The shocking terrorist attack in Australia last week – in which a radicalized Muslim father-son kill team shattered the peace of a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach, shooting and killing 15 innocents – is only the latest in a series of antisemitic incidents around the world that remind us that the world’s oldest bigotry is an issue that, increasingly, demands attention.
President Trump has been paying attention.
Sadly, the rise in antisemitism is not a story confined to one country or one culture. In May of 2024, French police killed an attacker after he set fire to a synagogue and threatened police in Rouen. The following month, Greece’s anti-terrorism police arrested seven people after arson attacks in Athens against a synagogue in May and an Israeli-owned hotel in June. In February of this year, an attacker stabbed and critically injured a tourist at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Germany. Two months ago, in Manchester, in the United Kingdom, an attacker drove his car into pedestrians and then stabbed innocents outside a synagogue during Yom Kippur, killing two and injuring another three.
It’s not just overseas. We’ve had our share of antisemitic attacks here in the United States, too. For instance, in Washington, D.C., in May of this year, two young Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed as they left an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum. Less than two weeks later, in Boulder, Colo., an Egyptian national attacked people at a solidarity walk for Israelis held hostage in Gaza, throwing Molotov cocktails and brandishing a homemade flamethrower. And just this week, there have been multiple incidents in New York City.
Everywhere people gather, it seems, there is a risk that antisemitism will rear its ugly head.
When, shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas assaults on Israel, I visited the Atlanta Jewish Federation to view a video of the terrorist attacks that required an official of the Israeli government to present it, I was already a bit nervous about what I was going to see. I heard the terrible news but had not yet seen the graphic video. I steeled myself emotionally as I left my car to enter the building because I knew it was going to be a difficult couple of hours.
As I sat in the room, waiting for the program to begin, I noticed that the walls were adorned with blue call boxes, similar to red fire alarm boxes. I discreetly inquired and learned they were emergency call boxes to alert the police should an attack happen in the Jewish Federation building. They were permanently mounted on the walls.
It reminded me, as I waited to watch a video showing the atrocities of the Oct. 7 Sabbath Massacre, that even in my own country – where the freedom of religion is written into our Constitution – the fear of attacks that Jewish people regularly face is heightened and real.
As the various attacks noted above make clear, that heightened and real sense of fear is a rational response to the current risk level.
In the wake of the Sydney attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decried the actions of the Australian government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, saying he had warned Albanese as recently as August about his concern that Albanese’s anti-Israel policy was “pouring fuel on the fires” of antisemitism in Australia. Netanyahu then put the world on notice: “I demand that Western governments do what is necessary to fight antisemitism and provide the required safety and security to Jewish communities worldwide. They would be well-advised to heed our warnings. I demand action from them – now.”
President Trump is taking exactly such action. Speaking at a Hanukkah celebration at the White House on Tuesday evening, the third night of Hanukkah, the President mourned the loss of life in Sydney and said, “All nations must stand together against the evil forces of radical Islamic terrorism, and we’re doing that.”
Doing that, indeed. It wasn’t as if Trump had been waiting around for such an event to be stirred to action: not even 10 days into his second presidency, President Trump signed Executive Order 14188, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” which followed Executive Order 13899, “Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism” from his first term. Days later, the Department of Justice announced a multi-agency task force (including DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services) to combat antisemitism in schools and on college campuses.
Shortly thereafter, the DOJ launched civil rights investigations of major universities for alleged failures to address antisemitic harassment of their own students – and in some cases, withheld or negotiated settlements worth hundreds of millions of dollars over such claims.
And what could be a greater example of standing together with Israel against the forces of radical Islamic terrorism than working with Netanyahu’s government to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites, thereby saving Israel – home to almost half the world’s Jews – from a nuclear Armageddon?
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
(Featured Image Media Credit: via The White House)
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