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Australia woke up to an unspeakable act of terror after assailants opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, leaving scores dead and many more wounded in a community gathering meant for prayer and family. The massacre, which struck a Jewish festival on the first night of Chanukah, is being investigated as a clearly antisemitic terrorist attack and has shattered the sense of safety Australians once took for granted. The scale and cruelty of the assault demand that we call it what it is: an attack on Jews because they were Jewish, and the nation must respond accordingly.
Eyewitnesses described a nightmare of gunfire and chaos as two men opened fire from a footbridge, and authorities found explosives at the scene as police neutralized one attacker while the other was captured wounded. Families, children, and religious leaders were among those targeted in what officials declared a developing terrorist incident, and Sydney was left reeling as emergency services scrambled to secure the area. This was not random street violence; it was a coordinated strike on a community during a sacred holiday.
Veteran investigative journalist Sharri Markson — who has been sounding the alarm about growing antisemitism in Australia — warned live that this violence was not unforeseeable and that Jewish Australians had been left exposed by a failure to act decisively. Markson’s reporting, from exposing troubling incidents in hospitals to documenting graffiti and threats across Sydney, has repeatedly shown a pattern of anti-Jewish hostility that authorities and some on the political left have downplayed. Her blunt message is simple and chilling: when warnings go unheeded and moral clarity is lacking, tragedies follow.
International leaders are rightly outraged, and even Israel’s prime minister publicly blamed Canberra’s leadership for fostering an environment where antisemitism has flourished unchecked. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese convened a national security meeting and condemned the attack as “pure evil,” but rhetoric alone will not repair the complacency that allowed this threat to grow. Australia needs accountability from its leaders — not platitudes — and a willingness to make hard choices to protect vulnerable minorities.
Conservatives have long argued that border control, strict enforcement of immigration and visa rules, and the power to remove noncitizens who foment hate are essential tools to keep communities safe; policymakers must act on those tools now. Proposals to tighten visa rules and deport noncitizens who engage in or incite antisemitic or extremist conduct are not punitive for their own sake — they are commonsense measures to defend innocent lives and preserve public order. If Australia wants to prevent another Bondi-style massacre, it must stop prioritizing political calculations over the security of its citizens and residents.
Those who for years have dismissed warnings about antisemitic agitation as “overblown” or politically inconvenient must now answer to the grieving families and a shaken nation. Too many communities have lived with the fear that hate would one day become violence; now the unthinkable has happened on Australian soil and the question is whether leaders will finally treat antisemitism as the existential threat it is. This moment should unite every decent Australian — left, right, and center — behind the Jewish community in defense of religious freedom and public safety.
The response must be immediate and robust: better protection for Jewish institutions, full resourcing for counterterrorism and policing, legal reforms that remove safe harbors for hate, and a cultural reckoning that refuses to excuse or rationalize antisemitism. Weakness or equivocation will only invite more violence; strength and clarity of purpose will save lives. We owe the victims — and the future of a free Australia — nothing less than decisive action to ensure this bloody chapter is not repeated.
