Bondi Beach and the Afterlives of War: Why ISIS* Never Truly Disappeared

Salman Rafi Sheikh

As Israel’s unaccountable war in Gaza deepens global outrage and the US shields it diplomatically, extremist violence resurfaces — not in isolation, but as a symptom of unresolved wars and moral Western failures.

 

The Bondi Beach killings and the recent ISIS* attack on US soldiers in Syria expose the hollowness of Western counter-terrorism claims, especially Washington’s repeated assertion that ISIS* was totally “defeated.” 

The Attacks

On 14 December 2025, a gun attack at a Hanukkah celebration near Bondi Beach in Sydney left at least 15 civilians dead and dozens wounded. Australian police described the incident as terrorism inspired by ISIS* ideology, noting ISIS* flags found with the suspects and their apparent targeting of the Jewish community. The attack, however motivated and executed, is not an isolated incident. Rather, it is also part of a rising pattern of so-called ISIS*-inspired attacks worldwide, including lone‑actor and small‑cell violence. Reports in the Western media now show that, even without territorial control, ISIS* continues to exploit global tensions — including conflicts like Gaza — to inspire violence across continents.

In parallel, on 13 December 2025, two US soldiers and an American interpreter were killed during a counterterrorism operation in Palmyra, Syria, in what US officials described as an attack by an ISIS*-affiliated gunman. Both events underscore that, far from being a spent force, ISIS*remains capable of lethal violence, including against well‑armed state actors. The question, however, is why ISIS* continues to have this capacity.

The Myth of ISIS’s* Defeat

the Bondi Beach massacre and the ISIS attack on the US military are not anomalies; they are the consequences of unresolved violence, unaccountable wars, and moral compromises 

For Western policymakers and media, the end of ISIS’s* territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria (2019) was nothing short of a definitive victory. But Western policy makers were wrong when they thought that defeating a physical territory would also defeat an ideology. In fact, multiple recent reports make this clear. For instance, a 2025 United Nations report warns that ISIS* continues to operate in Iraq and Syria, maintaining up to 3,000 fighters and exploiting instability to rebuild networks and stockpiles of heavy weapons. It also highlights that ISIS‑Khorasan (ISIS‑K)* — the group’s affiliate in Afghanistan — remains a serious security threat in Central Asia.

Similarly, recent US Department of Defence inspector‑general reports confirm that while ISIS* lacks territorial control, it remains active, resilient, and capable of guerrilla tactics. These reports document ISIS’s* ongoing presence in remote areas of Iraq and Syria, its ability to exploit security gaps, and its continued access to financial resources and recruitment channels. A United Nations counter‑terrorism update emphasises that ISIS *continues to demonstrate resilience and adapt its methods, particularly in regions like Syria’s Badia desert, where it can plan operations and exploit weak governance.  Finally, a UK House of Commons research briefing estimated that remnants of ISIS* still number in the thousands across Iraq and Syria and are stronger in Syria than in Iraq, creating a risk to the region’s security and stability.

Despite this evidence, official and media narratives in Western capitals often cling to the idea that ISIS* is a spent force. This is partly because territorial conquest was easy to visualise and easy to declare “victory” over, while decentralised insurgency and ideological propagation are far harder to quantify. Worse still, the underlying drivers of this ideology not only remain in place, but the Western powers remain uninterested in defeating these factors.

Imperialism Unbound

That the Bondi Beach attack targeted the Jewish community was not a coincidence. The war in Gaza, with its catastrophic humanitarian toll and perceived international impunity for Israel, has generated global outrage that extremist ideologues exploit. US support for remaking Palestine – and systematically sidesteppingthe Palestine state—under its own watch is only adding insult to injury.

Why is the US still occupying Syrian oil? US military deployment in Syria and its support for proxy groups is an example that perfectly shows raw imperial extraction from a territory—or a colony—under US physical occupation. The problem, therefore, is not whether organisations like ISIS* can be defeated; the question is whether Western policymakers can target the underlying conditions—genocide in Gaza and US military occupation of territories—to permanently kill extremism? Needless to say, targeting the underlying drivers requires paying a geopolitical cost. This policy asks, if we were to think in terms of the two most recent ISIS* attacks, does it involve Washington stopping Israel’s war? But the cost will be its alliance with Jerusalem and its footprint in the Middle East. The US has used this war to renegotiate—and expand—its military ties with the region, thus profiting from the genocide! If Washington were to withdraw from Syria, the cost would be decreasing its military footprint in the region and losing access to Syrian oil. If the past is any guide, Washington is not willing to pay these costs.

Can extremism be controlled when power is selectively applied?

Thus, the Bondi Beach massacre and the ISIS*attack on the US military are not anomalies; they are the consequences of unresolved violence, unaccountable wars, and moral compromises. The future of global extremism will be shaped less by battlefield victories than by political courage, i.e., the willingness of Western powers to confront uncomfortable truths, bear geopolitical costs, and address structural injustices that fuel radicalisation. If Washington continues to prioritise strategic alliances and resource access over human security and legal accountability, the world can expect more Bondi Beaches, more attacks on the US and Western military forces and outposts across the globe, and more ISIS*-inspired violence. In other words, until the moral calculus of power changes, “defeat” will remain a convenient fiction, and the spectre of extremism will persist as a global, self-perpetuating threat.

*- Terrorist organisations banned in Russia

 

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs

https://journal-neo.su/2025/12/19/bondi-beach-and-the-afterlives-of-war-why-isis-never-truly-disappeared/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

OUR HEARTS BLEED FOR ALL THE FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES AFFECTED BY THIS ACT OF TRAGIC TERRORISM. 
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN AUSTRALIA DESERVE AS MUCH PEACE AS ALL THE PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD.

AND WE MEAN IT. 

 

Bondi Shooter revelations leave blood on the hands of politicians, police, ASIO

by Michael Pascoe

 

Revelations that the Bondi gunman bought 3 shotguns from the same NSW gun store on one day will shake up the blame narrative. Michael Pascoe reports.

Politicians state and federal, Labor and Coalition, have blood on their hands by selling out to the gun lobby, allowing the Akrams to buy rapid-fire killing machines totally at odds with the spirit of the Port Arthur gun control. That ISIS-linked gunman Sajid Akram reportedly bought three such weapons on one night in September 2023 – the month before the October 7 Hamas massacre in 2023 – will be an unwelcome distraction for some in the media and politics pushing their own blame narratives. Today’s revelations of this transaction, the goods of mass murder, show politicians and regulators have failed the public. The hero

Ahmed al Ahmed is a hero for risking his life by jumping Sajid Akram, temporarily disarming him, thus saving lives by slowing the murderous fire. So what about those who sped it up, who enabled more people to be killed? What sort of scumbags would do that? 

My gun licence lapsed earlier this year. I sold my double barrel shotgun to a Sydney gun shop. My membership of a clay target club had lapsed a good while before. I wasn’t using it. 

I mention that to provide a little context for my shock at reading that the older Akram legally owned the weapons. Given the speed of the shotgun fire, I thought it must have been a pump action, a type of weapon that is supposed to be tightly controlled, limited to the relatively few people who could justify the need for a rapid fire weapon in pest control, that is not supposed to be in the hands of suburban gun club members.

That just showed how out-of-date my knowledge was of Australian firearm regulation and technology, of how lobbyists and importers and retailers had bent weak politicians to their will to undermine and white-ant Australia’s Port Arthur gun control laws. 

The gun lobby

I did not know the slimy profit-seekers and influence-for-hire sleaze-bags had succeeded in getting weapons every bit as deadly and unnecessary as the pump action guns into our country, into our gun shops, into the hands of just about anyone who wanted them, into the hands of Sajid Akram. 

Our governments, all our governments of both parties, did that.

The Australian this morning reports ($) Akram bought three such killing machines from a gun shop one night in September, 2023. The transaction raised no red flag. There was no cooling-off period or checking of why a person would suddenly want such a deadly, rapid-fire arsenal.

So spare me any National or Bob Katter daring to criticise anyone else for Bondi. 

Thanks to the ABC’s Matt Bevan, I now know better. Akram had what are called straight-pull shotguns that slid through the politicians and captured regulators from about 2018. 

Blood on their hands

If you want to see close up of a straight-pull weapon in action, try this YouTube review of an Adler shotgun at 5 minutes 43 in. The reviewer blasts off six rounds in as many seconds. 

An AFR account of the Bondi massacre reports 33 shots were fired in the first minute, 50 in the first two minutes.  

The politicians who let such rapid-fire weapons into the country, into the Akrams’ hands, the politicians who pushed for them, in my opinion have blood on their hands. 

It’s a bitter time for those who unsuccessfully fought against those politicians, who saw the danger but couldn’t match whatever blandishments the local gun lobby offered, who have had to wait for 15 people to be murdered and dozens wounded to see governments belatedly acting. 

Our weak and desperate Federal opposition trying to diminish the importance of closing the gate demonstrate their own priorities. 

There were warnings ignored

Samantha Lee, a former director of Gun Control Australia, wrote in the Nine newspapers of trying to warn the federal and NSW governments in 2016 of a new sort of lever-action hunting rifle, the Adler A110. We don’t allow AR15-style semi-automatic rifles but the lever-action come close. 

 “Although the gun lobby in Australia is not as structured as the National Rifle Association in the United States, it still exists,” Ms Lee wrote.

 “It walks the corridors of our parliaments. 

Its members include gun exporters, importers and certain political parties.

“The gradual erosion of our gun laws is akin to a crab slowly boiling in water. It has happened incrementally, behind closed doors, and with little public attention, until Sunday’s carnage.”

There’s plenty of blame to go round for the extent of the Bondi tragedy. Such lone wolf madness, whether in Port Arthur or Christchurch mosques or Bondi or any number of instances further away, can’t be completely prevented, but the damage can be lessened. 

Machine fantasy

As I’ve written before in another place, there is something in the nature of a machine that can play to our fantasies. Lust after and buy a car that has been designed to be driven fast and you will end up driving it fast. 

Lust after and buy a machine specifically designed for killing many quickly and you will end up … well, that depends on what fantasy you might harbour and how well you control it. But combine the nature of such a machine with whatever the mania it is in a mass murderer and many more people are murdered. 

Look hard at the politicians belatedly making it more difficult to acquire a straight-pull shotgun like Akram’s. Where were they when the Port Arthur controls were being undermined?

But look even harder at the players now diminishing the importance of fixing that past mistake. They have no credibility, deserve no respect. 

https://michaelwest.com.au/bondi-tragedy-lets-not-forget-guns-in-the-political-blamefest/

 

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

OUR HEARTS BLEED FOR ALL THE FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES AFFECTED BY THIS ACT OF TRAGIC TERRORISM. 
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN AUSTRALIA DESERVE AS MUCH PEACE AS ALL THE PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD.

AND WE MEAN IT. 

 

Jack Waterford

This one’s on Netanyahu, not Albanese

 

The Bondi massacre sits within a wider international context that has reshaped public attitudes to Israel, antisemitism and protest, complicating how grief, fear and responsibility are understood in Australia.

The massacre at Bondi fits so naturally into the context of Israel’s recent wars with its neighbours that one cannot help but wonder why so few in the post-massacre grieving will make explicit reference to it.

This is not to say that a retaliatory and appalling massacre of Jews on a Sydney beach could ever be justified as a legitimate retaliation for the actions of Israel. They can’t, and no one has made any serious attempt to do so. But nor can the Bondi massacre and the sense of siege enveloping Jewish Australians be understood without an appreciation of the dramatic shift of opinion about Israel that has occurred over the past few years. Benjamin Netanyahu, so quick to blame our prime minister Anthony Albanese for appeasement of Palestinians, should have more on his conscience.

Jewish Australians are blaming governments for an increasing sense of public hostility to Jews in general and Israel in particular. They have been finding classic antisemitic tropes invoked in public debate. Been specifically targeted by neo-Nazi groups, and have borne, locally, blame for actions of the Israeli state against the people of Gaza. They have copped flak for what they have done to Palestinians generally. Israel has recently bombed neighbouring nations including Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Yemen. The conflicts have been occurring since Israel became a state, but until recently, Israel has enjoyed strong support from western countries, including the US, Australia and most of Europe. That support and overwhelming Israeli military superiority (including nuclear weapons) has made successive Israeli governments slow to come to just settlements with the Palestinians it has displaced. And also resistant to pressure even from countries not openly hostile to Israel to work towards a two-state solution, to stop an aggressive settlement program, and to dismantle an increasingly authoritarian apartheid state.

In recent years some Israeli politicians have campaigned for Israel to annex all the lands of old Palestine. Even before October 7, this was leading to increasing criticism and impatience with Israel, and not only from essentially friendly states but from popular opinion around the world.

The massacre of Israelis by Hamas fighters on October 7, 2023, was originally perceived around the world as an unprovoked massacre of innocent civilians, entirely unjustified by any events immediately besetting the people of Gaze. In this it had parallels with Bondi, although the father-son pair who perpetrated the Bondi massacre are not to be compared with Hamas fighters.

Disproportion of retaliation raised indignation with Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately declared war on Hamas and invaded and bombed Gaza. Nations such as Australia (and Britain, France, Canada and other countries in Europe) “understood” Israel’s response and were initially understanding about the disproportion of it.

That disproportion developed until the number of Gazans who died exceeded 60 times the fatalities of the October 7 massacre. Almost the whole city of Gaza was levelled by bombing campaigns. Public buildings such as hospitals and schools were bombed on the allegation that they were concealing Hamas militants. Israel closely controlled entry and exit of Gaza, including denying access to outside journalists, and withheld supplies, fuel and power. Soon they were accused of a deliberate policy of starving the population and of engaging in a conscious program of ethnic genocide. International legal bodies, including the International Criminal Court issued warrants for the arrest of some Israeli figures, including Netanyahu for alleged war crimes, and the International Court declared the genocide allegations credible.

The international reaction and even the domestic reaction inside Israel was enormous. The ferocity of the response went on and on and entirely undermined claims of self-defence. Very quickly, the October 7 attacks came to be seen not as a stand-alone attack on innocent Israeli women and children, but within the context of a long-running struggle between Palestinians and Israelis over Palestinian rights, an ultimate two-state solution to land now under virtual Israeli control and long lists of grievances stretching back until the beginning of the 20th century. Terrorism, including against women and children, was argued to be a legitimate form of resistance to an overwhelmingly powerful occupying state. Its history in the land extended beyond periods of intense intifada activity, which had included suicide bombings, hijackings, hostage taking and armed raids, all the way back Jewish terrorism setting the scene for the creation of the state of Israel nearly 80 years ago.

Israel fairly quickly squandered much of the moral credit and advantage it had had in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 massacre, rapes and hostage taking. Around the western world, students showed support for the Palestinian struggle. Many did even in Israel itself. Foreign governments, including Australia, tried to rein in the scale and extent of static student protests, including occupations. It is important to remember that Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong, criticised now for taking too little action to protect Jewish Australians, were under considerable pressure from the left of centre of Australian politics, particularly by the Greens, for seeming to be favouring Israel rather than Palestinian rights. Labor emphasised its support for a two-state solution and an end-up settlement of Palestinian claims, but it was also supplying arms to Israel, despite denials, and seeking to restrict demonstrations by the Muslim community (which is about eight times the size of the Jewish community). Jewish groups were complaining of feeling unsafe on Australian campuses, and about the need for protection at synagogues, Jewish schools and preschools.

Much criticism of Israel was wrongly called antisemitism

There were strong and bitter words said in debate. But many ordinary members of the community understood very well the distinction between criticism of the Israeli government and criticism of Jews because they were Jewish. Indeed, many people in the Jewish community itself were strongly critical of the Netanyahu government and thought that it was prolonging the war because Netanyahu was in political trouble, and would, in any event, face serious corruption charges once the war ended.

The public debate also involved people who were strong critics of Zionism – a political movement that had campaigned for a Jewish state (under the slogan ‘a land without people for a people without land”) resisting arguments that international creation of Israel implied respect for Palestinian rights. Many Jews, in Israel or elsewhere, are not Zionists. Significant lobbies try to conflate Zionism with Israel itself.

For many Muslims taking part in demonstrations or engaged in the public square, the argument was about justice for the Palestinian people. But with Israel a frequent military meddler in the politics of its neighbours, the hostility to Israel has extended to questioning its very right to exist as a state in the region. This is not, of itself, mere antisemitism but a lament that Jewish settlement was a colonial imposition by Britain and France without much in the way of regard for the rights of the people who actually lived there.

Britain and France promised Zionists a Jewish state in the middle of WWI, in breach of promises they had also made to Arabs about independence for military help in fighting Turkey. Israelis complain that its neighbours deny their state’s right to exist, as though they want Israelis killed or obliterated. No, they just think they shouldn’t be there, in Palestine. They deny that a colonial outsider can create a state over the heads of an area’s inhabitants, then use its de facto existence as a foundation for oppressing the population. It would be as if Britain had exiled most Irish people from their country then moved in Scots and given them self-government.

Israel’s neighbours, and its non-Jewish domestic population, show practical respect for Israel’s existence. They had little choice. Israel has formidable military power. Some of its neighbours – Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt for example – have practical legal and peaceful working relationships with the state. Other big powers – the US, Russia, Britain and France for example – have working relationships with all the powers in the region. There are massive obstacles to peace in the Middle East, but it does not turn on the meaning of words such as “recognise.”

Jewish Australian lobby groups promote an array of diverse activities, religious, social and political. But they have an anxious eye for the success and security of Israel, even if, or when they are critical of the character of the government of the day. Some Australians, not all Jews, are heavily involved in Israeli politics, including supporting particular parties. Some prominent Jewish Australians have a firm foot in Israel as well and tend to regard all criticisms of Israel, including criticism of the government, as inherently antisemitic and hostile to Jews. Others don’t. But a good many groups that chronicle and record instances of anti-Jewish statements include among them criticism of Israel’s actions over Gaza, and settlement policies.

Some of the focus of criticism on Albanese and Labor, and emotive suggestions that they are “personally responsible” for the Bondi massacre are payback for Labor’s efforts to operate with an even hand. The Opposition is not so judicious. Like the Murdoch media it is uncritically pro-Israel. It’s an interesting judgment given that, as a former National Party Leader, Tim Fischer (pro-Palestinian) used to point out, Australia’s economic future is much more allied with Islamic countries. It may prove to be one with famous Liberal Party judgment calls such as demonising Australia’s one million Chinese Australians as potentially disloyal spies for China. With or without future immigration, Muslim Australians vastly outnumber Jewish Australians. And an increasing number of Jewish Australians are not, as Australia’s Jews prior to World War II were, culturally western European, but rather more of Russian or Eastern European background. Nothing wrong with that of course, but it can mean that some are not readily seen as “people like us” – that is white and assimilated.

Don’t forget the crude neo-Nazi antisemitism. Nor Hanson’s mimicking of its success

Also in the mix are a significant, and growing, number of neo-Nazis who are open in their pure antisemitism, and, in many cases, in their identification with Nazi extermination programs during WWII. In recent times they have seen one of the prime avenues of recruitment as being hostility to immigration, particularly to allowing “people not like us” to come. By that they mean Muslims, Jews, people from the Middle East, India, Asia and Africa (other than ex-colonial types). They want to recreate the White Australian enclave that prevailed until the 1960s, the days before multiculturalism, the melting pot, and the high protectionism of a time when Australia made its own things, if at twice the price of our neighbours.

It is not only neo-Nazis who are pushing this agenda. So is Pauline Hanson, who was very publicly worried about Australia’s going chocolate 30 years ago. There’s now a popular belief that most of Australia’s economic ills – over housing, a manufacturing base and job opportunities for example – could be resolved if the nation rejected having an international student market (once bigger than wheat, beef and minerals) and stopped taking any other migrants as well. With people such as Hanson, and the neo-Nazis making it clear that the ones who won’t be coming will be those who are not white, or from a once-Christian country, one does not have to do much dog whistling about this. A good many Liberals can hardly resist. Not a few Labor politicians make it clear they have the message and are full of corollary promises about deporting those who commit crimes (statistically, migrants are less likely to commit crimes than the Australian born) and exemplary cruelty to asylum seekers.

A decade ago, Australians elected a Liberal government which saw as one of its first priorities the repeal of an anti-discrimination law that criminalised racist abuse. It was, apparently, a restriction of freedom of speech. Then Attorney-General George Brandis, regarded in the Liberals as a moderate, famously explained that “People do have a right to be bigots, you know. In a free country people do have rights to say things that other people will find offensive or insulting or bigoted.” In the new regime the Jewish envoy wants, this may be all too much.

Jewish Australians, here since 1788 have had great success in Australia, and talk about their feeling uncomfortable has to be taken seriously. They may well be more at risk from far-right groups than from Muslim Australians, overwhelmingly law-abiding for all that there are some who will never fit in.

We have mostly moved on from the open racism and anti-semitism of another era

In nativist America, 200 years ago, a top priority was keeping Jews out. And Irish Catholics, who were unlikely ever to be industrious enough, or educable enough to help the US prosper. Even now a fairly openly racist Donald Trump complains there are not enough Scandinavians applying for immigration, and told Somali Americans they were “garbage” he didn’t want in the US.

Only 80 years ago, there were RSL types who wondered aloud whether “southern” Europeans – Italians, say, or Greeks, Turks and the Spanish should really qualify under the White Australia policy. Allegedly such swarthy types lacked the northern European protestant work ethic. The Canberra Times editorialised against admitting more Jewish refugees:

“Where black markets and illegalities flourish, the experience is that Jewish refugees are plentifully in evidence. Australians, particularly ex-servicemen, are finding themselves elbowed away by the money power which the refugee class exercises, and Australians find themselves exploited by all manner of snide business tricks which have been introduced to this country. Moreover, the historically proven experience that Jews are incapable of governing others and unwilling themselves to be governed, is being repeated in the lack of Australian sentiment by this class of immigrant.”

Owner and editor Arthur Shakespeare was not sent to re-education camp, nor charged with sedition or promotion of racial hatred.

Muslim Australians need to be made to feel safe and comfortable too, not least in a world and a region in which some citizens are more hostile, increasingly unwelcoming, and interested in organising confrontations. But some Australians, including some media organisations, think it is open season on them. Muslim Australians, like Jewish Australians, have legitimate interests in social and political outcomes in the Middle East that are of priority equal to Israel’s. Israel’s future, after all, depends on its ultimately making peace with its neighbours and providing justice to the Palestinians.

That’s an end rather better achieved by community cooperation in common goals rather than the severe restriction of civil liberties, demonstrations, snipping the rights of prominent Jews to describe Palestinians as “animals”, cultural commissars at universities and the ABC. And school curriculums on what must be taught about tolerance towards Jews (if not explicitly, Aborigines, or the latest crops of migrants and refugees). Those who resolve their community differences with rifles and shotguns do not tend to have gone to lectures that day.

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9137835/jack-waterford-tensions-rise-bondi-terrorism-jewish-safety/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

SEE ALSO: 

 

a voice in the wilderness .....

 

dirty old trick...

 

playing monopoland

 

no laughing matter... 

better smarter terrorism...

 

a boot in the door...

 

from the chosen people .....

 

political detours .....

 

Bondi Beach Terror Attack and Australia’s Wrong Foreign Policy

Simon Westwood

The Bondi Beach attack on the Jewish people orchestrated by Australian visa holders resulted in 16 deaths. However, Australia still hasn’t learned the lesson and continues to pursue a flawed foreign policy.

It is a matter of great pride for the Russian Federation and the Russian people that, besides Australia’s continued hostility towards Russia, the first people to stop the attacking gunmen were a Russian-Jewish couple identified as Boris Gurman and Sofia Gurman. The husband and wife were married for 34 good years and were to celebrate Sofia’s 62nd birthday on December 17. The Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Russian-Jewish couple sacrificed their lives in an attempt to stop the massacre.

On December 14, 2025, two assailants who were greatly inspired by the Islamic State orchestrated an attack on the Jewish people while they were celebrating the first day of Hanukkah. The attack resulted in the deaths of 16 people and injured more than 40 people.

Australian Denial of Active Terrorist Organizations

We may witness a hike in terrorism in Australia in the years to come as the policies of Australian government have strengthened the roots of the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations to wage attacks against the innocent people, racism, and spread hatred 

Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, said that there was no sign of any terrorist organization behind the heinous attack. However, his deliberately crafted statement is far from reality. Since the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel, the Australian politicians and statesmen have failed to condemn the disproportionate carnage executed by the Israelis in Gaza and Palestine. This Australian complicity in the Palestinian genocide has provided an opportunity for the Islamic State and other terrorist groups to encourage their fighters all around the globe to wage Jihad and seek revenge against the Jewish people.

Anthony Albanese argued that “People can be radicalised over a period of time. Licences should not be in perpetuity.” He also said that “People’s circumstances can change.” His statements reveal that a considerable number of Australian people are either radicalised or indoctrinated by some extremist ideology that encourages them to wage violence against some community or a group of people.

Tim Quinn, the President of Gun Control in Australia, said that “It is essential that we ask careful, evidence-based questions about how this attack occurred, including how any weapons were obtained and whether our current laws and enforcement mechanisms are keeping pace with changing risks and technologies.” It is important to know how the weapons were available for terrorists to use against innocent people.

Violence in Australia

It is quite worrisome that gun violence and terrorism is increasing in Australia. In August 2025, Dezi Freeman, a conspiracy theorist, killed two police officers in Australia’s Victoria region using stolen guns from police. Previously, on April 13, 2024, Joel Cauchi killed six people using a knife and injured over a dozen in Bondi, New South Wales. Australia’s most deadly shooting took place in April 1996, when Martin Bryant shot and killed 35 people and injured more than two dozen.

Analysis and Conclusions

Australia has become a dangerous place for the innocent people. The British newspaper The Guardian reported in September 2025, that “In Australia, racist violence is nothing new” and noted that such violence has “emboldened neo-Nazis.” We may witness a hike in terrorism in Australia in the years to come as the policies of the Australian government have strengthened the roots of the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations to wage attacks against the innocent people, racism, and spread hatred.

However, besides Australia’s continued denial of active terrorist organizations on the Australian territory, it is a big question mark on the security as well as intelligence services of Australia, which have miserably failed to identify potential militants, terrorists, and Islamic State sympathisers having links to terrorist organizations. It is noteworthy that Nikkei Asia reported that in August 2024, while citing the terrorist threat, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) lifted the terrorist threat level from “possible” to “probable.” It makes it clear that the Australian government and intelligence were certain of a terrorist attack; however, it remained ignorant.

The Australian government has completely failed, and resultantly the Australian people feel insecure, since the number of gun licenses has momentously grown over the past couple of years. For instance, in the State of New South Wales, where the Bondi Beach terrorist incident took place, there were “180,663 licences in 2001, rising to just fewer than 260,000 in 2025.” There are two possible directions in this regard. Either the security and police have completely failed in Australia. Or, the gun laws in Australia have become so weak that now everybody wants to own a weapon for protection or other purposes.

 

Simon Westwood is a Masters student at the Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland. He is also a Research Assistant at the DCU’s Department of History

https://journal-neo.su/2025/12/23/bondi-beach-terror-attack-and-australias-wrong-foreign-policy/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.