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........