Hate Unchecked: The Build-Up to the Bondi Massacre
Could the Australian government have failed the Jewish community more comprehensively than it did on Sunday?
Jewish Australians live with a level of security no other community is expected to tolerate. Synagogues, schools and festivals routinely require guards, bollards and police coordination. Yet at a public Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach, only two police officers were present. NSW Premier Chris Minns acknowledged this on Sky News. That admission alone should end any pretence that this tragedy was unforeseeable.
The environment that produced Sunday’s massacre did not materialise overnight. It was incubated, tolerated and repeatedly excused.
The tone was set immediately after the 7 October 2023 Hamas terror attacks. On 8 October, Sydney imam Sheikh Ibrahim Dadoun, who has been associated with Islamist activism in Western Sydney, addressed a crowd in Lakemba and openly celebrated the violence. He told those gathered: “I’m smiling and I’m happy… I’m elated. It’s a day of courage, it’s a day of resistance, it’s a day of pride, it’s a day of victory, this is the day we’ve been waiting for.” His words were widely reported and condemned at the time. Was Sunday a day he was hoping and waiting for as well?
There was no official outrage, no consequences, no decisive condemnation from political leaders. That silence mattered. It signalled that celebrating Jewish suffering could be indulged rather than confronted.
The following night, 9 October 2023, crowds gathered outside the Sydney Opera House while it was lit up in blue and white. chanting slogans widely reported as “gas the Jews” and “f*** the Jews”. Authorities later attempted to downplay this as a misunderstanding, a claim so implausible it insulted the intelligence of the public. No one was asking where Jews were in order to deliver cupcakes. There were no arrests. No consequences. The message was clear, this behaviour would be tolerated.
From there, rhetoric only escalated. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, and “Globalise the intifada” became common. Weekly protests featured Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic State flags. Jews harassed outside synagogues. Synagogues firebombed. Swastikas sprayed on Jewish schools and institutions. Jewish individuals doxed. The list goes on and on. Each incident treated as isolated. Each warning ignored.
Public figures who should have known better including Craig Foster, Mary Kostakidis, Mehreen Faruqi and Fatima Payman stood shoulder to shoulder with these crowds. Since Sunday, some have visited the Bondi site or issued statements of sympathy. They should reflect seriously on the environment they helped legitimise. You cannot spend months excusing or minimising antisemitic incitement and then express shock when violence follows.
On Sunday, Sajid and Naveed Akram, father and son, acted on the slogans. They quite literally “globalised the intifada”, attacking Jews gathered to celebrate the start of Chanukah. Fifteen innocent people were murdered. No provocation. No justification. Just targeted hatred.
This was not a bolt from the blue. One of the perpetrators was known to ASIO. Another was able to legally acquire six firearms. Naveed Akram had previously been investigated for alleged ISIS links. Islamic State flags and explosives were reportedly found in their vehicle. The pair had allegedly travelled recently to a terrorist training camp in the Philippines. If this does not constitute systemic failure, it is hard to know what does.
At the same time, Australia has shown extraordinary reluctance to confront ideological incitement. Imams and clerics who preach hatred face no meaningful prosecution. In a Federal Court case against Sydney cleric Wissam Haddad, the court heard sermons containing violent, dehumanising language about Jews, including the phrase: “There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” This material circulated freely. The ground was prepared.
Even now, social media is awash with celebration. Hamas has issued a statement praising the attack.
Yet the government’s response has been depressingly predictable: flowers, platitudes, and calls for stronger gun laws. Guns did not murder fifteen people at Bondi. Extremist Islamist ideology did. Antisemitism did. Blaming firearms is a political deflection that avoids confronting the real problem.
The Prime Minister appears not to understand what “intifada” actually means. In Israel, intifadas involved suicide bombings on buses, mass stabbings and attacks on civilians in public spaces. Words matter. Slogans matter. Hate speech matters. Incitement matters. When the second Intifada began in 2000 after Yasser Arafat walked away from a peace deal offered by the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and brokered by American President Bill Clinton, Anthony Albanese was busy leading pro-Palestinian protests.
A serious response would include tightening ASIO processes so that anyone on a watchlist is categorically barred from accessing weapons. It would include acting on the recommendations of the government’s own antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, whose report appears to be languishing unread 6 months after it was issued. It would include recognising that hate speech is not merely offensive expression but, when tolerated, a precursor to violence. History from the 1930s shows us exactly where this leads. Foreign minister Penny Wong attended the 80th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland in January, but learned nothing.
It would also include proscribing Hizb ut‑Tahrir, whose representatives have openly spewed hatred at Australian protests. The organisation is banned in the UK, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Turkey, but not here. Australians are told it is merely “monitored”. After Sunday, that reassurance rings hollow.
The state’s first duty is the protection of its citizens. Appeasing activist networks or courting particular voter blocs is not governing. It is pure negligence.
Strong leadership is urgently needed. Sadly, it is not forthcoming. Until it is, ordinary Australians, Jewish and non‑Jewish alike must speak plainly about what has gone wrong. Silence and euphemism have already cost too much.
