On December 14, 2025, a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach—Chanukah by the Sea—became the site of a targeted attack against the Jewish community. People gathered to celebrate a holiday of light. Someone brought a gun.

As this is still breaking news as I write this, details will be debated. Numbers will be clarified. But the core fact is not in dispute: Jews were attacked for being Jews, at a Jewish holiday event, in a Western democracy.

And yet – if we’re being honest – this should not have come as a shock.

Not because violence is inevitable. Not because Australia is unsafe. But because the conditions that make such attacks conceivable have been forming in plain sight. We keep treating antisemitism as an occasional malfunction – an aberration to be condemned and forgotten.

It isn’t. It’s environmental.

Condemnation is easy. Responsibility is harder.

Within hours, leaders across the world have already issued statements: horrified, distressed, offering condolences, thoughts, and prayers. France’s president called it an antisemitic terrorist attack. Britain’s prime minister expressed sympathy. The UN Secretary-General said he was appalled. Australia’s own prime minister acknowledged the obvious – that this was a targeted attack on Jewish Australians during Hanukkah.

All of that........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)