The scenes out of Bondi Beach on December 14 are unbearable: gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah gathering, turning a community celebration into a slaughter. This was not random violence — it was a targeted, antisemitic massacre that shredded the illusion that Western safe spaces are immune from the same barbarism the world has seen too often.
Australian authorities and investigators have treated the Bondi attack as an act of terrorism, with reports of explosives, multiple firearms, and evidence pointing to an ideologically driven motive that singled out Jews during a sacred holiday. The pictures of the scene and the stories of victims — rabbis, children, elders — are a stark reminder that antisemitism has metastasized from ugly words into murderous action.
International fallout was immediate, and not all of it has been dignified diplomacy: Israeli leaders blasted Canberra, arguing that certain policy moves and a permissive cultural climate have fed a rise in Jew-hatred. This is no time for Platonic lectures about nuance; when a foreign ally publicly accuses your government of enabling the environment for such terror, Americans and our friends should pay attention.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has pushed back, insisting on nuance and on distinguishing legitimate political protest from antisemitism, while pointing to steps his government says it is taking. Fine words are easy; the hard part is protecting vulnerable communities from ideology-driven violence, and too many Western governments have preferred slogans to security.
Gad Saad — no shrinking violet when it comes to naming ideological rot — sounded exactly the alarm we need to hear: when whole swaths of citizens’ cognitive and emotional systems are hijacked by hate, we lose the ability to reason away the poison. Saad’s long record warning about the “parasitic” contagion of extremist ideas is not academic flourish; it’s a practical diagnosis of how mobs are groomed to commit murder.
So what do conservatives demand in moments like this? First, unconditional solidarity with Jewish communities and political leaders who refuse to equivocate. Second, real policy: strengthened security for houses of worship, tougher enforcement against incitement and violent networks, and honest immigration and campus-vetting where necessary to prevent radicalization — not another lecture about feelings from elites who shrug when communities bleed.
This is also a culture fight. If Western governments and institutions keep treating in-group protection as a partisan ornament and moral relativism as high-mindedness, the next massacre will be on our shores. Hardworking Americans should demand leaders who will defend liberty and life with conviction, call out the left’s double standards, and never let the light of our Judeo-Christian civilization be snuffed by cowardice or moral cowardice.
