Photo: Islamophobic graffiti at Brisbane’s Bald Hills Mosque.
The terrorist attack at Bondi Beach on Sunday 14 December 2025, will stay in memory as a warning that terrorism is a serious threat to world peace. Yet, before the victims had names, fear-mongering resurfaced.
The sense of déjà vu for Australian Muslims was immediate and painful, recalling the days after September 11, when communities were marked as suspects, and tarred with suspicion.
To understand the impact, we must differentiate the emotional weight of this déjà vu from the structural issue at hand. While this fear is rooted in past experiences, the systemic problem lies in practices that perpetuate profiling.
The subsequent violent arrest by police of seven men from Melbourne travelling to Sydney marked the start of witch-hunting and racial profiling, highlighting a deeper issue within law enforcement policies.
In the aftermath of the Bondi massacre, screaming headlines followed quickly, not only from tabloids like The Daily Telegraph and The Herald Sun but also from The Australian, eager to stir fears about Islam even before facts were confirmed.
One particularly insidious headline read, “Lone-Wolf Jihad Strikes at Bondi”—a title loaded with racial coding and assumptions. The father-son duo attackers have dishonoured Islam with their acts.
However, most Australian newspapers and media outlets, with their blaring front pages and breathless online commentary, know precisely what buttons to push: Islam, ISIS, Muslims. The script never really changes.
What is painfully ironic is how some of the loudest voices now, such as Nicolle Flint, Josh Frydenberg, and Pauline Hanson, rallying against terrorism—rushing to show their unity and outrage—have long exercised selective anger and racism elsewhere.
When airstrikes in Gaza kill Palestinian children, we hear little more than awkward silence or the predictable language of “regrettable collateral damage.”
Yet, after Bondi, the sudden unity, the “anti-terrorism” solidarity, is nearly unanimous. These same outlets and personalities, who have said nothing—or justified—state violence, especially in Palestine, now find their courage in shouting down minority communities at home.
Australia is not united as we should be against state terrorism or in pushing genuine, local solutions to violence. Instead, the media and some politicians seem fixed only on pointing fingers—loudly accusing Anthony Albanese of failing to “protect Jews”.
This logic is so absurd. Now, in the wake of Bondi, calls for a royal commission had grown, a move that, on its surface, promising answers and accountability.
Despite initially opposing it, the Albanese government finally succumbed to the pressure of the Zionist lobbyists, here and in Israel, armed with Murdoch media and press.
Suddenly, Jillian Segal’s report will be implemented, despite vehement criticisms for conflating Zionism and anti-Semitism, hence weaponising it to ultimately score Israel’s ideological goals, including not recognising Palestine as an independent state and muzzling any criticism of Israel’s well-documented genocide.
The royal commission is not the solution to stopping more terrorist attacks. What Australia really needs is to tackle racism in all its forms, including Islamophobia, and most importantly, to guarantee justice and fairness for all its citizens, including the First Nations people.
Australia’s biased treatment of Muslims and Jews is alarmingly common. Muslims’ faith can be mocked, like Pauline Hanson’s stunt in the Australian parliament, and Australian-Jewish citizens can freely fight with Israel’s military and take part in a genocidal mission without facing scrutiny.
Radicalisation seems to apply only to Muslims, not Jews or Australians with white extremist ideology. This biased approach risks deepening the divisions already ripping at Australian society.
When it is framed along religious or ethnic lines and equating Zionism with anti-Semitism, can quickly become a stage for political showboating and scapegoating, rather than genuine truth-seeking.
The call for a royal commission, used as a political tool, does not heal wounds or make anyone safer. It just formalises mistrust—making it official, putting a government stamp on it, and prompting the nation to pick sides when what we most need is to stand together.
In New Zealand, after the Christchurch Mosques massacre, Muslims didn’t blame their Prime Minister for the atrocity—they were shown compassion, not condemnation. In Australian discussions, blame is scattered, and reason is missing.
Amid the cacophony and scapegoating, it is crucial to remember the actions that truly mattered: the acts of ordinary people, many of them Australians of colour and faith, who ran toward danger to save lives.
One key detail overlooked by too many outlets: a Muslim man risked his own life to protect others during the attack.
The Syrian Australian Ahmed al Ahmed, for example, was caught in the chaos but did not run for safety—he stayed behind, disarmed one of the terrorists and received severe gun wounds to his arms because of the scuffle.
He did not hesitate or ask about anyone’s background before leaping in. While tabloids screamed, he acted.
Meanwhile, as always, the aftermath leaves the deepest scars.
Australian Muslims recognise what’s coming: the stares on public transport, suspicion at the checkout, knowing glances at veiled women, and casual racism that comes up in talks about safety and “our way of life.”
As Aftab Malik, the Special Envoy on Islamophobia, in his usual apologetic tone, warns that there is an evident spike of anti-Muslim hatred, but Muslims are too afraid to report it “out of concern of being perceived to trivialise the killing of Jewish Australians, their suffering, or vying for sympathy from the public.”
Mosques in Sydney and Melbourne report more harassment, petty vandalism, and fearful congregants. Recently, a Melbourne imam was punched in the face, and threats were made to stab his wife.
It’s a pattern as old as the post-9/11 era—a sign that the targets of terror aren’t just those attacked, but entire communities left to bear the cost of someone else’s violence.
What Australia must understand—yet again—is that tearing itself apart every time someone rattles the cage is playing into the hands of extremists. Yes, terrorism should be condemned loudly and without hesitation.
But divisive rhetoric, equating anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel or blindly following Jillian Segal’s antisemitism dogma, is not a solution. It’s a trap, and unfortunately, one we keep falling into.
Australia’s strength is not shown by how loud we can shout; it’s shown by our willingness to think more carefully, to remember the facts, to resist division, and to question the headlines that tell us who we should fear.
If we want a safer future, the answer isn’t more suspicion or blame—it is greater unity, deeper empathy, and a refusal to let the worst voices among us define who we are.
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