As Israel’s unaccountable war in Gaza deepens global outrage and the US shields it diplomatically, extremist violence resurfaces — not in isolation, but as a symptom of unresolved wars and moral Western failures.

The Attacks

On 14 December 2025, a gun attack at a Hanukkah celebration near Bondi Beach in Sydney left at least 15 civilians dead and dozens wounded. Australian police described the incident as terrorism inspired by ISIS* ideology, noting ISIS* flags found with the suspects and their apparent targeting of the Jewish community. The attack, however motivated and executed, is not an isolated incident. Rather, it is also part of a rising pattern of so-called ISIS*-inspired attacks worldwide, including lone‑actor and small‑cell violence. Reports in the Western media now show that, even without territorial control, ISIS* continues to exploit global tensions — including conflicts like Gaza — to inspire violence across continents.

In parallel, on 13 December 2025, two US soldiers and an American interpreter were killed during a counterterrorism operation in Palmyra, Syria, in what US officials described as an attack by an ISIS*-affiliated gunman. Both events underscore that, far from being a spent force, ISIS*remains capable of lethal violence, including against well‑armed state actors. The question, however, is why ISIS* continues to have this capacity.

The Myth of ISIS’s* Defeat

For Western policymakers and media, the end of ISIS’s* territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria (2019) was nothing short of a definitive victory. But Western policy makers were wrong when they thought that defeating a physical........

© New Eastern Outlook