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Tuesday, December 16, 2025

12/16 Links Pt1: BHL: The intifada has been globalised; The West’s deflections over Bondi are obscene; Hero couple who died trying to stop Bondi terrorist

From Ian:

Bernard-Henri LΓ©vy: The intifada has been globalised
I know one must arm oneself with prudence before establishing a causal link between words and crimes. And I know the danger of this slope, of this moral butterfly effect, and of the temptation to transform speech into culpability and to equate a call to murder with the act itself. But I also remember Primo Levi’s lesson in The Drowned and the Saved, reminding us that massacres never begin with weapons but with words.

I recall Victor Klemperer, the philologist who analysed the corruption of the German language by Nazism in The Language of the Third Reich, stating that “words can be like tiny doses of arsenic”.

Or quite simply Jean-Paul Sartre, whose famous phrase seems to me rarely as apt: words are “loaded pistols”.

And that is why, in sadness and anger, but without polemical spirit, I invite all those who, two years later, continue to believe that one can play with words of Jew-hatred and pogrom without consequence to an examination of conscience.

For what happened in Sydney is not an accident but a sign. Given that the same causes risk producing the same effects, it could happen tomorrow in New York, London, Rome, Madrid, or Paris. In truth, it could happen in any city in the world where one is still frivolous enough to believe that words are just words, that slogans bind only those who chant them, and that hatred – when draped in the supposed love of an oppressed people – can be absolved of its consequences.

This is not about giving in to panic nor concluding that we face an irresistible wave like those at the most tragic hours of Western history.

But if keeping one’s cool is a virtue, turning away can be a crime – and wisdom demands acknowledging that there are moments when History gives warning.

Sydney is one of them. But one must still hear, see what is being said, and act accordingly.
Brendan O'Neill: The hatred for the Jewish State is endangering the Jewish people
We’re talking about the reanimation of medieval tropes in the drag of ‘anti-Zionism’. We’re talking about the Jewish State being accused of lusting after the blood of innocents, just as the Jews once were. We’re talking about the Jewish nation being branded the puppet-master of world affairs, just as the Jews once were. We’re talking about the Jewish homeland being reimagined as the poison in the well of humanity, just as the Jews once were. Criticising Israel? Go for it. Spending your every waking hour telling the world Israel is a diabolical entity that relishes in the destruction of the sinless? Not on my watch.

As Dave Rich has argued, it shouldn’t surprise us one bit that ‘a protest movement that treats the world’s only Jewish State as a transgressor of all moral and human norms’ is helping to embolden lowlifes who just ‘do not like Jews’. How telling that the faux-progressive elites see ‘incitement’ everywhere except in their own daily hate missives against the Jewish State that have so many echoes of the ancient dread of the Jewish people. Call a ‘transwoman’ a man and they’ll have you up for hate speech. Call for the annihilation of the Jewish State and they’ll hug you.

If this high-status invective for the Jewish State and its allegedly immoral populace had exploded a few years back, it might have been manageable. It would still have required the firmest of pushbacks, but it might not have proven so existentially menacing. Today is different, though. Now the chattering classes’ mandatory abhorrence for the Jewish nation mingles with other catastrophic trends to create a moment of very clear danger for both the Jews and civilisation itself.

There are our porous borders, the flat-out refusal of those who rule over us to police our frontiers against people from profoundly anti-Semitic cultures. There is the emboldening of Islamists. We’ve seen them on those hate marches, walking alongside middle-aged Guardianistas in Vinted pashmimas, hollering for the return of the Army of Muhammad to kill all the Jews. And there is the authoritarian clampdown on open discussion of the Islamist threat. Raise concerns about the violent-minded Jew-haters in Islamist circles and you’ll be branded an ‘Islamophobe’. Our thoughts are policed better than our borders.

It is the crashing together of these two things – the modish loathing for Israel and the swelling of the Islamist menace – that has birthed this lethal moment. To defame Israel as uniquely barbarous would be bad at the best of times. To do it when we know very well there are bellicose Islamists in our midst is reckless in the extreme. Elite Israelophobia is like a red rag to murderous anti-Semitism. The Bondi pogrom is devastating proof of this – two ISIS worshippers carrying out a murderous assault on Jews following 26 months of non-stop Jewish State demonisation in Oz and across the West.

After Bondi, we have to ask – has anti-Semitism now been superseded by anti-Israel sentiment? Is the hatred for Israel not simply the witless inflamer of anti-Semitic thinking but the very form that anti-Semitism now takes? As the Australian’s Yoni Bashan reminded us this week, anti-Semitism ‘never goose-steps into the ball dressed as anti-Semitism. It doesn’t wear a sign. It arrives in the costume of the moment. As nationalism. As anti-capitalism. As social justice.’ And today as ‘criticism of Israel’. As 2025 comes to a close, one question matters above all others: are you on the side of the Jews or are you not? Their safety and our civilisation depend on how we answer.
Seth Mandel: Mass Murderers Don’t Care How Jews Feel
Mostly solid statement but there is no confusion over the “intent” of someone who uses the phrase. Bondi Beach is the intent.

Of course, the candidates who are willing to at least consider the implications of the phrase are handling this better than those who stick their fingers in their ears. Several candidates simply declined to answer the question at all.

As did Zohran Mamdani. The article notes that Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch told the incoming mayor, who pointedly refuses to condemn the call for mass murder, that “anti-Zionist rhetoric” can threaten the safety of Jews in New York. When asked by CBS to respond, Mamdani said: “Rabbi Hirsch is entitled to his opinions.”

It’s just a gentlemen’s disagreement over whether incitement to violence is good or bad, you see.

Anti-Zionism is the defining organizing principle of Mamdani’s adult life, so he knows exactly what the phrase means, perhaps better than most. There is no one in the universe less deserving of the benefit of the doubt on this than Zohran Mamdani.

The focus of the Jewish community going forward must be to stop with the rhetoric about how incitement makes us feel, because the Mamdanis of the world—and they are legion—will exploit any cracks in the consensus. And that only enables the terrorists who, I assure you, aren’t thinking about anybody’s feelings. No more handing excuses to those who openly seek our harm.
Seth Mandel: Jews Are Fed Up
The pattern is a familiar one. A terrible anti-Semitic attack will take place; political leaders will say “this is not who we are” and vow to take action; no one takes any meaningful action; another anti-Semitic attack takes place.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

So in the wake of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre, it would be prudent to make it as difficult as possible for Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to forget about his responsibility to act. And there’s no more powerful way to do that than to amplify the voices of the survivors. This will hopefully have the added effect of reminding Western politicians across the spectrum that they, too, are under the lights.

Here’s Victoria Teplitsky describing her father, who was wounded at Bondi Beach: “He’s 86, he’s a Holocaust survivor, he’s a survivor of anti-Semitism in the ex-Soviet Union. He grew up tough, my dad. And he came to Australia, he brought us here because he didn’t want my brother and I to go through the same experience. And we didn’t for many years. We didn’t for many years. Until October 7, 2023.”

Let’s pause here to note that Australia is home to the highest concentration of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel—and that another of those Holocaust survivors was killed on Bondi Beach while shielding his wife from the haze of bullets. I have to admit I get angry anew every time I hear of another Jew who survived Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union but not the United States or Australia. It is an anger I believe every Jew shares.

Back to the interview. The anchors from Australia’s ABC—this is an important piece of information for later in the interview—asked Teplitsky how she’s feeling about everything. Teplitsky responded with a message for Albanese and the political establishment:

“Is this what you wanted? Is this enough now? Will you listen to us? Albanese, [Labour parliamentary leader Penny] Wong, will you listen to us? Will you actually do something? Will you actually—no, you don’t have to stand up and say anything because we don’t believe you anyway.”

She then looked the ABC anchors in the face and said: “And ABC, I’ve got to say, will you cut out the biased reporting? Will you cut it out, will you actually let us have a voice?” Teplitsky then starts to explain the role of the media in making Jews feel like outsiders but abruptly changes direction, making a moving statement that one increasingly hears among the Jews of the Diaspora. She is not a religious woman, Teplitsky says, but “since October 7, since all the hatred that’s been thrown at us, I started to wear my Magen David because I’m Jewish, and if you have something to say, you can say it to me. And ABC, please stop with the biased reporting.”

On CBS, Tony Dokoupil talked to a couple who were briefly separated from their child at Bondi Beach, Wayne and Vanessa Miller. Vanessa said she questioned whether the event was safe at the outset because of the low police presence. Referring to Albanese, Vanessa said, “He’s got blood on his hands, and he knows it.” Wayne added: “The acts of terrorism have been rewarded by the Australian weak government.”


The Violence Did Not Start on Hanukkah — Only the Honesty Did
There is a reason the attacks during Hanukkah felt like a rupture.

Not because something fundamentally new occurred — but because, for the first time in months, it became impossible to keep describing what was happening in softened terms.

When a mass-casualty terror attack targeted Jews gathered for a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, killing at least 15 people, authorities immediately identified it as antisemitic terrorism. When Jewish cultural events in Amsterdam were disrupted by hostile protests, arrests, and chants, and when a Jewish home in California was riddled with bullets for displaying Hanukkah decorations, the language finally shifted. What had long been called “tensions” or “spillover” was suddenly recognized as something far more serious.

But what changed was not the nature of the threat.

What changed was the willingness to describe it honestly.

For much of the past year, Jews in the diaspora have been targeted in public space — harassed, verbally and physically attacked, excluded, and intimidated — under the moral pretext of “Antizionism”. This did not begin with Hanukkah, and it did not begin with mass-casualty events. It began earlier, quieter, and was repeatedly downgraded by institutions, media, and political leaders reluctant to name what was unfolding before their very eyes.

Months before these latest attacks, Jewish communities were already being hunted in the streets of European cities. Israeli football fans were hunted down during pre-planned pogroms in Amsterdam and hospitalized — and then collectively punished through bans and restrictions in Birmingham under the guise of “security concerns.” Jewish students and communities were told that their safety was subordinate to “context,” that attacks were merely political spillover, and that exclusion was simply disagreement.

At the same time, a parallel process was unfolding at the narrative level. Terrorist talking points were laundered into respectable language. Hamas-supplied figures were recycled by international bodies and major media outlets with little verification. The word genocide was detached from its meaning and repurposed as a moral absolute, casting Israel as uniquely evil — and Jews everywhere as uniquely suspect.

This pattern has been documented by multiple monitoring bodies. The Anti-Defamation League, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, and the Combat Antisemitism Movement have all reported sustained increases in antisemitic incidents across Western democracies following October 7, often accompanied by the blurring of political hostility toward Israel with classic antisemitic tropes. These were not abstract trends. They were observable, recorded, and ongoing.


JPost Editorial: If Iran was behind Bondi Beach terror attack, Israel’s response must be decisive
First and foremost, in August, Albanese and law enforcement officials stated that Iran was the mastermind behind at least two major antisemitic arson attacks in Australia and was likely responsible for more incidents among a wave of anti-Jewish episodes in the country since the October 7 massacre.

Albanese further declared that, as a consequence, the Iranian ambassador to Australia would be expelled and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would be designated as a terrorist organization.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organization at that point had gathered enough intelligence to determine that the Islamic regime had directed the December 6, 2024, Adass Israel Synagogue arson attack in Melbourne and the October 20, 2024, Lewis’ Continental Kitchen arson attack in Sydney. So it is reasonable and indeed smart not to rule Iran out.

Second, Ahmad Ghadiri Abyaneh, the son of former Iranian ambassador to Australia Mohammad-Hassan Ghadiri Abyaneh, posted an antisemitic message on X/ Twitter just hours before an attack on the Jewish gathering in Sydney on Sunday.

He labeled Hanukkah celebrations as satanic rituals and called for “defense.” “Starting from tomorrow... the Jewish Hanukkah celebrations will begin as a platform for holding satanic rituals by Masonic circles, the individual, familial, and social harmful effects of which will become apparent in faith-based communities,” he wrote.

“Spiritual defense during these days, through reciting the Surah [chapters of the Quran] and supplications emphasized by the Leader of the Revolution, has an added necessity.” Similarly, Sepah Media’s X account, linked to the IRGC, also posted a social media message hours before the attack stating, “And if you punish [an enemy, O believers], then punish with an equivalent of that with which you were harmed.”

Third, consider the cynical Iranian response. Foreign Minister Esmaeil Baghaei condemned “terror violence and mass killing” without mentioning Jews, Judaism, or antisemitism. Iranian state media framed the massacre through the lens of the Israel-Hamas War, with one regime-linked journalist questioning whether the gunmen were truly terrorists for targeting “people who continue to support” Israel. If Mossad and Australian investigators establish Iranian

complicity in the attack, be it through direct operational control, funding, weapons provision, or incitement, Israel’s response must be swift and severe. The fact that the US has already stated its willingness to allow Jerusalem to deal with matters itself, should Iranian accountability be

proven, shows the gravity with which Washington views this attack and the credibility of possible intelligence pointing toward Tehran.

However, it must be ironclad proof, not circumstantial convenience. Israel has to rely on irrefutable evidence so that there is no doubt of Iranian involvement. But Iran should not misread the situation; if that evidence exists, Israel will act strongly and quickly, and likely much more powerfully than June’s brief conflict. It is a reckoning the Islamic Republic, with all its internal dilemmas, could do without.
Alexander Downer: Democracies Must Be Much Tougher on Those Who Normalize Islamist Supremacism and Hatred towards Jews
The murderous attacks on Jewish men, women and children on sunlit Bondi Beach show us that antisemitism is not simply another form of racism. It is a national security threat. The increasing confidence with which people feel able to attack Israelis and Jews in Australia, Britain, and across the West makes it easier for them to be physically attacked.

Few, if any, Jewish gatherings can now take place without security: who else in our societies faces this? The risk may become that the West's tiny Jewish populations are driven out from the countries they have helped to create. Australia without Jews is not Australia.

As the U.S. commentator Park MacDougald has said, it's not just about people disliking Jews in the way they might dislike, say, Mexicans. Antisemitism is a conspiracy theory about how the world works. There is this secret, invisible system of Jewish power that rules the world through the banking system, the media and the Israel lobby.

The aim is to undermine the cohesion of the West: to push the argument that Western power serves the interests of Israel, the Zionists and the Jews rather than the interests of ordinary citizens. You do not have to defeat the West in open confrontation if you can divide it and leave it in a state of self-doubt.

If Australia, Britain, Germany and others are to survive as multi-racial, multi-faith democracies, they must be much tougher on the forces that lead to and normalize Islamist supremacism and hatred towards Jews.

The writer, chairman of the UK's Policy Exchange think tank, is a former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia.
Albanese the Appeaser
One of Albanese’s feeble profferings to Australia’s Jewish community was to create the position of a ‘special envoy’ on anti-Semitism. He appointed the distinguished lawyer and businesswoman, Jillian Segal, to this position in July 2024. A year later, Segal published a report, which included incidents from the ‘firebombing of Melbourne’s Adass Israel synagogue’ to the ‘firebombing of a childcare centre’ and the ‘repeated targeting with graffiti of Jewish schools and places of worship’ since 2023. Sunday’s events have given her next sentence a tragic significance: ‘ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation] director general Mike Burgess deemed anti-Semitism Australia’s leading threat to life.’

Yet Segal’s report was ignored by the Labor government and Albanese. Soon after it was published, we were given a hint why this might have been the case. On a rainy day in August, thousands marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. They were mourning the death of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who played a central role in planning the 7 October pogrom. Haniyeh’s death was confirmed by Israel on 31 July 2024, and the Sydney Harbour march was organised to coincide with the anniversary. The crowd chanted ‘Long live the intifada’ and ‘Death to the IDF’ (Israel Defence Forces). They also waved al-Qaeda flags. A few weeks later, on 21 September, Albanese granted the protesters one of their most important demands: the recognition of a Palestinian state.

Clearly, events have grown too large, too significant for a politician like Albanese. A Labor ‘power broker’ whose adult life has been dedicated to the pedantic minutiae of internal party politics, he is clearly not cut out for a national crisis of this magnitude. All Australians have felt sucker-punched by Sunday’s attack. Bondi Beach is probably the only place that every Australian, no matter which corner of the vast continent they call home, would have visited. The kind of thing that simply doesn’t happen in Australia, the ‘lucky country’, had happened at its spiritual core. And there was Albanese, droning on in his lifeless, managerial tone about tinkering with gun legislation.

Australians are not idiots. Instinctively, they know that gun laws are not why Alex Kleytman, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, was murdered in front of his family. Or why a little girl, 10-year-old Mathilda, will soon be buried by her family and friends. They were killed by a suspected Islamist because they were Jewish.

There are no easy or obvious solutions to anti-Semitism. As the world’s oldest hatred, it has shown a sinister adaptability throughout the centuries. But the starting point must surely be a desire to treat it with the seriousness it deserves. Albanese has failed to do this. He will have to live with consequences.
The West’s deflections over Bondi are obscene
You might have thought that the anti-Semitic massacre on Bondi Beach last Sunday would finally prompt some kind of self-reflection on the part of Western politicians, pundits and ‘anti-Zionist’ activists. That they might start wondering if their treatment and, in some cases, obsessive demonisation of the world’s only Jewish State might be fuelling a violent hatred of Jews. But sadly that has not been the case. Instead, from those gently critical of Israel to Keffiyeh-wearing activists, we’ve seen denial, hedging and cognitive dissonance.

Take Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer. Having said nothing about the Islamic fundamentalists and their fellow travellers screaming ‘globalise the Intifada’ on Britain’s streets throughout his 16 months in power, he was among the first to dish out thin platitudes to Australia’s Jews. ‘The news that the Bondi beach attack was an anti-Semitic terrorist attack… is sickening’, he said. ‘The United Kingdom will always stand with… the Jewish community.’

This, remember, was the same Starmer who, just three months ago, rewarded Hamas for the rape and slaughter of hundreds of Jews on 7 October 2023 by officially recognising a Palestinian state. The idea that Britain’s Labour government can be counted on to ‘stand with the Jewish community’ is absurd.

Others followed Starmer’s bland statement. Home secretary Shabana Mahmoud said she was ‘appalled’ and ‘horrified’. Deputy prime minister David Lammy offered his ‘prayers’ and reassured Jews that they ‘are not alone’. Neither made any mention of the likely Islamist motivation for the attack beyond vague talk of ‘anti-Semitism’. London mayor Sadiq Khan, in charge of a city that endured a record number of anti-Semitic incidents in the months following 7 October, offered his thoughts and condolences on X. The day before, he was warning about the alleged dangers of Donald Trump, whose rhetoric has supposedly normalised a ‘massive increase of anti-Muslim’ sentiment. Of course, Khan has never once condemned the ‘anti-Zionist’ hate marches on his own doorstep.

One especially dimwitted Labour MP, Darlington’s Lola McEvoy, used the occasion of the worst terrorist attack in Australian history to declare ‘diversity is our strength’ – a slogan so removed from reality at this point that it’s impossible to imagine her saying it without her simultaneously clutching her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth. One wonders whether McEvoy was aware that Bondi didn’t come from nowhere. Had she not heard what happened on 9 October 2023, when a thousand-strong mob gathered outside Sydney Opera House to chant ‘gas the Jews’, days after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust? Where was strength through diversity that day?
Stephen Pollard: There's a direct link from the anti-Semitic chants on Britain's streets and the Bondi murders
For two years the streets of London and other cities have seen regular crowds of hate-marchers, sometimes as many as 200,000.

The response to October 7 itself, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, was a protest march the following Saturday – before a single Israeli soldier had even entered Gaza – against the victims of the massacre and in support of the perpetrators.

The protesters march under the banner of 'Free Palestine'. But their marches are not really about Palestine. They are about Jews.

One of the regular slogans on the marches is 'Globalise the intifada' – a clear and unambiguous call for the mass slaughter of Jews to move beyond Israel. What happened on Bondi Beach was globalising the intifada in action, as was the Manchester synagogue attack. And when they chant it, the police just stand and watch.

As they do when protesters chant 'Khaybar, Khaybar, Ya Yahud! Jaish Muhammad sawf ya'ud!' on the marches, ('Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews! The Army of Muhammad Will Return!'). This is a reference to the battle of Khaybar in 628, when Muhammad's army besieged and destroyed a thriving Jewish community. These relentless, wilfully targeted, anti-Semitic chants are now so commonplace that they barely merit a mention by the police or the media.

On Saturday, for instance, a crowd gathered in Birmingham and chanted, 'We will honour all our martyrs' and 'Intifada Revolution' – calls which only glamorise violence against Israel.

But the truth is there is a direct line from these chants and demonstrations to the Bondi murders, and indeed to every new terror attack. They form a continuum in which verbal assaults lay the groundwork for physical attacks.

Yet instead of the action needed to break this link, we get platitudes. 'There is no place for anti-Semitism on the streets of Britain,' we are told after every terrorist attack – a straightforward lie, since protesters and other Jew-haters are evidently given a very large space to spout their anti-Semitism on our streets.

That is why Jewish schools and community buildings have to have such tight security – and why anyone who signs up to attend a Jewish communal event will not be given the venue details until hours before, to try to stop terrorists from mounting an attack.

That is how we Jews live in Britain. It is our normality.

Bondi has been termed a 'wake-up' call. Sadly, it will be no such thing because, still, no one in authority is willing to tackle the anti-Semitism on our streets.

It will turn out to be just one in a long line of attacks that will carry on in Australia, in the US, in France and, of course, here.
Understanding How Jews View Security
I recently went to my local synagogue. There were three security guards outside. They let me through the outer gate. Then a different guard, watching the CCTV camera based inside the synagogue, opened the inner door for me.

I'm not sure whether non-Jewish people entirely understand the high levels of security that so many Jewish communities operate with as a matter of course.

We don't speak about it a great deal. It's just there - a part of life. Many synagogues have this set-up.

Synagogues around Britain have been trained by the Community Security Trust for exactly the sort of attack that occurred at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester.

For many Jewish events in the UK and elsewhere, you sign up but aren't told where the event will take place until 24 hours before. The reason is to provide as little time as possible for would-be terrorists to scope out the venue and plan an attack.

New attacks, new deaths, new pain and growing anger. Anger at those who incite violence yet plead ignorance at the inevitable consequences of that incitement.

Anger at a succession of facile governments in Western countries, who seem to prefer to focus on crafting condolence messages rather than acting to prevent the need for such messages in the first place.

Anger at those who have the nerve to try to tell us we shouldn't be angry.

Jews care so much about security because for us, it's not if; it's when.
Hero couple who died trying to stop Bondi terrorist named
New footage has emerged of the Bondi Beach terror attack, showing a Jewish couple grappling with one of the shooters and attempting to disarm him before being fatally shot and killed.

Boris and Sofia Gurman attempted to stop Sajid Akram, the older of the two terrorists, as he emerged from his vehicle carrying firearms. Boris, 69, appeared to have successfully taken one gun away from Akram, with Sofia, 61, helping in the efforts to try and subdue the terrorist. However, Akram was carrying multiple guns and used another of those weapons to kill the couple, who were due to celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary next month.

The footage was taken by the dashcam camera of a passing car. The owner of the video footage told Reuters that Mr Gurman “did not run away – instead, he charged straight toward the danger, using all his strength trying to wrestle away the gun and fighting to the death.

“I can see from my camera that the elderly man was ultimately shot and collapsed. That moment broke my heart,” she said.

A statement from Boris and Sofia’s family, which was reported widely by Australian media, said: “In recent days, we have become aware of footage showing Boris, with Sofia by his side, courageously attempting to disarm an attacker in an effort to protect others.

“While nothing can lessen the pain of losing Boris and Sofia, we feel an overwhelming sense of pride in their bravery and selflessness. This encapsulates who Boris and Sofia were – people who instinctively and selflessly tried to help others.”

The family described how “Boris was a retired mechanic, known for his generosity, quiet strength and willingness to lend a hand to anyone in need.

“Sofia worked at Australia Post and was deeply loved by her colleagues and community.

“Bondi locals, together they lived honest, hardworking lives and treated everyone they met with kindness, warmth and respect. Boris and Sofia were devoted to their family and to each other. They were the heart of our family, and their absence has left an immeasurable void.”


Restricted Video The full video of Boris and Sofia Gurman trying to disarm the terrorists



Bondi hero’s former career revealed in emotional family interview
The parents of Bondi hero Ahmad Al Ahmad have shared new insight into their son’s past before moving to Australia, revealing his former career as a police officer.

Mr Al Ahmad’s parents reflected on the moment they learnt of his actions and the life that shaped him.

In a video interview speaking to the ABC, his father, Mohamed Fateh Al Ahmad said: “My son is a hero. He served in the Syrian police and in the central security forces”.

He explained that his son’s instinct to protect others came from his previous work in the Syrian police force, before migrating to Australia in 2007 to open a fruit shop in Sutherland and start a new life in Sydney.

“When he saw people laying on the ground with blood everywhere, he immediately acted with his conscience, compelling him to confront one of the shooters and take away his weapon,” he said.

"He saved lives, souls and God would not harm him," Mr Al Ahmad's mother, Malakeh Hasan Al Ahmad said.

The family, who are of a Muslim faith, originally come from Idlib in northern Syria.

Mr Al Ahmed’s parents said religion did not influence his decision to act.

Donations for Mr Al Ahmad have continued to pour in for the 43-year-old fruit shop owner, with a GoFundMe set up by Car Hub Australia and Zachery Dereniowski raising more than $2 million already.


‘Many innocent people saved’: Family of Bondi massacre hero praises his actions
Cousin of Bondi massacre hero Ahmed Al Ahmed has praised his cousin’s actions.

“We are so proud of the act that our Ahmed did,” Mr Al Ahmed said.

“Thank God he was the reason that many innocent people who did nothing wrong were saved.

“He will prove to the world that Muslims are peacemakers, not warmongers.”


Daughter of hero who was shot dead after throwing a brick at Bondi terrorist lashes out at the Australian Prime Minister for 'failing' her father
The daughter of one of the Bondi terror attack heroes has described her father as 'one to run towards danger' to protect others, and claimed the Australian government failed him and the Jewish community.

On Sunday as a hail of bullets rang out and innocent men, women and children were cut down, Reuven Morrison, 62, fought with the only weapon he could find - a brick.

His daughter, Sheina Gutnick, said her father was a hero who defiantly refused to cower to the heavily armed terrorists despite the overwhelming odds. He sadly died while trying to save others.

Ms Gutnick identified her father as the second hero in widely circulated footage of Ahmed El-Ahmed disarming one of the gunmen.

After Mr El-Ahmed, 43, had wrestled the gun away, Mr Morrison chased after the terrorist and threw bricks he picked up from the park. Another video showed him pointing his finger and yelling at one of the gunmen between stalls of the festival.

He was one of the 15 innocent people who died on Sydney's Bondi Beach during the family Hanukkah celebration.

Ms Gutnick said the Australian Jewish community had been pleading for months in the lead up to the attack that a rise in anti-Semitism be taken seriously, but the 'warning signs' had been ignored by the government.

'We have been begging and begging for action and it has fallen on deaf ears,' she told CBS.
Daughter of Bondi Beach terror attack victim lashes out at 'biased' Australian TV hosts over anti-Israel stance live on air
The daughter of a Bondi Beach terror attack victim has taken aim at the ABC in a live interview, accusing the broadcaster of bias over its reporting on Israel.

Speaking to News Breakfast hosts James Glenday and Emma Rebellato, Victoria Teplitsky said her 86-year-old father was shot as he attempted to escape the gunmen on Sunday night and has since undergone surgery in hospital.

But she also gave the hosts an unfiltered opinion of the national broadcaster's news.

'My father was seated – being elderly,' she told the ABC presenters.

'He was here to celebrate Hanukkah, which is light and positivity into the world.

'He was seated and as soon as he got up he was shot in the lower leg. He fell down, massive hole in the leg, obviously in a lot of pain.

'His girlfriend was seated next to him and she thought fast and she took off her belt and she made a tourniquet around his leg because there was a lot of blood.

'He's 86, he's a Holocaust survivor, he's a survivor of anti-Semitism in the ex-Soviet Union, he grew up tough, my dad, and he brought us here to Australia because he didn't want my brother and I to go through the same experience… and we didn't for many years – until October the seventh 2023.'

When asked by Glenday how she was feeling after the terror attack, Ms Teplitsky said she was 'angry' with the nation's politicians and the public broadcaster.

'How are we feeling? Is this what you wanted? Is this enough now? Will you listen to us?' she replied.

'(Anthony) Albanese? (Penny) Wong? Will you listen to us? Will you do something?

'And ABC, I've got to say, will you cut out the biased reporting… will you cut it out? Will you let us have a voice?'


Australian Officials Confirm Bondi Beach Hanukkah Attacks 'Motivated by Islamic State Ideology'
Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese and the country's Federal Police commissioner confirmed that the Bondi Beach gunmen who targeted a Hanukkah celebration were motivated by ISIS.

Albanese said the mass shooting was "motivated by Islamic State ideology," while Federal Police commissioner Krissy Barrett called it a "terrorist attack inspired by the Islamic State."

The attack, committed by father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram, left 15 people dead, including a 10-year-old girl and a Holocaust survivor.

Albanese said authorities found two ISIS flags in the attackers' car, as well as homemade explosive devices. One flag was displayed on the car's hood. Both terrorists traveled to an area of the southern Philippines, known as "a hotbed for Islamic militants," for nearly the whole month of November to receive "military-style training," the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Australian authorities in 2019 investigated Naveed Akram for his ties to ISIS but determined he wasn't a threat. A source told the BBC that Akram was "closely connected" to Isaac el Matari, the self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic State in Australia, who was sentenced in 2021 for planning a terrorist attack. Sajid Akram nevertheless overcame Australia's tough gun laws to obtain authorization to purchase six firearms. The Akrams used those weapons in the terrorist attack.


Australia Investigated Bondi Beach Terrorist for ISIS Ties But Determined He Carried No Threat
Australian authorities held a six-month-long investigation into one of the Bondi Beach terrorists for his links to ISIS but determined he wasn’t a threat and allowed his household to keep six firearms.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) investigated 24-year-old Naveed Akram in October 2019 because of his connection to Isaac el Matari, who was arrested that year for planning a terrorist attack as the self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic State in Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported. Matari was part of an ISIS cell in Australia with several other Sydney men who have been convicted of terrorist offenses and were close to Akram, according to ABC.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the investigation but said ASIO determined there was no ongoing threat. Authorities now believe that both Akram and his father, Sajid, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Two ISIS flags were found in their vehicle near the attack, one of which was visible on the car’s hood, according to authorities.

Australia’s already strict gun laws failed to prevent Sajid Akram from legally owning six firearms and using them with his son to terrorize a Hanukkah celebration in Bondi Beach, killing at least 15 people and wounding 40 more. Australia requires prospective gun owners to demonstrate a "genuine reason" for ownership—which doesn’t include self-defense—undergo background checks, and comply with strict storage and registration rules. These regulations were enacted in 1996 after 35 people were killed in a mass shooting in Tasmania.


Bondi Hanukkah terrorist was teen preacher for Islamic group, follower of radical cleric
Standing in the rain outside a suburban Sydney train station, 17-year-old Naveed Akram stared into the camera and urged those watching to spread the word of Islam.

“Spread the message that Allah is One wherever you can… whether it be raining, hailing, or clear sky,” he said.

Another since-deleted video posted in 2019 by Street Dawah Movement, a Sydney-based Islamic community group that attempts to proselytize people outside train stations, showed him urging two young boys to pray more frequently.

Authorities are now trying to piece together what happened in the intervening six years that led a teenager volunteering to hand out pamphlets for a nonviolent community group to allegedly carry out Australia’s worst mass shooting in decades, killing 15 people and wounding dozens at a celebratory Jewish event marking the beginning of Hanukkah. Authorities have called it an antisemitic act of terrorism.

Akram was also a follower of radical Islamist cleric Wisam Haddad, counterterrorism officials told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Additionally, the shooter was pictured preaching with another outreach group, Dawah Van, which is linked to Haddad, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Earlier this year, a judge ruled Haddad’s lectures must be pulled from the internet due to their content vilifying Jews.


Inside the mysterious double life of Bondi Beach terrorist Sajid Akram - and how he hid everything from his wife
A father responsible for the Bondi Beach massacre kept a low profile and flew under the radar, quietly collecting guns and undertaking military-style training to carry out his terror plot.

Sajid Akram, 50, and his son Naveed Akram, 24, arrived at the Sydney beach in a silver hatchback, and got out with rifles and extra ammunition around their waists just before 6.40pm on Sunday.

Standing on a bridge towards the north end of the beach, they allegedly started shooting at crowds of Jewish people celebrating the first day of Hanukkah - killing 15 people, and injuring 42.

Sajid was shot dead by police, while his son was taken to hospital with bullet wounds for emergency surgery.

He remains in hospital under police guard and will likely face criminal charges, according to NSW Police.

Prior to the attack, Sajid was living a double-life.

On paper, he was a law-abiding citizen with no criminal history.

He had an Australian Business Number and was registered to pay GST from April 2024, which means his income as a sole trader was more than $75,000 per year.

Father and son were not on the terrorism watchlist, and Sajid was a licensed gun owner in NSW with six firearms in his possession, and was a gun club member.

They lived in a suburban three-bedroom home in Bonnyrigg with his wife, Verena Akram, who had no idea about the alleged kill plot - she thought they were on a fishing trip in Jervis Bay, on the NSW south coast.

'[Naveed] rings me up [on Sunday] and said, "Mum, I just went for a swim. I went scuba diving. We're going to eat now, and then this morning, and we're going to stay home now because it's very hot",' she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

But they weren't in Jervis Bay, they were holed up at a short-term rental in Campsie, in Sydney's west, with firearms and explosives.

Police seized four weapons at the scene in Bondi, along with others found during a police raid at the short-term rental.

Police revealed on Tuesday that father and son had travelled to the Philippines in the weeks before the terror attack, where they underwent military-style training.

Philippine immigration authorities said the pair travelled internationally using their Indian passports.
Updates from the Bondi terrorist attack and the heightened security across Australia | 7NEWS

Youngest Bondi victim's family speaks at vigil | 7NEWS
The grieving family of 10-year-old Bondi Beach terror victim Matilda have given a heart-wrenching speech at a vigil last night.




‘Australia’s October 7’: Andrew Bolt unleashes after ‘shocking’ Bondi terrorist attack
Sky News host Andrew Bolt has labelled the Bondi Beach terrorist incident as Australia’s version of the October 7 attacks.

“I don't want to hear politicians just sending their thoughts and prayers,” Mr Bolt said.

“I especially don't want to hear them and others say: I'm shocked. I never imagined this terrorism could happen here in Australia.

“How could you not see this day would come? And worse, how could you have added petrol to this bonfire of jew hatred that has now forever changed our country.”


EXTENDED INTERVIEW: John Howard's warning to Albanese government | 9 News Australia
Former Prime Minister John Howard is warning gun control changes won't be enough to stop future attacks if antisemitism is left unchecked. #9News

00:00 Port Arthur Massacre and gun control reforms
00:46 Consoling grieving families after a tragedy
01:27 The possibility of future attacks in Australia
02:05 Current government's response to the attack
02:59 Recognition of a Palestinian state
03:08 Preventability of the attack and gun control
04:47 Rise in antisemitism and government response
06:20 Jewish community feeling unsafe in Australia
06:58 Immigration policy and non-citizens with guns
07:48 Role of education in combating antisemitism
09:28 Personal reflections on the Bondi attack
10:50 Targeted nature of the attack against Jewish Australians
11:53 Impact of the attack on the local community
12:03 Preventing non-citizens from obtaining gun licenses
13:12 Gun control discussion distracting from antisemitism issue
13:46 Embedding of antisemitism in the Australian community
14:13 Delay in implementing recommendations from the Julian Leeser report


WATCH: Chris Minns speaks with Sharri Markson about Bondi Beach massacre
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns sat down with Sky News host Sharri Markson to discuss the recent Bondi Beach massacre.

“We need to understand what these perpetrators did in the immediate run-up to this criminal act,” Mr Minns told Sky News host Sharri Markson.

“I’m also cognisant of the fact that antisemitism and the deliberate focusing and attack on the Jewish community was clearly part of this horrible crime.”


Only 2 cops were on duty at Sydney Hanukkah event attacked by terrorists, official says
Only two police officers were on duty at the Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, where two terrorists killed 15 people and wounded dozens more, a senior official said Tuesday.

The revelation came as information continued to surface about the father-and-son duo who carried out the terror shooting, and as Jewish community leaders accused the Australian government of allowing antisemitism to fester leading up to the attack.

“The police were tasked with being on the site during the festival. My understanding is that there were two in the park during or at the beginning of the shooting, the assassinations,” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told Sky News Australia.

“And there were police in the vicinity, so a patrol car pulled up within moments of the firing beginning,” he said. “I think it’s important to note that police, obviously, when the shooting began, did engage the shooters and there’s two in critical condition in NSW hospitals.”

Witnesses have said the two gunmen opened fire for as long as ten minutes, shooting into the crowd of families attending the event to mark the Jewish festival of lights.

Some 1,000 people were in attendance at the open-air event. The attack was the deadliest to strike a Diaspora Jewish community in decades, and the worst antisemitic attack outside of Israel since October 7, 2023.

Minns said the police force is now gathering information on the locations of other nearby officers at the time the attack began.

“We have several police officers who engaged with sidearms from 50 meters [160 feet] away, firing with someone who had a long-arm and a tactical advantage over NSW Police,” Minns said. “So they did engage and they did shoot both of the offenders, killing one of them.”


Clear ‘progression’ of antisemitism at pro-Palestine marches prior to Bondi massacre
Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal says there was a clear “progression” of antisemitism building up in the pro-Palestine marches prior to the Bondi massacre.


Albanese needs ‘understanding, conviction and courage’ on antisemitism crisis: John Anderson
Former deputy prime minister John Anderson says he hopes Prime Minister Anthony Albanese can understand “what is happening” to Australia in the wake of the Bondi massacre.

“That depends very much on whether the prime minister can find understanding, conviction, and courage,” Mr Anderson told Sky News host Peta Credlin.

“This is not lone wolf stuff; this is entirely different.”


Andrew Hastie MP: Interview: Peta Credlin, Sky News
On 16 December 2025 Andrew was interviewed by Peta Credlin on Sky News on the horrific Bondi terrorist attacks.


Australian Jewish Association: Bondi Attack - AJA on Sky News with Peta Credlin
AJA CEO Robert Gregory was interviewed on Sky news by Peta Credlin. They discussed the response from the Jewish community which sadly warned of the terror attack.

Plus, Australians have been failed by their leaders, what must happen now?


Hugh Hewitt: Anti-Semitism is the evil of our time and every American has to wake up to it

London mayor tried to block London vigil for Bondi victims, Hanukkah event, says CAA Gideon Falter
On Sunday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan attempted to block the London vigil for Jewish victims of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre, according to Campaign Against Antisemitism’s CEO Gideon Falter.

The event in Parliament Square was intended to commemorate the tragedy in Australia and the second night of Hanukkah.

However, Falter said that Khan tried to stop the vigil, even though Khan had stated earlier in the day that he would do everything in his power to keep London’s Jews safe, and had asked police to step up to cover Hanukkah events.

“Officials from the Greater London Authority turned up with clipboards telling us that we are not allowed to set up on Parliament Square at all,” Falter said.

He added that the Metropolitan Police closed the road right next to Parliament Square, but that he would have preferred to keep crowds on the square itself for security and to avoid traffic disruptions, which should have been obvious.


Erin Molan: Stop Calling It ‘Islamophobia’: Imam of Peace Says What The West Must Do
A powerful conversation with Imam of Peace (Mohammad Tawhidi) on the Bondi attack aftermath, why he rejects the immediate cries of “Islamophobia,” and what he says the West must do to confront extremist ideology while protecting peaceful Muslim communities.

We discuss:
• Why leadership language matters after an attack
• The difference between legitimate anti-Muslim bigotry and political “shielding”
• Why extremist ideologies must be confronted openly
• What ordinary citizens can do (lawfully) to push back and demand accountability
• Why strong Muslim voices must be elevated — now




Trump adds Palestinian Authority, Syria to US visa restriction list
U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a new travel and immigration ban on Tuesday for anyone attempting to enter the United States with documents issued by the Palestinian Authority or Syria.

The presidential proclamation expands the full and partial bans on 19 countries that was first issued in June to a longer list of 27 countries, mostly in Africa, and the Palestinian Authority.

The U.S. secretary of state, attorney general, homeland security secretary and director of national intelligence determined that the countries in question and the Palestinian Authority “cannot meet basic criteria for identifying their nationals and residents who pose national security and public safety threats and for sharing information with the United States.”

“For example, only 40% of one country’s territory is under complete government control, and officials there have noted that their ability to securely process, house or monitor non-citizens is constrained,” the president wrote. “Other countries have been subject to successful efforts to overthrow or undermine their governments, with the result that radical terrorist groups operate with minimal, if any, interference from law enforcement.”

In the case of the Palestinian Authority, “several U.S.-designated terrorist groups operate actively in the West Bank or Gaza Strip and have murdered American citizens,” per the president.


University of Sydney is slammed over its statement following Bondi Beach terror attack
The University of Sydney is facing scrutiny for what critics say is its failure to address antisemitism on campus, as shockwaves from the Bondi Beach terror attack continue to reverberate.

Fifteen people were killed on Sunday night after a father and son opened fire at Bondi Beach during a Jewish Hanukkah celebration.

Authorities have identified Naveed Akram, 24, from Bonnyrigg in Sydney's southwest, as one of the attackers. Akram is currently in hospital under police guard after being shot by officers. His 50-year-old father was killed at the scene.

In a statement posted on social media, the university's Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Mark Scott called the shooting an 'appalling and senseless act'.

'We extend our deepest condolences to the Jewish community and all those affected. We stand with you, deeply shaken by this unimaginable tragedy in one of our city's most cherished places,' Scott wrote.

However, the message was criticised by some who accused the university of allowing intimidatory behaviour and anti-Israel statements at campus protests since the October 7 attacks and subsequent retaliatory action in Gaza.

'I hope this serves as a wake-up call to make our campus safer and prevent violent extremist groups from hiding behind so-called peaceful protests,' one commenter online posted.
University of Sydney sacks academic just hours after Bondi Beach massacre - months after she branded Jewish students 'parasites' in a wild campus tirade
The University of Sydney has sacked a staff member months after she was filmed calling Jewish students 'parasites' and 'filthy Zionists'.

The university announced on Monday - just a day after the Bondi Beach mass shooting - that it had dismissed 'cultural activist and media academic' Rose Nakad, who was filmed confronting students celebrating a Jewish holiday in October.

In footage obtained by Sky News, Nakad approached several students, asked if they were 'Zionists', and continued to harass them as they repeatedly asked her to leave.

The students, who were celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, said they were not making a political statement or staging a protest, and simply wanted to be left alone.

However, Nakad continued her tirade, leaning closer to one woman and telling her: 'A Zionist is the lowest form of rubbish.'

'Zionists are the most disgusting thing that has ever walked this earth,' she yelled.

Nakad described herself as an 'Indigenous Palestinian' before calling the group 'baby killers' and telling one member she was a 'f***ing filthy Zionist'.

The university said in a statement on Monday that her employment was terminated for serious misconduct, following an immediate suspension in October.
Wikipedia debating if attack targeting Jews at Sydney Chanukah event was ‘terror’
The attack, in which gunmen thought to be a father and son shot and killed 15 people at a Chanukah celebration on Bondi Beach in Sydney on Sunday, is widely described as a terror attack. But editors on Wikipedia are debating whether that phrase is appropriate or it should just be called a “shooting.”

The site’s current page about the incident refers to a “shooting” in the headline and, in the body of the article, to a “terrorist mass shooting.”

Editors on the site, who are volunteer and often unnamed, are also reportedly trying to keep the names of the shooters out of the article. Law enforcement have said that the shooters were inspired by ISIS.

On the “talk” section of the page, editors on Wikipedia are debating whether a sufficient number of sources has called the attack “terror” and if the suspected gunmen, one of whom is dead, are public figures who ought to be named.

Deborah Lipstadt, former U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism and professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University, stated that if editors are actually trying to characterize the attack merely as a “shooting” on Wikipedia, then that’s “hardly a surprise.




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