Bondi Beach and the West’s Evasion
Before moving into analysis, it must be stated straight: the Bondi Beach attack on 14 December 2025 killed 15 civilians, including a 10-year-old girl, and dozens more were wounded, many still hospitalized and recovering from serious injuries. The victims ranged in age from children to elders, and their lives were ended in an instant at what should have been a peaceful Hanukkah celebration. My thoughts are with those still fighting to recover from their wounds and with the families now living with losses that nothing can undo.
Much has been said about the Bondi Beach massacre: about the weak police response and the hollow words of the disastrous prime minister. What followed the attack was not clarity or responsibility. It was evasion.
Almost immediately, the public conversation was diverted into familiar, comfortable channels. Gun laws. Immigration policy. Procedural failures. Each political camp rushed to instrumentalise the tragedy in the service of its own agenda.
On the left, the massacre is treated as justification for further restrictions on civilian self-defence, another argument for disarming the public and narrowing the ability of citizens to protect themselves. On the right, the attack becomes an excuse for crude, blanket arguments about immigration, as if the problem were merely one of borders or numbers.
Both sides are exploiting a vicious antisemitic attack to advance pre-existing political programmes. And in doing so, both are avoiding the central issue.
This was not about guns.
It was not about immigration.
It was about Islamism.
The attacker has been identified with ISIS, an enemy the West prefers to speak of in the past tense, as though it were defeated. But how can an ideology be defeated if it continues to encourage murder across continents? Hamas itself celebrated this attack. That fact alone should have shattered the pretence that this was anything other than ideologically driven.
ISIS is not merely an organisation. Hamas is not merely a militia. They are expressions of a political-religious ideology that sanctifies the murder of Jews. An ideology that remains alive precisely because Western leaders refuse to name it.
And what is not named cannot be fought.
Instead of a serious analysis, we are offered a ritual. Candlelight vigils. Sombre speeches. Politicians filmed looking grave and sorrowful. Tragedy is aestheticised, mourned, and then safely absorbed, without consequence, without diagnosis, without action.
This is the worship of sentimentality in place of responsibility. Emotion replaces judgment. Performance replaces seriousness.
There is, however, a vital and genuinely beautiful aspect to this story, and it must be addressed honestly.
The heroism of Ahmed al-Ahmed and of others who ran toward danger, including Gefen Bitton, an Israeli who assisted him, matters. It demonstrates, clearly, that not all Muslims are terrorists, supporters of terrorism, or antisemites. Their courage deserves recognition and respect.
But the meaning of that heroism must not be distorted.
I do not claim to know Ahmed al-Ahmed’s personal views on religion or politics. That is not the point. The point is this: had he been a radical Islamist, he would not have intervened. He would not have disarmed the attacker. He would not have saved lives.
That distinction matters.
There are already voices eager to use this act of courage as proof that “Islam has nothing to do with this,” that the problem is merely individual pathology or abstract hatred. That is false. It is yet another evasion.
The attack was executed by radical Islamists inspired by a murderous ideology. Some of its damage was prevented by a non-radical Muslim and by other individuals who chose courage over fear. Both facts are true, and neither cancels the other.
A civilisation that cannot identify its enemies cannot defend itself. A society that cannot protect its Jewish citizens openly, unapologetically, and by confronting the ideology that targets them has forfeited any claim to moral seriousness.
That is the core of this story. Not policy tweaks. Not legislative theatre. Not performative grief.
Until the ideology itself is named, condemned, and confronted, explicitly and without fear, nothing has been learnt. And when nothing is learnt, the next attack is not a question of if.
It is only a matter of time.
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There is no question the Syrian born Ahmed al-Ahmed. acted with exemplary bravery. He saw a violent assault on civilians in progress and acted to stop it as best he could. A cynic might ask whether or not in the chaos of the moment he was aware that the targets of the attack were Jews because they were Jews. If he didn't, would he till have acted if he did know?
Of course not all Muslims take it as their religious duty to kill Jews wherever they find them as the Quran and Hadiths command the Faithful. There are those who wouldn't bloody their hands but approve of others doing the deed. There are those who don't care one way or another; those who are indifferent; and those who condemn such violence. Thus, to name those who murder in the name of Allah for His glory and to preserve the purity of the Ummah as Islamic extremists or radical Islamicist misses the point. They are pietists, fundamentalists, the devout, True Believers.
"What followed the attack was not clarity or responsibility. It was evasion."
Labelling the reaction by the by politicians, civil authorities, and media as evasion gives them a hard pass. To call a thing for what it is, they engaged in outright equivocation, prevarication, and dissembling. After all, if you basically agree with the Red-Green axis position on Jews and the Jewish right to self-determination, you don't want to make any public statement that can be interpreted as supporting the enemy of the True, the Good, and the Righteous.
Yonatan, I’ve been waiting for your post on this pogrom. Thank you for your clarity.
One of the things I’ve been grappling with, unsuccessfully, is articulating the experience of living in a time where pogroms are part of our present, no longer relics of the past.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.