Lead-Up to the Attack
Since the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, the Western world has experienced something profoundly disturbing, not only the brutality of the attack itself, but the reaction that followed. Within days, and in some cases within hours, crowds gathered across Western capitals not to condemn civilians kidnapped, sexually assaulted, murder of children some of them burned alive, but to celebrate, justify, and diminish the violence. Slogans glorifying Hamas echoed through the streets. Posters of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, appeared at demonstrations, a reminder that foreign adversaries are not passive observers in these movements but active ideological and informational participants. Even now in France, several Bulgarians are on trial for conducting false-flag pro-Palestine graffiti on national war monuments, but also severed heads of pigs outside Mosques.
What made this moment particularly revealing was not disagreement over Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war, debate on military proportionality is legitimate and necessary, but the speed with which outrage at state actions metastasized into hatred toward an entire people. Jewish communities worldwide became proxies for geopolitical anger. This was collective punishment by narrative. If Israel was supposed to be a Jewish state, then every Jew became responsible accordingly.
The Oct7 attacks were so wrong, that the former head of Shariah Law at Gaza Islamic University issued a fatwa unequivocally condemning Hamas’s actions as un-Islamic. The deliberate targeting of civilians, the mutilation of bodies, the taking of hostages, these are crimes in Islamic law under what is called Hiraabah. Yet this clarity did little to slow the moral collapse unfolding in public squares.
Instead, a dangerous “ends justify the means” logic took hold. Violence was reframed as “resistance.” Atrocities were excused as inevitable in war. This is not merely ignorance; it is ideological intoxication. When anything becomes permissible so long as the cause is deemed righteous, it means you are fully in the abyss.
Australia was not immune. In Sydney, chants of “gas the Jews” were heard near the Opera House, one of the country’s most iconic public spaces, hijacked to broadcast genocidal hatred. As the war in Gaza continued, protests intensified, and so did their consequences. Synagogues were vandalized. Jewish businesses were attacked. Jewish students were harassed in schools. Adults faced intimidation in workplaces. What began as a protest became permission.
This is the environment in which the Bondi Beach attack occurred, of course, not in a vacuum, but in a climate where antisemitism had been normalized, laundered through political grievance, and emboldened by lack of consequences.
The Attack Itself
The facts, as we know them, are chilling.
Two Muslim criminals, a father the same age as me, and his son the same age as my son, staged up at Bondi Beach and opened fire into a Sunday morning Hanukkah celebration attended by Jewish families, organized by the lovely people of the Chabad movement.
Two firearms were used to kill at least fifteen people. One of the suspects was reportedly known to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) as an extremist, raising predictable but often misunderstood questions. Being an extremist, in itself, is not illegal. Intelligence services do not have the authority to arrest people for beliefs alone, nor should they. Democracies operate under legal constraints precisely to avoid becoming what they fight. Intelligence agencies assess risk, monitor networks, and escalate when thresholds are crossed, but foresight is not omnipotence. However, you can be sure that a lot of folks are working around the clock to get more information about this attack and attackers.
What makes this case further alarming is what was discovered afterward. One of the suspect vehicles contained improvised explosive devices. Had those devices detonated, the casualty count would have been catastrophic. The attack was rightly classified as terrorism: ideologically motivated violence against civilians intended to instill fear and fracture society. In its aftermath, the Australian government has faced hard questions from Jewish communities about whether their concerns were underestimated or dismissed in the lead-up. Those questions deserve serious answers, not bureaucratic deflection.
Terrorism does not emerge spontaneously. It grows in permissive environments where ideology is excused, where hate is rebranded as activism, and where warning signs are explained away rather than confronted.
The Muslim Hero
And then there is Ahmed El Ahmad.
By now, most people have seen the footage. A unassuming middle-aged man, unarmed, using a parked car to crouch behind for concealment. He advances in the peripheral vision of one of the shooters who is positioned behind a tree, actively firing at innocent people. Ahmed makes a decision that defines moral courage. He lunges. He grabs the shooter from behind and wrests the firearm away. The terrorist flees. He is later shot dead by police.
Ahmed El Ahmad stopped a mass murderer and shattered a narrative.
For those who insist the terrorists represent “true Islam,” the question is unavoidable: then what is Ahmed? His actions were not symbolic; they were decisive. He placed his own life between a murderer who claimed the same faith as his, to stand for those of another faith, celebrating a religious holiday. In doing so, he protected Jewish families and also protected Muslim communities from collective blame and backlash, which is what Jewish communities are facing today.
Ahmed forced clarity where extremists thrive on confusion. He demonstrated, in real time, what Islamic ethics look like when they matter most and this is where we must be honest, especially those of us who are Muslim.
We must openly acknowledge the ideological problem. The influence of Muslim Brotherhood political Islam, extreme Salafism, and the Khawarij ideology, embodied today by groups like ISIS, is real. These are not fringe misunderstandings; they are coherent, mobilizing belief systems that weaponize scripture and strip Islam of its moral restraints. They are one of the main root causes of Islamophobia.
Our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ warned explicitly about religious zealots who “recite the Qur’an but it does not go past their throats.” He laid down rules of war that prohibit the killing of civilians, the mutilation of bodies, and the celebration of cruelty. These acts are not resistance. They are not jihad. They are crimes in Islam under the category of Hiraabah, severely punished in this life and the next.
And here is the part that extremists, and their enablers, refuse to accept: God does not grant victory through unlawful means. Never. Moral corruption does not produce divine success; it produces ruin. Ahmed El Ahmad understood this instinctively. He did not wait for permission. He did not consult ideology or tribal loyalties. He acted on the moral imperative.
Be like Ahmed. Stand with Bondi.