After the nauseating, horrifying anti-Semitic attack on Jewish Australians as they celebrated

Hanukkah together, full of joy and happiness, on Bondi Beach, Sydney, in Australia,

I didn't want to talk about Israel and its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.

Unfortunately, Israel and its cheerleaders have decided otherwise.

They have decided to turn this hideous attack into an opportunity to justify genocide against the

Palestinian people and to shut down those who oppose that genocide, and in fact

to demonise anyone who, in the mildest possible way, supports national self-determination

for the Palestinian people. Here's what I wanted to talk about. What I want to talk about

is the very real evil of anti-Semitism, which is a hatred, which within living memory,

culminated in the show, the Holocaust, the industrialized extermination of the Jewish people in

Europe, killing six million, two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population, a very short period of time,

as well as obviously the anti-Semitism, which has existed long before that,

and then long after that, predating Israel and its foundation. And the way it's rising now,

you know, I'd want to talk about the responsibility that we all have, not least, well,

well, sorry, when I say not least, I say not least on the left because we have a

consistent view about justice and equality, but a responsibility to ensure that those in the

Jewish diaspora feel safe and secure, that they feel that they don't have to, you know, flee for

their lives as their ancestors did when things suddenly turn against them in the country

which is their hope. What I want to talk about is unity against hatred, how all of us, whatever

communities need to come together and stand against anti-Semitism and those who wish to hurt

and murder Jewish people.

I want to talk about the horror on that iconic beach as Jewish Australians gathered

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