In the aftermath of the Bondi Beach attack, grief was quickly accompanied by political demands that blurred the line between combating antisemitism and suppressing dissent, with troubling consequences for social cohesion and civil liberties.

The violent attack at Bondi Beach sent shockwaves through Australia. A place synonymous with leisure, openness, and everyday multicultural life was suddenly transformed into a site of terror. The shock, grief, and fear felt by the public were entirely legitimate. What followed, however, exposed something more disturbing: the speed with which tragedy was politicised, selectively framed, and exploited to justify demands that threaten civil liberties and social cohesion.

Within hours, the Bondi Beach attack was seized upon by pro-Israel lobby groups and prominent Zionist commentators as evidence of a supposed failure of government resolve. The Australian prime minister was accused – publicly and aggressively – of not having done “enough”, despite existing hate-speech laws, robust counter-terrorism frameworks, and repeated official condemnations of antisemitism.

The subtext was clear: no amount of reassurance, policing, or legislative tightening will ever be sufficient. Each crisis becomes an opportunity to extract further concessions.

Predictably, these demands extended beyond the immediate issue of public safety. Calls emerged to ban or severely restrict protests, to deport individuals on vague security grounds, and to further tighten immigration – particularly from Muslim-majority countries or conflict zones.

This pattern is familiar. After major attacks in Paris, London, and New York, fear was similarly converted into permanent policy shifts that disproportionately affected minorities who had no connection to the violence itself.

One of the most striking aspects of the Bondi Beach tragedy was largely lost in the political noise. Among those who acted courageously to help others and prevent further harm was a Muslim man originally from Syria. His actions were widely praised – yet early international commentary, including remarks attributed to Israeli officials, initially assumed the rescuer must have been Jewish.

This reflex is revealing. It betrays an unspoken assumption that moral courage and altruism naturally belong to some identities and not others. Good deeds are presumed to come from “us”; violence is presumed to come from “them”. Such thinking collapses human complexity into crude identity politics.

The irony is hard to ignore. At the very moment these assumptions were being made, Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza continued to exact an extraordinary civilian toll. According to the United Nations and major humanitarian organisations, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed or are missing and presumed dead, including vast numbers of women and children. To point out this contrast is not antisemitism. It is a refusal to abandon moral consistency.

One of the most corrosive features of contemporary debate is the deliberate conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel or of Zionist political ideology. This conflation is not only wrong; it is reckless.

Antisemitism – hatred or prejudice against Jews as Jews – is real and must be opposed unequivocally. But criticism of a state’s policies, or of an ideology that legitimises ethnic supremacy and permanent occupation, is neither racist nor hateful. To insist otherwise is intellectually naïve and politically cynical.

Indeed, it is precisely this twisting of language – weaponising moral concepts to insulate power from accountability – that generates resentment among ordinary people. When facts are distorted, when tragedies are selectively politicised, and when one group claims moral exemption based on chosenness or historical suffering, outrage is inevitable. Suppressing that outrage does not neutralise it; it radicalises it.

It is entirely right to grieve for the victims of Bondi Beach. What is unconscionable is to grieve selectively. To recognise the horror of one violent act while remaining indifferent to the systematic destruction of an entire population is a moral failure.

A child killed at Bondi is not more human than a child killed in Rafah or Khan Younis. Empathy that stops at the borders of identity – religious, ethnic, or national – is not empathy at all; it is tribalism masquerading as ethics.

Yet double standards are glaring. Israeli flags are routinely raised at public events and political rallies without comment. But if a single participant at a pro-Palestine demonstration raises, for example, an Iranian flag, the media rushes to portray the entire protest as “foreign-backed” or “terrorist-linked”. Entire movements are smeared based on the actions of one individual. This type of “narrative engineering” actively undermines social trust.

Yes, Australia faces genuine risks: polarisation, imported conflicts, and social fragmentation. But it is not too late to choose a wiser course.

That course requires restraint, factual clarity, and an honest recognition that politicians of all backgrounds – including Jewish politicians – will not hesitate to capitalise on tragedy for ideological or electoral gain. History shows that the safety of ordinary Jewish Australians is rarely the true priority of hardline Zionist politics. If it were, leaders would seek to reduce anger and alienation, not inflame it by criminalising protest and silencing dissent.

Recent incidents at Australian universities underscore the danger. Staff and students accused of supporting Palestine have faced disciplinary action, including at Macquarie University, where one Palestinian academic was suspended and two, a Lebanese and a Tunisian were made redundant. When people fear losing their jobs, visas, or academic standing for holding political views, resentment does not disappear. It festers.

Australia’s strength lies in its pluralism, not in enforced conformity. Combating antisemitism must never be used as a pretext to suppress legitimate criticism of a foreign state or to deny empathy to other victims of violence.

If fear continues to be weaponised, language corrupted, and grief selectively applied, Australia will not become safer. It will become smaller, angrier, and more divided.