Analysts Accuse Netanyahu of Creating Political Scenario from Sydney Incident

IQNA – The Sydney attack resulted in casualties sparked widespread political and media reactions, including a debate about the consequences and contexts for its exploitation by Israel.

According to analysts, the Israeli prime minister is creating a scenario by linking the Sydney incident to anti-war protests, politically exploiting the security threat to Jews in the West.

While Australian officials insist on describing the attack that targeted Jews celebrating Hanukkah in the famous Bondi Beach area near Sydney as a reprehensible crime that requires investigation, Israel quickly linked the attack to anti-Semitism and the recognition of a Palestinian state, which led to different interpretations of its objectives.

Dr. Rateb Junaid, president of the Federation of Islamic Councils in Australia, told Al Jazeera that the attack must be separated from any political exploitation, stressing that targeting civilians is unacceptable regardless of the motive.

This stance coincided with widespread religious and social condemnations in Australia, which emphasized the protection of the social fabric and, given the sensitivity of the situation following the ongoing war on Gaza, rejected any attempt to impose responsibility for individual actions on any group or political position.

However, the path chosen by the Israeli regime in dealing with the incident has been to expand its consequences, which observers see as part of Tel Aviv’s usual policy of trying to link any violence that occurs outside occupied Palestinian territories to the global anti-Semitic discourse.

Netanyahu’s Political Exploitation

Muhnad Mustafa, a university professor and expert on Israel, believes that Netanyahu has exploited the incident politically by linking it to protests against the genocidal war in Gaza and attempting to portray the movements as a security threat to Jews in the West.

According to the analysis, this comes at a time when Sydney has taken official positions that contradict Israeli policies, including recognizing the state of Palestine and allowing large-scale demonstrations in support of Gaza, which have made the country a direct target of Israeli criticism.

However, the details of the incident themselves complicated the discourse, after investigations revealed that the man who confronted one of the attackers and seized his weapon was a Muslim, a scene that was widely applauded in Australian society.

These details reduced Israel’s ability to present the incident as evidence of escalating religious hostility and once again highlighted the danger of political generalization.

Although Netanyahu later retracted his initial description of the identity of those who tried to thwart the attack, Israeli discourse, as analysts see it, has continued to ignore this dimension, preferring to focus on exerting political pressure on Western governments.

In this context, Mustafa stated, Israel has expanded the concept of anti-Semitism to the point where it now includes any criticism of Israeli policies or protest against its war in Gaza, which has led to the term losing its influence in Western public opinion.

Salah al-Din al-Qadri, a university professor and specialist in Arab and Islamic affairs, addressed the dimensions of the response to the incident at the European level, distinguishing between the positions of some Western governments and the growing popular sentiment in European societies.

Al-Qadri argued that a broad European public has become more aware of the distinction between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as a political project, making attempts to link solidarity with the Palestinians to anti-Semitism less acceptable.

This awareness, he argued, was reinforced by the scenes of war in Gaza and the scale of human casualties, particularly among civilians and children, and has shifted the priorities of humanitarian empathy among large sections of Western society.

Social media has also helped to break the monopoly of this traditional narrative by transmitting images and details of the war without mediation, which has weakened the ability of official Israeli discourse to control public opinion.

In Australia in particular, given the official emphasis on supporting freedom of expression and rejecting the association of peaceful protest with violence, the government’s chances of giving in to Israeli pressure seem limited.

Observers believe that any retreat by Australia from these principles could open the door to internal tensions and undermine mutual trust between components of society, which would raise the cost of responding to political provocations.

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