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HomeRead, Watch, ListenAustralia
OpinionAustraliaZedi

This is not love: it’s delusional and dangerous

A pro-Palestinian protester tried to tell me he wants to protect Jews after the Bondi massacre. I don't buy it.
Simon Starr
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Attendees are seen at Federation Square in Melbourne for

The night after the Bondi Chanukah massacre, Federation Square’s Chanukah event went ahead in solidarity and defiance (Ye Myo Khant/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Published: 18 December 2025

Last updated: 18 December 2025

The night after the Bondi massacre I performed Federation Square's Pillars of Light Chanukah event. I played two sets of music that I felt very uplifted by. With my brother Adam and Swanny on drums, we went pretty hard. 

At the end of the second set, a man waited for me at the front of the stage. He proceeded to tell me that he marches every week with Palestinians, and that he loves me, and that he came to protect the Jews and allow us to practice our faith. 

Phew. Thank God for that. Nice one numb nuts. 

I think it would be uncontroversial to say that he's not doing a very good job. Perhaps even catastrophically bad. 

That's if I put aside the ignorance that went in to him objectifying me in the first place; he knew nothing of my relationship to Judaism the religion, the Jewish culture, the Jewish people, Jewish relationship to land. In saying what he said, he immediately betrayed the fact that he had no idea what he was talking about, and no idea that I knew that. 

My Jewish identity is not at all complicated; but if you can't understand the interrelationship between Jewish peoplehood, ethnicity, culture, religion, land, then you should either ask a lot of questions and enliven your curiosity, or shut the fuck up.

In The Who's song We Won't Get Fooled Again, they sing of how the hypnotised never lie. That can only be true if we take the hypnotised to be incapable of lying outside of the limits of their partitioned world view. What they say may be objectively untrue, even as they believe it to be, and therefore they're not lying. 

I'm fascinated by the amount of mental health co-morbidities that must exist for someone to tell me they love me and that they're protecting me, even as they speak of marching every week in crowds that scream "Death to the IDF", "Globalise the Intifada" and "From the River to the Sea". It takes a special level of delusional arrogance.

As I looked in to this poor sap's eyes, as he condescendingly and pityingly tried to woo me, I realised that we have a longer road ahead than I thought after Sunday night. 

And we can't just heap the blame at the feet of what must surely be the most inept and immoral series of governments in Australian history. Just when you think it couldn't get worse than the shameful disgraces of ScoMo, we reach a new nadir -   the unholy trinity, Albo, Wong and Burke. These people seem to have no actual values or principles other than chasing votes and feathering their nests. If people get the government they deserve, then the traditionally apathetic Australian polity needs a long walk down the hall of mirrors. 

I am reading people's posts blaming Australian Jews for getting killed in Bondi, and I'm not remotely in shock - this has been a steady pattern for more than two years now. The reverend at my high school in the 1980s told the class that the Holocaust happened because the Jews killed Jesus. Blood libels au go go, followed by non-Jews telling us that there's no antisemitism.

And yet, for all that, and for everything that is going on, despite the pain, the fear and hostility people feel in the street, I had a wonderful evening. Music is great. 

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav said the main thing to recall, is to have no fear at all. The Bene Gesserit in Dune recite the litany: I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. 

Because that's all we have. Our selves, our imaginations, our dreams, our truths, our love. Once we let the outside noise evaporate, only we remain.

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About the author

Simon Starr

Simon Starr

Simon Starr is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and performer.

Comments4

  • Avatar of Brett Williams

    Brett Williams11 January at 12:12 am

    Thank you for your perceptive and well written and article 👍

  • Avatar of Sabina

    Sabina1 January at 09:38 pm

    Very sad to read your hateful reaction to a gesture of solidarity.

  • Avatar of Kate Bossence

    Kate Bossence24 December at 12:21 pm

    I went to your Festival on the 18th of December at Federation Square in Melbourne. I haven’t felt as uplifted musically for many months until l heard your music & singing being played. It was brilliant, uplifting & storytelling of the finest kind that you use music so much in your Culture. Many of my friends are Jewish indeed a couple in particular are very close friends. What you wrote is teriffic & straight to the point of missguided ignorant ppl who haven’t studied Judaism yet dive in with their (very) misconstrued ideas about what they perceive as Jewish Culture.

    Thank you to all the musos. As a singer myself the power of healing, strength & unity is always found in music. It was a real privilege being there that night after the massacre at Bondie of 15 beautiful & innocent souls.

    You have written masterfully & powerfully & encapsulated what your People have gone through in the last 2 years. An apathetic & pathetic government that (like you said) who are only interested in lining their own nests not urgently addressing the persecution of your People in the vilest ways imaginable.

  • Avatar of Ian Grinblat

    Ian Grinblat18 December at 06:33 am

    Thank you, Simon.
    Great piece!