After Bondi Beach: What Owen Jones’s Comments Section Tells Us About Antisemitism Online
In the aftermath of the horrific atrocity targeting Jews celebrating Chanukah at Chanukah by the Sea on Bondi Beach in Sydney on Sunday 14 December 2025 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-14/bondi-beach-shooting-terrorist-attack-12-dead/106141580), well-known left-wing journalist and author Owen Jones posted a condemnation on social media.
This article is not about Jones or allegations relating to him. It’s also not about the politics of the Middle East. This article is an attempt to analyse the response to his post.
That a Chanukah event in a diaspora community was be targeted shows how in the minds of the attackers (and from social media, many others), any Jew can be responsible for events in Israel/Palestine. The degree to which attendees at the Chanukah lighting are associated with Israel or Zionism should be in no way relevant to the attack or the condemnation of the attack. These were civilians halfway around the world celebrating a religious festival.
I. The Core Finding: Antisemitism as the Dominant Response in this Thread
To understand the form and nature of this phenomenon, I downloaded around 1,000 responses to Jones’s post. As the people commenting are unlikely to contain normative sentiment, it is important to caveat that this analysis is not supposed to be reflecting the general views of “the left.” I used AI to categorize the responses, then went through each one manually to validate and correct the results.
You can view the analysis work here. https://www.saasuk.org/research/bondi-beach-responses
What I found was stark in this sample of 1,000 comments:
Around 50% to 60% of the comments (circa 500 to 600) were overtly antisemitic.
A further 13% were deflection or whataboutery, many of which could also be classified as antisemitic.
15% were attacking Owen Jones, mostly for his alleged part in increasing hostility towards Jews via his Palestine advocacy.
Around 8% were praising the “Muslim hero” who intervened and saved lives, and around 7% were Islamophobic comments. The other approx. 7% could not be categorised.
A necessary caveat: Now of course his social media followers are likely to be mostly left wing, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel to some degree or another. People posting on social media are usually those who have strong feelings one way or another.
But what this analysis shows is how antisemitism and antisemitic attacks now breed and multiply antisemitic sentiment online. Whereas in the past we would have expected largely condemnation, in this era we see amplification of hate.
II. The Shape of the Comments: Reframing Victims as Perpetrators
A lot of people did not dispute that the attack was horrific. They simply refused to let Jews be victims in a way that is morally uncomplicated.
Instead, the comments repeatedly did one of four things:
Deny the antisemitic character of the attack
Redirect blame away from the perpetrator and onto Jews
Reframe the attack as a strategic manoeuvre by Israel
Insist that Jewish civilians are legitimate targets because of Gaza
III. Deep Dive: The False Flag Reflex
The vast majority of the antisemitic replies were around the conspiracy that this was a false flag operation, that Mossad or another Israeli agency was behind it. These posts often included references to 9/11, October 7th, the Heaton Park synagogue attack on Yom Kippur, and the claims were that these were all perpetrated by Israel, they were all false flags (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/manchester-synagogue-terror-attack-statement).
This is conspiracy-minded thinking, based on faked images and speculative rumours that seem to either offer a more palatable alternative to someone’s worldview, or support their geopolitical framework. It is a modern version of an old story: Jews are behind world events, Jews are always plotting. Even when Jews bleed, the “real” explanation must be that Jews arranged it.
In practical terms, this “false flag reflex” functions like a moral solvent: If Israel or Mossad did it, then you do not need to feel empathy. You can treat the whole thing as propaganda and move on. It also creates a permission structure for the next escalation, because once “they” are believed to be staging attacks, any retaliation can be framed as self defence against manipulation.
False Flag Examples:
“The forever victims. Most antisemitic attacks in the United States are perpetrated by Jews in order to Garner sympathy several have been arrested.” (This is the false flag claim in its pure form: Jews manufacture persecution to gain power, sympathy, or leverage. The words Israel and Zionist are not even mentioned here.)
“The Jews are now sacrificing there own for sympathy… this is a new low”. (Again: even Jewish victims are recast as Jewish perpetrators.)
IV. Deep Dive: Whataboutism and Collective Scapegoating
Many other comments are blaming the “genocide” in Gaza for this, which is classic whataboutery and lets the perpetrators off the hook. The biggest thread is conflating Australian Jews with the actions of Israel in Gaza.
This matters because it is not just “changing the subject.” It is an argument about collective responsibility. The structure is: Jews, anywhere, are responsible for Israel. Israel is doing something horrific. Therefore Jews, anywhere, deserve consequences.
That is the logic of scapegoating. It is also how you attempt to make hatred sound like political commentary. You do not have to say “I hate Jews.” You simply say “actions have consequences” while treating an Australian family at a Chanukah lighting as a legitimate stand-in for a government half a world away.
Collective Scapegoating Examples:
“i wonder if people who claim to be jewish did anything that might fuel this kind of behavior? what could it be… hmmmmm”. (This is victim blaming with a wink. It implies hidden Jewish provocation, not even hiding behind the word Zionist.)
“Jews are a worldwide problem”. (This is overt dehumanisation and collective condemnation. It is the oldest form of antisemitism: Jews as a malign force in the world.)
“Problem is many Jews around the world support the Holocaust against Palestinians... I don’t want see anyone harmed but I’m not gonna be shocked when it spills over to outside Israel”. (This both instrumentalises the Holocaust and turns “spill over” into a shrug. It is the “I condemn it but” posture, where the “but” does all the work.)
“Also following judaism does not by default make you semetic! Even jews know this!!”. (A common way of making antisemitism ‘kosher’ is to attempt to prevent the term antisemitic being used, even though it’s always only referred to Jews and not to other semites.)
V. The Role of Social Media: An Amplifier for Hate
A reasonable question is whether the online ecosystem is simply reflecting hatred, or actively fertilising it.
A real world attack happens. A prominent figure condemns it. The replies flood in, reframing the victims as perpetrators, turning empathy into suspicion, and turning condemnation into “context.” That narrative is then available, immediately, to the next person who is already looking for permission.
The research landscape here is still developing. There is academic evidence that changes in online hate exposure can be associated with changes in offline violence:
One widely cited study on Germany found that higher Facebook usage and higher exposure to anti-refugee sentiment on Facebook was linked to increased attacks against refugees, suggesting social media can act as an amplifier for real world hate crime patterns: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3082972
There is also research linking online anti-Muslim hate and offline anti-Muslim hate crime, showing how the two can reinforce each other rather than existing as separate domains: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27740/1/5299_Zempi.pdf
And work on how online hate incidents and offline hate incidents can peak in tandem, even beyond obvious trigger events, adds to the broader picture: https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/60/1/93/5537169
None of this means that every vile comment causes an attack. But it does mean we should stop treating comment sections as harmless steam vents. They are not only expressions. They are rehearsals for how people justify cruelty and embed dehumanisation.
Next, I’m going to take four of the most widely shared false flag claims and walk through what they get wrong, with visuals.