What happened this weekend on an Australian beach was not a misunderstanding, not a protest that went too far, and not an argument about foreign policy that spilled over. It was mass murder.
According to authorities, a Hanukkah gathering at Bondi Beach turned into a slaughter when a 50-year-old man and his 24-year-old son opened fire on a Jewish crowd, killing 15 people and injuring at least 40 others. The victims ranged in age from 10 to 87. Among the dead were a rabbi, a Holocaust survivor, and a ten-year-old girl. Police later discovered multiple firearms and two active improvised explosive devices at the scene.
This was not random violence. It was not collateral damage. It was a deliberate terrorist attack targeting Jews on the first day of Hanukkah.
That distinction matters, because almost immediately, familiar voices rushed to contextualize, deflect, and rationalize. Israeli officials expressed fury at Australian authorities, arguing that the warning signs had been visible for months, even years. Violent antisemitism was rising, they said, while institutions hesitated, minimized, or explained it away.
Australian officials are investigating potential links to foreign terror networks, including possible connections to Iran or Islamist groups. Nothing has been confirmed. But even if no operational sponsor emerges, the deeper truth remains unchanged: this violence did not require direction from abroad. The conditions were already in place.
Over the twelve months ending September 30, Australia recorded more than 1,650 anti-Jewish incidents. Some coverage, including reporting by The Guardian, has suggested that the surge is attributable to Israel’s war in Gaza. But this explanation collapses under even minimal scrutiny.
The combat phase of that war ended months ago. And the explosion of antisemitic violence did not track battlefield developments. It followed something far older and far more predictable: Jews being visible as Jews.
This weekend alone makes the point unmistakably clear.
In Amsterdam, protesters waving Palestinian flags marched past a Jewish family event, harassing police and chanting slogans including “blood on their hands,” “child murderers,” and “kill the Jews.” The crowd reportedly attempted to breach police barriers protecting the venue. Smoke bombs were set off. Clashes followed, leading to arrests.
In California, a family home decorated with Jewish holiday symbols was sprayed with bullets. Twenty rounds were fired. The suspect, captured on camera, shouted antisemitic slurs, including “F*** the Jews!”
None of these incidents were responses to anything that happened in Gaza that day, that week, or that month. The precipitating event was Hanukkah itself — Jewish families gathering, lighting candles, and publicly expressing pride in who they are.
This is what finally needs to be said plainly: antisemitic violence does not require Israel as a trigger. It never has.
The international Jewish diaspora has long understood this reality, even when others preferred not to. That is why synagogues resemble hardened targets rather than houses of worship. That is why Jewish schools invest in private security, reinforced entryways, and airlock vestibules. That is why Jewish events often withhold their locations until the last possible moment, even from attendees.
None of this is new. What is new is the speed at which these precautions are becoming insufficient.
The Bondi Beach attack was stopped from becoming even deadlier only because of a bystander’s intervention. Video footage shows a man tackling and disarming one of the attackers. He was later identified as Ahmed al Ahmed, a 43-year-old local fruit shop owner, who was reportedly shot twice in the process. Police credited his actions with preventing further loss of life.
Heroism should never be a prerequisite for survival at a religious celebration.
Australian authorities have classified the shooting as terrorism. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it a “dark moment for our nation” and emphasized that it was deliberately timed and targeted. Flags will fly at half-mast. King Charles and Queen Camilla issued a message expressing their shock and sorrow.
These gestures matter. But gestures are not the same as accountability.
The truth is that this violence did not emerge in a vacuum. It is the harvest of a hatred that has been tolerated, intellectualized, and laundered for years. It was enabled by people who are “just asking questions,” yet never accept answers that don’t ultimately lead back to the Jews. It was normalized by institutional gatekeepers who treated antisemitism as a marginal concern, or worse, as a tool that could be exploited for political or ideological gain.
Most dangerously, it has been fueled by movements that openly reject the liberal social covenant — movements that understand antisemitism not as a bug, but as a feature. One viral video at a time, they have made violence feel justified, even righteous.
And now the consequences are here.
There will be those who blame the victims of this weekend’s violence for their own deaths. There always are. They will argue that Jewish visibility is provocative, that Jewish security is suspicious, that Jewish fear is manipulative. That posture can no longer be treated as an eccentricity of public discourse.
When the stigma around antisemitism collapses, blood follows.
A civilized society would not accept that as the cost of doing business in the marketplace of ideas. A civilized society would draw a line and defend it — not selectively, not conditionally, and not only after bodies are counted.
The question is no longer whether antisemitism is rising. The question is whether we are willing to confront it without excuses.
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