Bondi Was a Jihadist Attack — Not an Isolated Hate Crime

The mass murder terror attack in Sydney, Australia was not simply an antisemitic incident that got out of control. It was a professional military operation conducted as part of the global jihadist war being waged on every continent.

To plan an operation like this takes time and resources, which was only possible in an environment created by the Australian government that has been conducive to the development of radical Islamist infrastructure – an environment that indulges the demonization of Israel and Jews on the streets, that allows people to chant gas the Jews on the Sydney Bridge, that tolerates and even endorses the genocidal slogan “from the river to the sea”, a call for the extermination of all Israeli Jews.

What happened in Sydney is what “globalize the intifada” looks like in action: a jihad against the Jews.

What happened in Sydney is what “globalize the intifada” looks like in action: a jihad against the Jews. It’s what happened in Manchester where a terrorist attacked Jews at prayer on Yom Kippur. It’s what happened in Amsterdam where Israeli football fans were hunted down in the streets. And it can happen anywhere to any Jewish community in the world, because “globalize the intifada” means exactly that – hunting Jews everywhere. It is not a protest movement. It is not resistance. It is a jihad of murder, terror and destruction.

Like the original intifada launched against the Jews of Israel, the global version has nothing to do with a Palestinian state. It never has. If it were about a state, there would have been one in 1948, in 1967, in 2001, and many times since. The multi-front Islamist war from Iran to Gaza to Lebanon and Yemen is not about a Palestinian state. It is about jihad, the violent spread of a global Islamist movement whose sole purpose is the destruction of the Jewish state first and then the West and the rest of the world.

When Western leaders, like Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his counterparts in Europe, in response to the Gaza war recognize a Palestinian state, they endanger themselves. They reward jihadi terror and they make a lethal mistake, lethal to the survival of the free world because the Jews are only the first target. The jihadists take aim at all infidels. Their slogan says it all: First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.

We are already seeing this goal being carried out across Africa from Nigeria to Mozambique, Sudan to Mali, jihadists on the march, slaughtering Christians and in Europe, its capitals in London, Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam and beyond, have ever expanding no-go areas governed by Sharia law. What happened in Sydney is not “ordinary” antisemitism. It is part of global jihad. And until the West recognizes that, it faces mortal peril.

And that starts with recognizing that Israel and the Jews are on the front lines defending the world against the global jihad. It is about Western governments having the courage to name the evil by calling the attack on Bondi for what it is, a jihad on the Jews.

Abandon Israel and the Jews, and you place yourselves in the crosshairs of the jihadists. Jewish history teaches that those who rise up to destroy the Jews seek ultimately to destroy all that is sacred in the world.

When Jewish citizens in the world's democracies call on their governments to protect them from this jihad, it is not merely a call to defend Jewish lives, though that alone would justify decisive action. It is a call to save those societies because a place that is unsafe for Jews is unsafe for all decent human beings and unsafe for civilized values.

Those in the West who chant “globalize the intifada” are the academic, political and media elite of the woke left who in their hatred for Israel have made themselves the useful idiots of the Islamists, united by a common enemy: the foundational values of Western liberal democracy. Values that originate in the Hebrew Bible, the sovereignty and freedom of the individual, the innate dignity of the human being created in God's image, faith, family, personal responsibility, the preciousness of life, the greatness of the human spirit.

For the West to survive, it must regain moral clarity and stand for the values upon which civilization is built. Here in South Africa, the government's support for Hamas and Iran is under scrutiny. Its almost complete silence on the jihadist war being waged in Africa is shameful and dangerous.

But I want to say this to our government. The attack in Australia is another warning, not that one was needed. In December last year, there were two attacks on Jewish community centers on the same day, one in Melbourne and one in Cape Town. There is a high probability that these attacks were linked. Early indications show the terrorists were motivated by the ideology of the Islamic State, and that the surviving shooter was a follower of radical Islamist cleric Wisam Haddad.

Jihadi groups are active across the continent. The message to this South African government is very clear. You have been warned. You dare not fail the Jewish community or any peace-loving South Africans. If any terror attack, God forbid, happens in South Africa, we will hold you personally responsible because protecting your citizens is your first and most sacred duty.

As Jews around the world mark the festival of Hanukkah, we remember the brave Maccabees who fought the tyranny of the ancient Greek Empire for the most sacred of all human rights, the freedom of conscience, the freedom to worship and practice your faith without fear, intimidation or coercion.

We are an ancient people and we know our divine destiny to be a light unto the nations draws the forces of darkness to extinguish that light. As Jews, we have never been and will never be intimidated. When we sing the words of Maoz Tzur as our Hanukkah candles burn, we recall the generations who with God's help overcame those who sought to destroy us. That same strength and defiance endures in us today.

Like those who came before us, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness. We will defeat the forces of jihad and their willing accomplices in the west. Each candle we light is a declaration: We will not be intimidated. We will not surrender. And we will keep our divine values burning bright in the face of darkness.

As South African Jews, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our brothers and sisters of the Australian Jewish community at this terrible time. Our two communities are deeply connected by the bonds of family and history, and we feel your loss and grief and horror personally.

May God bring healing to the injured and comfort to the families of those murdered among all the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.