For Australia's Jews, Bondi shooting feels tragically inevitable |
By Byron Kaye and Pete Mckenzie
SYDNEY, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Days after Hamas attacked Israel in 2023, killing some 1,200 people and sparking the war in Gaza, an inverted red triangle was spray-painted on the front of a Jewish bakery in Sydney, the first of a string of antisemitic incidents in Australia.
Sixteen months and thousands of arson, firebombing, graffiti and hate-speech incidents later, the head of the nation's main intelligence agency declared that antisemitism was his number one priority in terms of threat to life.
Sunday's shooting attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach, which killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens, brought to reality a fear that many Australian Jews say........