The Bondi barbarians

Barbarism has come to Bondi. Waking up to news this morning that at least 12 people have been killed, and at least 29 have been injured, following an anti-Semitic terror attack at the iconic beach in Australia, prompted that familiar mix of sickness, horror and grim inevitability.

As it stands, we know there were at least two (alleged) gunmen. One, Naveed Akram, was killed at the scene. The other, whose identity hasn’t been released, is in critical condition. The scum opened fire with rifles at a Hanukkah party. The authorities are thus treating it as an anti-Semitic terror attack, although it took some media outlets an oddly long time to put two and two together. Police are probing reports of a third attacker, and have found an improvised explosive device in a car.

The footage from the scene is horrific. Bloodied bodies on the floor. Assorted heroes desperately trying to resuscitate them. Gun shots ripping through an afternoon of sunshine, family and religious celebration. First it was the Nova rave on Simchat Torah, then it was Heaton Park on Yom Kippur, now Bondi on Hanukkah. Another Jew-killing pogrom, to go with all the others.

Australia, like so many other Western nations, has become a cauldron of anti-Semitism since Hamas’s genocidal rampage into Israel on 7 October 2023. The most lethal assault on Jews since the Holocaust sparked not solidarity, but hate marches and a spike in anti-Semitic violence. Melbourne’s Adass Israel synagogue was hit by an arson attack last December. A kosher deli in Bondi was set ablaze in October.

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has pointed the finger at Iran for waging this prior campaign of attacks, via a ‘layer cake’ of intermediaries. We wait to learn who was behind the barbarism in Bondi today, and what sick ideology they gunned people down in the name of. Although I dare say we know enough to hazard a guess.

But in Australia, as in Britain, the surge in anti-Semitism cannot be explained away as nefarious actors stirring hatred from afar. The new Jew hatred, expressed through a maniacal hatred of Israel, has exploded under Albanese’s watch – all but encouraged by his (and Starmer’s) decision to ‘recognise’ Palestine, effectively rewarding the 7 October pogromists for their efforts.

Thus, places Jews once fled to no longer feel so safe. The Adass Israel synagogue, torched last year, was built by Holocaust survivors. Arsen Ostrovsky, a human-rights lawyer who survived the 7 October attacks, moved to Australia two weeks ago to fight anti-Semitism in the country. He was injured at Bondi. ‘I never thought I would see this in Australia’, he told Channel 9, his bandaged face smeared with blood. No wonder so many Jews are moving to Israel.

If Jews aren’t safe in Bondi or Manchester, if they cannot attend a Hanukkah celebration or synagogue on Yom Kippur without their mind beginning to turn to the worst, then we can no longer claim to be enlightened nations. Leaders have looked the other way as a sulphurous Jew hatred has bubbled up from below, welcomed in through porous borders, fomented by multiculturalism, propagandised in the streets by Islamists, and enthusiastically embraced by woke useful idiots.

The Bondi pogrom showed us the worst of humanity – barbarians who hate Jews, hate freedom, hate life. But it also showed us the best. The woman who took a bullet for a three-year-old girl she didn’t even know. There’s the mighty Ahmed al Ahmed, the fruitshop owner who snuck up on and disarmed one of the killers. He saved countless lives, before taking two bullets himself. Beautiful, incredible heroism. Sadly, we’re going to need a lot more of it if we are to defeat this evil in our midst.

Tom Slater is editor of spiked. Follow him on X: @Tom_Slater_