After Bondi: The Conversation We're Not Having

In the weeks since fifteen people were murdered at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, I've written about the systems failures that allowed the attack to happen, and about the problems with antisemitism data methodology. But there's a conversation we're not having—one that matters if we actually want to make Jewish Australians safer rather than just be seen doing something.

That conversation is about what's being done to Australians on both sides of this divide, and why the proposed solutions will make things worse, not better.

The Targeting That Goes Both Ways

While politicians cite rising antisemitism to justify restricting protests, something else has been happening: Australians are being targeted for criticising Israel—and most formal complaints against them fail.

Since October 2023, at least 47 documented cases have emerged of journalists, academics, politicians, activists, and public figures facing accusations—from social media campaigns to Federal Court proceedings—for pro-Palestinian speech.

The outcomes reveal a striking pattern.

Journalist Antoinette Lattouf was fired by ABC Radio Sydney for reposting a Human Rights Watch report about starvation in Gaza. The Federal Court ruled the ABC "unlawfully terminated" her "for the political opinion she held" and had "abjectly surrendered the rights of its employee to appease a lobby group."

Cricket journalist Peter Lalor was dismissed by SEN Radio after complaints about his retweets of Human Rights Watch and Haaretz articles. His employer said his voice made Jewish people "feel unsafe."

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency received 209 notifications against 101 practitioners—many targeting women with Middle Eastern names for using the word "genocide." No doctors have been deregistered.

ANU student Beatrice Tucker was expelled for comments about Hamas—then reinstated on appeal. University of Sydney academic Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah had her $870,000 research fellowship suspended—then restored after investigation.

Over 50 Jewish university staff and alumni signed an open letter defending academics facing Section 18C complaints, stating: "These complainants do not speak for us as Jewish people."

Palestinian-Australian businessman Hash Tayeh now faces what may be a precedent-setting criminal prosecution—charged with "using insulting words in public" for chanting "all Zionists are terrorists" at Melbourne protests. This represents the first time political speech has been prosecuted under Victoria's public order laws. Notably, Tayeh's Burgertory restaurant was firebombed in November 2023, and his family home was attacked in April 2024.

The burden of defending against these complaints—even unsuccessful ones—creates significant chilling effects. This is the context missing from the conversation.

The Data Driving Policy

The numbers cited in every news report are stark: a 316% increase in antisemitic incidents since October 2023. These figures have shaped parliamentary debates, policy discussions, and now justify sweeping legislative changes.

Almost all Australian antisemitism statistics originate from a single source: the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ). Unlike peer nations—the UK, US, Germany, France—Australia has no independent government verification mechanism. The ECAJ operates a self-reporting system through an online portal. There is no independent body that verifies these figures.

Even NSW Police have acknowledged problems with their own data. Deputy Commissioner David Hudson testified that police antisemitism records were "subjective" and "not to keep accurate statistical information; it's for operational use." Analysis found 38 duplicates among 367 entries—a 10% error rate. The "Dural Caravan" incident, prominently cited to justify hate crime legislation, was later revealed as "a hoax orchestrated by organised crime."

This isn't to say antisemitism hasn't increased—it clearly has. But when the data infrastructure has these problems, we should be cautious about using these numbers to justify restricting political speech.

The Real Threats Aren't Protesters

The most serious attacks on Jewish Australians haven't come from pro-Palestinian activists. They've come from state-sponsored terrorism and organised crime.

In August 2025, ASIO formally assessed that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed at least two attacks on Australian Jewish targets: the arson attack on Lewis Continental Kitchen, a kosher food company in Sydney, in October 2024; and the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December 2024, which "completely gutted" the interior, collapsed part of the roof, and destroyed Torah scrolls.

This assessment led to the expulsion of Iran's ambassador—the first such expulsion since World War II. The IRGC was subsequently listed as a terrorist organisation.

ASIO also assesses that Iran likely directed additional attacks that have not been publicly specified. Critically, Iran sought to disguise its involvement by using criminals and members of organised crime gangs as proxies.

"None of the individuals we have arrested have displayed any form of antisemitic ideology. I think these organised crime figures have taken an opportunity to play off the vulnerability of the Jewish community." — David Hudson, NSW Police Deputy Commissioner, Strike Force Pearl

This is the threat picture that's being obscured by the focus on protests: state-sponsored terrorism, foreign interference, and criminal enterprise exploiting community vulnerability. None of these would be addressed by banning protest slogans.

The Voices Being Ignored

Nine Jewish organisations—including the Jewish Council of Australia and the Australian Jewish Democratic Society—released an open letter calling for rejection of the Segal Report and the IHRA definition approach, supported by twenty civil society organisations including Amnesty International Australia and the Human Rights Law Centre.

They represent a substantial minority within the Jewish community—surveys suggest at least 30% of Australian Jews do not identify as Zionist—who believe conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism undermines the fight against genuine hatred.

Their argument is straightforward: when you define "from the river to the sea" as antisemitic, you count every protest as an antisemitic incident. You inflate the numbers. You misdirect resources toward speech policing rather than protecting communities from actual violence. And you hand ammunition to those who claim antisemitism accusations are used to silence political criticism.

Meanwhile, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess has noted that the majority of terrorism matters the agency investigates involve "nationalist and racist ideologies, not religious motivation." The far-right threat hasn't disappeared—it's being obscured by the current narrative.

The Alarmist Narrative

Since the attack, we've been told Australian society is "unravelling." That the "fabric of our nation" is torn. That ordinary Australians are collectively guilty for "allowing this to happen."

This framing is ahistorical and counterproductive.

Australia is not Weimar Germany. The Bondi attack was committed by an ISIS-aligned terrorist who had been on ASIO's radar since 2019—not by a movement with mass support. The most serious attacks on Jewish Australians were directed by a foreign state actor, Iran, using criminal proxies. These are failures of intelligence systems and border security, not evidence that Australian society has embraced antisemitism.

The collective guilt narrative—that "we" let this happen—serves a political purpose. It diffuses responsibility from the institutions that actually failed onto an abstract "Australian public" who can then be disciplined through speech restrictions and protest bans. It transforms a security failure into a cultural crisis requiring cultural solutions: more surveillance of speech, more policing of protests, more restrictions on political expression.

But Australians didn't fail to stop this attack. ASIO did, when it closed its investigation in 2019. Border Force did, when a month in a terrorism hotspot triggered no alerts. The databases that don't talk to each other did. Blaming "Australian society" for these institutional failures lets the institutions off the hook.

Why the Proposed Solutions Will Fail

I've written elsewhere about the constitutional obstacles to banning protest slogans—the implied freedom of political communication, the anti-protest laws struck down twice in three years. The legal reality is that much of what politicians are proposing would be struck down.

Yet this hasn't stopped NSW from pushing ahead. The Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 passed both Houses in a marathon debate. The government's own Statement of Public Interest acknowledged the bill was "developed rapidly in direct response to lessons from the Bondi attack" and that "given its urgency, there has been limited opportunity to consider alternative policies and mechanisms." No formal public consultation was conducted.

The legislation grants police power to issue Public Assembly Restriction Declarations banning protests for up to 90 days, creates new offences for displaying terrorist organisation symbols with penalties of up to two years imprisonment, and allows police to require removal of face coverings at protests. These are significant expansions of state power over political expression, rushed through without adequate scrutiny.

The constitutional vulnerability is significant. Just this year, in Lees v NSW [2025], the Supreme Court struck down police powers to direct protesters near places of worship. The 90-day protest ban suffers from the same defects—but worse. A blanket ban is a far greater burden than the police directions struck down in Lees.

But even if these measures survived constitutional challenge, they wouldn't work. The most comprehensive Australian research—examining 20 years of anti-vilification law operation—found laws produced "little to no change in hate speech incidence in public places." Less than 2% of complaints reached binding determinations.

"I don't think that these laws are efficacious... I think they turn whatever is being outlawed into forbidden fruit." — Deborah Lipstadt, Holocaust historian

Research consistently shows banned content migrates to encrypted channels and alternative platforms. Restrictions reduce mainstream reach while concentrating radicalised communities in less-monitored spaces.

Germany has banned Holocaust denial for decades. The AfD has grown anyway.

Crackdowns feel satisfying. They rarely work.

What Would Actually Help

The answer is harder and slower than politicians want to admit: genuine community engagement.

Academic research shows casual interfaith interaction can actually increase prejudice; only deep, sustained relationships reduce negative attitudes. The Corrymeela Community in Northern Ireland and the Nigerian Interfaith Mediation Centre took decades to build. The Drumlanrig Accord—signed by eleven Muslim and Jewish denominations and presented to King Charles in February 2025—shows what's possible even amid conflict. These initiatives don't fit a news cycle. But they work.

It also means addressing the legitimate grievances that fuel polarisation. When Muslim Australians see their community blamed for the actions of ISIS-aligned terrorists—a group that considers Palestinian nationalism heresy—they feel targeted. When Jewish Australians see mass murder at a Hanukkah celebration, they feel unsafe. Both responses are valid. Neither community should have to choose between their safety and their political voice.

Both communities have experienced surges in hatred since October 2023. The Islamophobia Register documented a 530% increase in reports. Jewish Australians report unprecedented fear. These aren't competing claims—they're parallel crises requiring shared solutions.

The Choice

John Coyne, former AFP intelligence coordinator, called for a royal commission examining what systems actually failed. That's the serious conversation we need: why ASIO dropped a man they'd identified, why a month in a terrorism hotspot triggered nothing, why databases don't talk to each other, why Iran can direct attacks on Australian soil using criminal proxies.

These are fixable problems. Protest bans are political theatre.

We can acknowledge the genuine fear in Jewish communities while refusing to scapegoat Palestinian solidarity activists for crimes committed by ISIS-aligned terrorists. We can take antisemitism seriously while maintaining the distinction between racial hatred and political criticism. We can demand institutional accountability while building the interfaith relationships that actually reduce prejudice.

But that requires honesty about what went wrong and what will actually work. It requires choosing evidence over emotion, systems over slogans, engagement over fragmentation.

The alternative is a fragmented society where communities retreat into mutual suspicion—exactly what the alarmists warn about, brought about by the very policies they demand.