While the nightmare of Australia’s Bondi Beach was over by nightfall on December 14, 2025, the cloud which preceded it and the massive trauma that it generated continue to darken this country.

I was the editor of the Australian Jewish News when 9/11 happened. I editorialised that for a nanosecond – but only a nanosecond – the world would have a sense of the existential threat which marks the Jewish condition. So it was. So it has been since Bondi.

For a moment after Bondi, all Australia was seemingly embarked on an outpouring of compassion. Until it wasn’t.

Until 653 items of hate appeared online, glorifying or denying the massacre, one even claiming that the identity of the younger shooter was a Jew named David Cohen. With an AI-generated image of him wearing a kippa. Until allegations surfaced that race-hate legislation was purely to appease the Jews. Until a cartoon depicted the Royal Commission as the work of a cabal of influencers. All this within a month of the shooting.

December 14, 2025 didn’t come out of nowhere. During a US presidential campaign, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed erroneously that Donald Trump had attracted the largest audience to witness an inauguration. When Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway was questioned about the claim, she said Spicer presented “alternative........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)