This article originally appeared in The Hub.
By Alan Kessel, December 17, 2025
The massacre at Bondi Beach should not be dismissed in Canada as a distant Australian tragedy. It is a warning—one that speaks directly to the choices our own government has made and continues to make.
On the first night of Hanukkah, Australian Jews gathered to mark a festival of light and continuity. Instead, they were targeted for who they are. This attack did not come out of nowhere. It followed months in which antisemitism was allowed to metastasize in plain sight, normalized as political expression and excused as understandable anger over events abroad.
Jewish communities warned, repeatedly, that the line between protest and racial hatred had collapsed. Those warnings were met with expressions of concern, but little urgency, and with policies that reinforced the very narratives animating extremists.
Blurred lines
In Australia, as in Canada, government messaging has blurred moral lines. Rather than insisting on clarity—between a democratic state defending itself and a terrorist organization committed to Jewish annihilation—leaders have increasingly adopted language that treats Israel and Hamas as morally comparable actors. Recognition of a so-called Palestinian state, absent borders, governance, or peace, is presented as the moderate view even while Hamas remains in control in Gaza, holds hostages, and calls openly for the destruction of Israel.
At the United Nations, Australia and Canada alike have supported resolutions that single out Israel, while soft-pedalling or erasing Hamas’ responsibility. These are not neutral acts. They signal whose conduct is to be condemned and whose is to be contextualized.
Most troubling is the willingness of both governments to lend legitimacy to the politicized misuse of international criminal law. Ottawa has signalled its readiness to enforce deeply flawed International Criminal Court arrest warrants against Israel’s prime minister and defence minister, looking to put leaders of a democratic state in the dock while Hamas’ leadership remains beyond reach. This inversion of law and morality is celebrated by those who already believe violence against Jews can be justified as “resistance.”
These foreign-policy choices have domestic consequences. When governments insist antisemitism is being “taken seriously,” even as Jewish schools, synagogues, and community centres require constant police protection, the message received is one of minimization. When chants calling for Israel’s destruction are explained away as political speech, and when hatred on our streets is downplayed as the regrettable but inevitable spillover of global events, Jewish citizens are left feeling exposed and unheard.
Bondi Beach exposes the fallacy underlying this approach. Antisemitism does not need official endorsement to flourish. It needs only moral ambiguity from those in authority. When governments indulge legal warfare against Israel while allowing hostility faced by Jews to flourish at home, they embolden the most radical voices and signal that their worldview is not beyond the pale.
Canada is not immune. We are travelling the same road, using the same language, making the same excuses. Bondi Beach should be understood for what it is: a glimpse of where sustained denial and equivocation can lead.
Overdue steps
What must be done is neither radical nor unprecedented; it is simply overdue.
First, governments must treat community warnings as actionable intelligence. Jewish organizations and community security groups are often the first to identify emerging threats. Their assessments should trigger immediate, coordinated responses across law enforcement and public safety agencies, including sustained funding for community-based security.
Second, Ottawa must stop legitimizing narratives that reward terrorism and fuel domestic radicalization. That means ending support for one-sided UN resolutions, rejecting premature recognition of a Palestinian state while Hamas remains dominant, and distancing Canada from the ICC’s politicized assault on international law.
Third, public events and institutions must be protected as a matter of course, not as a temporary emergency measure. Jewish Canadians should not have to rely on crisis-driven policing to feel safe exercising their faith.
Fourth, online incitement must be confronted seriously. Platforms that enable the organization and glorification of antisemitic violence must be held to clear standards of accountability and transparency.
Finally, the federal government must speak plainly. Antisemitism is not a secondary issue, not a misunderstanding, and not the acceptable cost of geopolitical disagreement. It is an ancient hatred wearing modern clothes, and it escalates predictably when left unchecked.
Bondi Beach is a tragedy for Australia. It is also a warning for Canada. Governments can choose to treat community alarms as the early warnings they are, or they can wait for violence and then promise to do better. History suggests only one of those choices prevents the next attack.
