This Was Not a Surprise: How "Ambiguous" Rhetoric Made Jewish Violence Predictable
After the attacks at Bondi Beach and the Heaton synagogue, a familiar script played out.
Shock. Condemnation. Vigils. Statements insisting that the violence was "horrific" and "unacceptable."
And then — the performance of disbelief.
The wide-eyed insistence that no one could have seen this coming.
For many Jews, that reaction felt not just hollow, but insulting.
Because this did not come out of nowhere. It followed a pattern that was warned about repeatedly, dismissed repeatedly, and is now being met with a kind of theatrical amnesia.
Step One: Normalize Violent Language
For more than two years, chants like "Globalize the intifada" have echoed through Western cities, campuses, and marches.
Defenders insist these slogans are "ambiguous."
They say intifada just means "resistance."
They argue it can be interpreted spiritually, politically, or metaphorically.
This is not naïveté. It is motivated denial.
Historically, the intifadas were violent uprisings defined by suicide bombings, shootings, and mass attacks on civilians — overwhelmingly Jews. To "globalize" that framework is not a call for justice or peace. It is a call to universalize a model of political violence.
Pretending otherwise requires ignoring history on purpose.
Step Two: Jews Warn What This Leads To
Jewish communities did not stay silent.
They said, clearly and consistently:
- This language lowers the moral and social barriers to violence against Jews.
- It frames Jewish civilians worldwide as legitimate extensions of a conflict zone.
- It will be taken literally by the most radical and unstable people — not as poetry, but as permission.
They asked universities, councils, police, and governments to draw a line — not against protest, but against rhetoric explicitly rooted in violent campaigns.
They were told they were exaggerating.
They were told this was just "uncomfortable speech."
They were told there was no evidence this would lead to real-world harm.
Step Three: Authorities Choose Passivity
Institutions chose the path of least resistance.
Rather than stating "this language is dangerous and unacceptable," authorities hid behind process and ambiguity:
- The slogans were "not explicit enough."
- Intent was "hard to prove."
- Action might "escalate tensions."
This was not neutrality. It was abdication.
When Jewish safety concerns are endlessly debated while everyone else's are treated as self-evident, the message is clear: Jewish risk is theoretical, until it isn't.
Step Four: Shock — Predictable Shock
Then Jews are attacked.
And suddenly, the same voices that spent months dismissing warnings react with astonishment.
How could this happen?
Who could have imagined such a thing?
Nobody could have predicted this.
This is not confusion. It is disbelief in response to an outcome that was explicitly forecast.
No one is claiming a chant magically caused an attack.
The claim is simpler, and harder to evade: When you normalize violent language, dismiss the people most at risk, and refuse to set boundaries, violence becomes more likely.
Acting shocked afterward is not innocence. It is avoidance.
Condemnation Without Reckoning Is Meaningless
"Yes, this was terrible" is the bare minimum.
It is also where responsibility keeps stopping.
What is consistently refused is acknowledgment of the ecosystem that made Jewish fear reasonable:
- Violent revolutionary slogans are laundered as metaphor.
- Jewish objections are framed as political inconvenience.
- Every attack is treated as an isolated bolt from the blue.
And every time, the cycle resets.
The Moral Question No One Wants to Answer
This is not ultimately a legal debate. It is a moral one.
A society that genuinely cared about preventing antisemitic violence would not obsess over whether "globalize the intifada" meets the narrowest possible legal definition of incitement. It would ask a far simpler question:
Why are Jews uniquely expected to tolerate language rooted in campaigns of mass murder against them?
Until that question is confronted honestly, the pattern will repeat: Normalization → Warning → Dismissal → Violence → Shock → Denial.
And Jews will once again be told that what they saw coming was, somehow, unforeseeable.
It was foreseeable.
It was foreseen.
And pretending otherwise is part of the problem.