NEW YORK – There is some comfort in the fact that Sunday’s terrorist attack on a Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which killed at least 16 people and injured many, also produced a hero. A man named Ahmed al-Ahmed, described in news reports as a local merchant, single-handedly disarmed one of the two terrorists and survived the two shots in a scene that was caught on camera and went viral.
This brave act not only saved lives; served as an essential reminder of this Humanity can overcome cultural and religious boundaries at any time.
But the Hanukkah massacre also represents a continuation Inability of the government of Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia, to protect the country’s Jewish community. In October 2024, a kosher restaurant in Bondi was the target of an arson attack; Six weeks later, an Orthodox synagogue was set on fire. These attacks were blamed on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Albanian government duly responded by expelling the Iranian ambassador in Canberra and closing its own embassy in Tehran.
Unfortunately for Australia, Foreign actors are not the only problem. Last year, Jillian Segal, the government’s special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, warned that “anti-Semitic behavior is not only present on many campuses, but is an integral part of the culture.” After the Hamas attack on October 7, Green MP Jenny Leong hit out, accusing “the tentacles” of the “Jewish lobby and the Zionist lobby” of “infiltrating every aspect of ethnic communities.” Vandals and arsonists have targeted Jewish homes, neighborhoods and a daycare center. According to a senior Australian intelligence official, at least one of the suspected shooters in Sunday’s attack was known to authorities “but not in an immediate threat perspective.”
When I last visited Australia in June 2024, I heard a lot of concern from Jewish community leaders, but nothing seemed to be changing. On Sunday, the Australian Jewish Association posted a message on Facebook: “How many times have we warned the government? We never felt like they listened to us.”
You’re probably listening now. But the problem for the Albanian government, which recognized the Palestinian state in September and has been highly critical of Israeli actions in Gaza, is precisely that The moral line between the routine demonization of Israel and attacks on Jews who supposedly support Israel is not necessarily clear.. On Sunday, Albanese said: “The evil unleashed on Bondi Beach today is unimaginable.” In fact, it’s completely understandable. For fanatics who have been led to believe that the Jewish state is the apotheosis of evil, killing Jews represents a twisted idea of justice, even when the victims are unarmed civilians. Even if they celebrate an ancient and joyful holiday.
There is a larger lesson here that goes far beyond Australia.
Although we’ll likely learn more about the Sunday Killers’ mentality in the coming weeks, it’s safe to assume What they thought they were doing was “globalizing the Intifada.” That is, they took seriously slogans like “Resistance is justified” and “By any means necessary,” which have become ubiquitous in anti-Israel demonstrations around the world. To many who chant these phrases, they may seem like abstractions and metaphors, a political stance in favor of Palestinian freedom rather than a call to kill their alleged oppressors.
But there are always literalists, and they are literalists who tend to believe that their ideas must have real-world consequences. On Sunday, these consequences were written in Jewish blood. History teaches us that it will not be the last time.
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