Who shot up Bondi Beach? Pick your hater. The results are the same.
Not to worry about anti-Semitism in Australia, Prime Minister Albanese implied Dec. 16. The killers at Bondi Beach were “inspired by a terrorist organization, ISIS.”
Unwrap the initials. ISIS = Islamic State in Syria. The pertinent identifier here is “Islamic” since the killers obviously were not in Syria.
Apologists would have us believe that ISIS is different from Hamas which is different from al-Qaida which is different from far left or far right anti-Semitic groups. Indeed, ideological differences divide certain terrorist groups — in certain ways only. All Islamist terrorist groups share this with each other and with all extremist anti-Semitic groups: the willingness to kill unarmed Jews.
They also share this: They take their nurture in societies that tolerate them, idealize them or shelter them. That’s what Australia has become under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. It is pertinent to identify the Bondi Beach killers as ISIS-linked for the sake of heightening the country’s security services’ scrutiny of ISIS-linked groups.
But this is far from a sharp focus on the cause of the massacre at Bondi Beach — and far from rooting out the cause. That cause is what Australia’s leaders have allowed the country to become: a safe haven for anti-Israel haters.The very rabbi who was martyred on Dec. 14 — Rabbi Eliezer Schlanger — met with Albanese a few months ago to warn him about the great growth of anti-Semitism in the country. Albanese ignored him. Had Albanese listened and acted, the least he could have done was to refocus his security service’s attention on the attractiveness of anti-Semitic violence inside Australia. Can Albanese sleep at night?
If the Australian government couldnot respond appropriately, locals could. Ahmad al-Ahmed herocially stepped up to stop the killer and even greater loss of life. Where were Australia’s police? Al-Ahmed’s heroism has appropriately triggered a tremendous crowdfunding campain on his behalf.
Also stepping up was Boris Gurman, 69, about whom we’ve heard a lot less perhaps because as he tried to stop the killer, the killer stopped him — his first victim. The killer’s second victim was Gurman’s wife Sofia, 61. A separate crowdfunding campaign hopes to benefit their orphaned son Alex. Again, the question screams: Where were the police?
Then there was Reuven Morrison, also killed, despite having thrown bricks at the killer. “He went down fighting, protecting the people he loved most,” his daughter said. Some people sleep eternally — but with a clean conscience.
© IJN 2025
