Years of Ignored Antisemitism Led to Terror in Australia — and the Media Helped Normalize It

Years of hatred and antisemitism that was swept aside or outright denied led to one of the most horrific attacks on the Jewish people in Australia.

The warning signs were unmistakable more than two years ago: chants of “gas the Jews” outside the Sydney Opera House days after October 7; “Jew die” graffiti scrawled outside a Jewish school; a synagogue firebombed; and a Jewish community that made clear, again and again, that it did not feel safe or protected.

A terrorist attack targeting the Jewish community should not be what it takes for the world to pay attention to the undeniable rise in antisemitism.

And yet, even now, it appears that many are still unwilling to acknowledge the attack was antisemitic.

Despite the terrorists specifically aiming at the crowd gathered at the Hanukkah event, there was initial reluctance to name the Jewish community as the target.

Rather, the attack was framed in vague terms as part of a broader act of violence and a public safety issue in Australia. This reluctance to call out antisemitism is not incidental, but part of the pattern that allowed it to foster unchecked for so long.

As the news coverage on the attack continued, outlets slowly started to shift the story away from the victims of the attack and towards the terrorists who carried it out.

While understanding the motive and background has a place in responsible reporting, many outlets instead crossed a dangerous line by subtly humanizing the perpetrators while sidelining the Jewish victims.

1/
 How terrorists who murder Jews are quietly humanized in media coverage.

Not through praise – but through framing, emphasis, and omission.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. pic.twitter.com/nOuZM0ni7V

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 16, 2025

One headline in Newsweek focused on the attacker’s relationship with his family, quoting that his mother considered him a “good boy.” But what his mother thought of him before the attack should not have been headline news — the fact that he took part in mass murdering people at a Hanukkah event should have.

The pain and trauma of the victims’ families and survivors deserved the center of the story, rather than emotional character references for the terrorist.

The Irish Times similarly stressed the terrorists had no criminal background, omitting their ISIS-inspired ideology and once again framing them as ordinary, well-meaning people.

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Let’s start with this headline from @Newsweek:
“Mom of Bondi terror attack suspect says he was a ‘good boy’”

Pause on that.

This is not context. It’s emotional laundering – shifting attention from victims to the feelings of the terrorist’s family. pic.twitter.com/vquSod2nM3

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 16, 2025

The BBC likewise whitewashed the crimes of the terrorists by refusing to call them terrorists at all. Instead, they were described merely as “gunmen,” a term so sanitized that readers would have no idea from the headline that they carried out a deadly attack on Jews.

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Humanization also shows up in language choices.

“Terrorists” become gunmen. “Murder” becomes an incident. A mass-casualty attack on Jews becomes something that “happened at Bondi Beach.”

This @bbc headline doesn’t even tell readers that people were killed. pic.twitter.com/wPelNy8Aov

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 16, 2025

Meanwhile, Sky News shifted the focus from the Jewish victims to warn that Muslims in Australia may feel unsafe. This creates a moral inversion that recasts the aftermath of an antisemitic terror attack as a story about the potential discomfort of an entirely different community.

This inversion completes a familiar pattern where Jewish victims disappear, antisemitism becomes abstract, and the media moves on without ever confronting the hatred that made the attack possible.

Jews are massacred in an Islamist terror attack.@SkyNews’ response: bring on an imam to warn that Muslims may now feel unsafe.

Victims erased.
Violence inverted.
Sympathy redirected away from the dead. pic.twitter.com/K78sZtWbuX

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 17, 2025

When explicit calls to murder Jews are dismissed as isolated incidents, when attacks on Jewish institutions are minimized, and when Jewish fear is treated as political exaggeration, violence becomes inevitable. A terrorist attack against Jews in Australia is the consequence of sustained denial, indifference, and moral failure. The minimization of antisemitic incidents and violence against the Jewish people in the media contributes to the vicious cycle.

Antisemitism does not begin with terror attacks. It begins when warning signs are ignored — and it will continue until institutions, leaders, and the media are willing to say clearly and unequivocally that Jews were targeted because they are Jews.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.