On the night of December 14, 2025, a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney ended in unspeakable horror when gunmen opened fire on families gathered to celebrate. Dozens were wounded and more than a dozen innocent people were killed in what Australian authorities and international outlets are calling a targeted, antisemitic terrorist attack against the Jewish community.
Police now say the attack was carried out by a father and son, and officers discovered explosive devices that were safely neutralized, underlining that this was a coordinated act of terror, not random street violence. Reports indicate one attacker was killed at the scene while the other was wounded and taken into custody, as emergency services scrambled to tend to scores of victims.
Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told Fox Report Weekend that the massacre was a terrifying confirmation of warnings long issued by Jewish leaders — “we knew it was coming,” he warned — and he used the moment to call out global complacency toward antisemitic threats. Danon’s blunt message on a major U.S. news platform is the kind of honest wake-up call America’s leaders should be amplifying rather than downplaying.
If anyone needed proof that soft-on-security policies have consequences, the diplomatic fireworks that followed should suffice: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly accused Australia’s government of stoking a climate that enables hatred, and world leaders rushed to condemn the slaughter even as questions pile up about failures to act on prior warnings. When foreign leaders say a nation has blood on its hands through negligence or appeasement, Americans should listen and learn from those hard lessons.
This massacre did not appear out of nowhere. Jewish organizations and security officials in Australia have been sounding alarms for months about a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents since October 2023, yet policymakers did not do enough to harden vulnerable public gatherings and punish the haters who traffick in violence. The pattern is painfully clear: rhetoric and recognition without teeth invite escalation, and communities pay with their lives.
Conservatives must be unapologetic in demanding real answers and real action — from stronger protections for Jewish institutions and public events to honest enforcement against extremist networks and ideologies that breed terror. This is not a time for empty platitudes or press conferences that prioritize optics over outcomes; it is a time for governments to secure their citizens, shut down channels that fund violence, and hold ideological enablers accountable.
America should stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel and Jewish communities around the world and insist that our allies do the same: defend religious liberty, confront antisemitism wherever it lurks, and refuse to let political correctness or globalist hedging excuse violence. Hardworking Americans know what’s at stake — when any community is left unprotected, liberty itself grows more fragile — and we must demand leaders who will protect our values and our people with conviction.
