Fifteen people, most of them Jewish, were murdered at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025. The attackers were apocalyptic jihadists. The fear in Jewish communities is real and justified—a 316% increase in antisemitic incidents since October 2023.

Within 48 hours, Josh Frydenberg demanded Prime Minister Albanese take personal responsibility and called for bans on hate preachers, organisation proscription, prosecution of slogans like "from the river to the sea," and protest restrictions. He framed Albanese's response as "the difference between life and death."

The emotional logic is familiar: atrocity demands action, and action means expanding state power over speech, association, and movement. But examine what actually happened.

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Who Was Naveed Akram?

Naveed Akram was born in 2001 in Sydney's western suburbs. By 2019, the 18-year-old had built connections to Australia's most dangerous extremist networks. He worshipped at the Al Madina Dawah Centre in Bankstown—identified by ABC's Four Corners as a "breeding ground for extremists."

Videos from mid-2019 show Akram proselytising with the Street Dawah Movement. ASIO investigated him from October 2019 to April 2020, concluding there was "no indication of any ongoing threat." He was never placed on a terrorism watchlist.

Critical fact: Akram was in ASIO's sights four years before the Opera House protests, five years before Australia's recognition of Palestine. The claim that protest movements radicalised him collapses under scrutiny.

The Conflation That Doesn't Hold

ISIS and Palestinian nationalism are not allies—they are enemies. ISIS has perpetrated crimes against Palestinian refugees and views Palestinian self-determination as apostasy. The solidarity movement's central claim—that opposition to Israeli policy is not hatred of Jewish people—is precisely the distinction the Bondi attackers obliterated.

The jihadist infrastructure that produced Akram was operating years before October 7, 2023.

What ASIO Actually Said

Five weeks before Bondi, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess stated the Middle East conflict "did not directly inspire terrorism here." In his February 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, he reported fewer than half of potential terrorist matters were religiously motivated; "the majority involved mixed ideologies or nationalist and racist ideologies."

"None of the attacks or plots appear to be directly inspired by the conflict in the Middle East." — Mike Burgess, ASIO Director-General, February 2025

Yet after Bondi, Burgess acknowledged: "One of these individuals was known to us, but not in an immediate-threat perspective."

What Actually Failed

The surveillance gap: After ASIO dropped Akram in April 2020, there is "no indication he came under the attention of authorities at any point" until the attack—six years of nothing.

The Philippines trip: From November 1–28, 2025, father and son travelled to Davao City in Mindanao, a region associated with ISIS-affiliated Abu Sayyaf. Counter-terrorism officials believe they underwent training. A month-long trip to a known terrorism hotspot triggered no intelligence alerts.

The firearms licensing failure: Sajid Akram applied for a firearms licence in 2020, one year after his son came to ASIO's attention. Despite the 2.5-year delay, it was granted in 2023. By the attack, he possessed six high-powered firearms. Under NSW law, association with someone on a terrorism watchlist should be grounds for denial. No cross-check occurred.

"Why when ASIO had identified Naveed Akram in 2019, was his father allowed to keep six guns? Are databases talking to each other?" — Malcolm Turnbull, former Prime Minister

None of these failures would be addressed by banning protest slogans, adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism, or fast-tracking the Segal report.

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Constitutional Challenges

Recent NSW anti-protest laws have been struck down twice in three years. In Kvelde v NSW (2023), provisions criminalising climate protests were declared unconstitutional. In Lees v NSW (2025), laws targeting demonstrations near places of worship failed because they captured protected political communication.

Most relevant: Wertheim v Haddad (2025) addressed the preacher who ran the centre where Akram worshipped. The Federal Court found Haddad's characterisation of Jews as "descendants of pigs and monkeys" constituted unlawful vilification. But Justice Stewart drew a clear distinction:

"Political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature criticism of Jews in general." — Justice Stewart, Wertheim v Haddad (2025)

Proposals to ban "from the river to the sea" face this framework directly. The Meta Oversight Board ruled the phrase lacks a single meaning and "a blanket ban would hinder protected political speech in unacceptable ways."

War on Terror's Lessons

The post-9/11 era produced overreach now universally acknowledged as excessive: CIA black sites, waterboarding documented as ineffective, illegal NSA mass surveillance, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo detainees held for decades without trial.

The intelligence justifying Iraq's invasion was fabricated. Colin Powell called his UN speech "a blot" on his record.

And the Iraq War itself created ISIS. Coalition Provisional Authority Order 2 dissolved the Iraqi military, instantly rendering 400,000 soldiers unemployed. Der Spiegel obtained ISIS organisational documents written by former Saddam Hussein officers. Thirty percent of ISIS's senior military command were former Iraqi army officers. Camp Bucca became the incubator.

"There undeniably would be no ISIS if we hadn't invaded Iraq." — David Kilcullen, former State Department counterterrorism strategist
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Jewish Voices Differ

Not all Jewish voices support the political response. The Jewish Council of Australia cautioned against the trajectory in a media release titled "Unity, safety and prevention—not fulfilling divisive pro-Israel wishlist—must guide the Government's response to Bondi attack."

Sarah Schwartz, executive officer, stated: "We share the government's goal of confronting antisemitism and racism wherever they appear."

The Choice

Justice means understanding what actually happened and fixing what actually failed. It means asking why ASIO stopped watching a man they'd identified, why a trip to Mindanao triggered nothing, why databases don't communicate, why a preacher the Federal Court found had vilified Jews continued operating a radicalising centre.

It does not mean handing expanded powers to institutions that failed. It does not mean targeting communities for their members' speech. It does not mean pretending that banning slogans would have stopped someone connected to jihadist networks since his teenage years.

Naomi Klein saw this pattern twenty years ago: crisis exploitation becomes self-perpetuating. The overreach generates blowback, justifying more overreach. By the time courts rule powers illegal and investigations document abuse, the architecture is entrenched.

We can follow that playbook again—expand surveillance, restrict speech, ban organisations—or learn from history.