months earlier about where this kind of
language ends.
“On August 17, about four months ago, I sent Prime Minister Albanese of Australia a letter in which I warned that the Australian government’s policy was promoting and encouraging antisemitism in Australia.
I wrote: ‘Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire. It rewards Hamas terrorists. It emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets.’
Antisemitism is a cancer. It spreads when leaders stay silent; it retreats when leaders act.
Instead, Prime Minister, you replaced weakness with weakness and appeasement with more appeasement. Your government did nothing. You let the disease spread. The result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.”
Albanese was not the only one to obscure the Jewish identity
of the Bondi Beach victims.
Oprah
Winfrey wrote, “My heart breaks for the victims, their families and loved
ones, and all you Aussies.”
There was no mention of Jews or antisemitism.
Israeli American Council (IAC) CEO Elan Carr called Winfrey out,
referring to the missing identification of the victims as Jews in her statement
as "obfuscation."
“Oprah’s neglect to name the actual targets and victims of
the attack, Jews celebrating Hanukkah, conceals both the true nature of this
horrific event and the appalling surge in antisemitism that gave rise to it,”
said IAC CEO Elan S. Carr, a former US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat
Antisemitism. “For a public figure to express sorrow over the attack without
saying that it was an antisemitic mass murder of Jews during their celebration
of a holiday is precisely the sort of misguided obfuscation that allows
antisemitism to flourish.”
Just as we now have ample evidence from the global reaction to the massacre of October 7 that terror begets terror, we also have evidence that omitting to call attacks "antisemitic," or the victims "Jews" begets more of the same. In 2015, for example, then President Obama famously referred to the 2015 shooting at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris that left four Jews dead as a random shooting of “a bunch of folks in a deli.”
Former White House secretary Jen Psaki, when pressed to explain her boss’ assertion that the victims were “random,” doubled down, knowing full well that calling the Hyper Cacher shooting “random” was immoral and a complete falsehood.
I created a transcript of the exchange between veteran AP journalist Matt Lee and Psaki to show all the nervous stutters that gave her away.
Matt Lee: Yesterday uh, the President in his news conference raised some eyebrows by saying that the victims, of the, uh, shooting in Paris at the kosher deli were uh “random.” Um, your colleague at the White House apparently said something similar today. Um, doe. . . is that, really, I mean, does the Administration really believe that these peop-that the, the victims of this attack were, were not, uh singled out because they were of a particular faith?
Jen Psaki: Well as you know, I believe, if I remember the victims specifically there were, they were not all victims of one background or one nationality. So, I think what they mean by that is, I don’t know that they spoke to the targeting of the grocery store or that of the specific individuals who were impacted.
Matt Lee: Well. I mean, right, but when the Secretary went and paid respects to he was with a member of the Jewish community there.
Jen Psaki: Naturally, given that it’s the, the na-th-th-th th-the grocery store is one that uh,
Matt Lee: Well don’t you think that the target, maybe, even if all the victims, e-even if the victims came from different backgrounds, from different religions, different nationalities, was the target, the store itself was the target. Was it not? I mean. . .
Jen Psaki: But that’s different than the individuals being. I don’t have any more to really. . .
Matt Lee: All right, well, does the Administration believe this was an anti-Jewish, uh, uh attack on, an attack on the Jewish community in Paris?
Jen Psaki: I don’t think we’re going to speak on behalf of French authorities and what they believe was, uh, the situation at, at play here.
Matt Lee: Yeah, but if a guy goes into a, a, a, a, a kosher market and starts shooting it up, you know, he’s not looking for Buddhists is he?
Jen Psaki: Well again, Matt, I think it’s relevant that obviously the individuals in there who were shopping and working at the store. . .
Matt Lee: Who does one ex . . . who does the Administration expect shops at a kosher, I mean I would like but you know, an attacker, going into a store that is clearly identified as being one of you know, as, as identified with one specific faith. I’m not sure I can, I understand how it is that you can’t say that this was a, that this is was, that this is not a targeted attack.
Jen Psaki: I don’t have anything more on this for you Matt, this is a topic for the French government to address.
Psaki was flat out lying when she told Lee, “Well as you know, I
believe, if I remember the victims specifically there were, they were not all
victims of one background or one nationality.”
The backpedaling of the Obama administration was, of course, not long in coming. We were lied to by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest who tweeted that the administration’s views “had not changed,” that Obama had never meant to suggest that the attack was anything but antisemitic.
And not long after Jen Psaki refused to say the victims were Jews, she falsely claimed on Twitter that the White House administration had “always been clear that the attack . . . was an anti-semitic [sic] attack.”Our view has not changed. Terror attack at Paris Kosher market was motivated by anti-Semitism. POTUS didn't intend to suggest otherwise.
— J Earnest (Archived) (@PressSec44) February 10, 2015
We have always been clear that the attack on the kosher grocery store was an anti-semitic attack that took the lives of innocent people.
— State Department Spokesperson 2013-2025 (@statedeptspox_a) February 10, 2015
It’s a funny thing: When Jews are murdered, the people at the
top of the food chain—government officials and celebrities—suddenly go
nonspecific. They say “victims” or “families.” They say, “people affected.”
But they won’t say the J word: “Jews.”
Even before the Hyper Cacher attack, the Obama White House
tried very hard to not talk about Jews when they were victims of terror. A year
earlier, when Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel were kidnapped (and subsequently murdered), it took six days for the White House to respond, even though one of
the teens, Naftali Fraenkel, was an American citizen.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of 3 Israeli teens who were kidnapped last week. May they be reunited with their sons soon.
— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) June 17, 2014
Then, during a press conference, Jen Psaki couldn’t bring herself to utter Naftali’s name, or perhaps as she claimed, she simply couldn’t remember it.
MS. PSAKI: Go ahead, Jo.
Question: Can I ask if you have a privacy waiver for the - one of the teenagers?
MS. PSAKI: We do, yes. So we can confirm that one of the kidnapped was an American citizen.
QUESTION: Which one?
MS. PSAKI: I believe his name has been reported. I don't have it in front of me right now.
Again and again, when Jews are targeted, the language
changes. Specific words disappear. Everything becomes vague. By choice. Everyone knows who was
attacked and they know why. But some people choose to omit the truth.
It's not that they've forgotten who was murdered. They haven't lost the words. It's that they've carefully chosen which words to use. They'll say “victims" or "families." They'll say “people affected.” But they won't say “Jews.”
Because when Jews are murdered and no one says they are Jews, the killing is stripped of its reason. The victims lose their identity. The attack becomes just another “random” act of violence.
Leave the victims unnamed and the crime can be treated like any other crime. Nothing about it is Jewish. Nothing about it is special.
You can murder Jews, and afterward it will be spoken about
as if it had nothing to do with Jews at all. But when nothing is named, there
is nothing to stop the next attack. And right now, at least, that seems to be
what most of the world would like to see.
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