During the Trojan War, the invulnerable Achilles was shot and killed by an arrow of Paris, which struck him on his only mortal heel. In a similar vein, a distant peaceful Australia- despite being involved in all the imperialist wars- hasn’t proven invincible. “Anyone who knows anything about Australian history will tell you that Australia was born out of a deep racist colonial thinking,” says Jewish Australian journalist, Antony Lowenstein “Just last week, figures came out that black deaths in custody- meaning Aboriginal people who die in police custody-are at the highest rate ever. So to suggest somehow that we are not a violent country, that somehow this is not Australia” Contrary to logic, those living in glasshouses brazenly throw stones at others because they consider themselves invincible. Yet stones can ricochet to shatter their own houses. History stands witness that capitalist wars of expansion destroy both victor and vanquished with democratic disregard. History follows its own course; it doesn’t help the victim, nor does it absolve the perpetrator. Children of violence sent to incinerate the world invariably come home to roost.
The Bondi Beach massacre has brought Australia into the limelight- not positively, but negatively. In a lone-wolf attack, a father and a son massacred sixteen people, including one of the attackers themselves. It was described as a targeted killing of Jews who had gathered to celebrate Hanukkah. No one knows the motive behind the savagery. But we live in times when motives are no longer defined; they are simply executed. More than 200,000 innocent civilians- according to The Lancet in October 2024-have been slaughtered in Gaza by the Zionist entity, with utter disregard for motive, although the motive is no secret.
Immediately after the carnage, the Police Commissioner described the gruesome act as terrorism. John Helmer, an Australian-born journalist, academic, and foreign correspondent, challenged this pronouncement by questioning the definition of terrorism. Citing New South Wales law, which follows the Federal Terrorism Police Act of 2002, Helmer explained that terrorism “means action done with the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause and an action done with the intention of coercing or influencing by intimidation, the government of the Common Wealth or a state, territory, or foreign country, or intimidating the public or a section of the public”.
This is the legal definition of terrorism in Australia. “Were these two individuals committing terrorism?” He asks,” the Police Commissioner says there were only two offenders, no one else. They acted apparently alone, and they had a legal right to carry all these hunting rifles and guns- six of them. Did these two individuals, the shooters, leave any manifesto or notes? The Commissioner replied that ‘it was part of the investigation’…. The police have not stated that there was any ideology involved, nor that the attackers were members of any organization-state or terrorist-as has been implied”.
One must not forget that Israel has a long history of threatening other nations and carrying out murderous attacks-not only against Iranians and Palestinians, but even against its own dissidents.
According to the Australian Victims of Terrorism Overseas Payment (Atop) law, any Australian suffering from terrorism abroad qualifies for compensation of $ seventy-five thousand. Since the law’s implementation, nearly fifty cases, including the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, which killed 38 Australians, have not resulted in compensation. The state didn’t consider these incidents acts of terrorism, but rather consequences of a war between Russia and Ukraine.
If shooting down an aeroplane isn’t terrorism, who decides what terrorism is? Helmer argues that defining terrorism is a political decision resting solely with the prime minister. It neither goes to the parliament nor becomes part of the public debate. For example, the Australian government declared Hamas’s actions of October 2023 an act of terrorism. Conversely, the genocidal Israeli assault on Gaza, Helmer argues, is not considered terrorism but an act of war.
This contradiction became even more obvious when the Australian government didn’t extend the Atop to the Australian-Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in Gaza, yet hurriedly announced compensation to the Bondi victims. The political decision bears the face of Janus: one side for the white Jews, the other for the coloured Orientals.
For Donald Trump, the Bondi carnage was not a terrorist act but an anti-Semitic attack, as he categorically stated at a Christmas reception at the White House. For Netanyahu and his genocidal ministers-ever eager to blame and pressure the dissenters- it was an act of anti-Semitic terror, allegedly facilitated by the Australian Labour government’s recognition of the occupied State of Palestine. A cardinal sin that led to the rise of anti-Semitism in Australia, as if Australia was living in a void, detached from global currents.
In his post-carnage speech, Netanyahu warned Australia to curb all anti-Semitic activities, which means to suppress all movements protesting against occupation and Israeli genocide. In a country of 27 million people, the Jewish population numbers no more than 1.2 million, largely residing in affluent, gated communities in Sydney and Melbourne. No one can seriously imagine a threat to them, especially given their disproportionate influence over media, capital, and politics. We are now told that the attackers had links to the Islamic State-a terrorist organisation created by the US-Israeli nexus to topple Assad’s government in Syria. Jack Sullivan’s emails suggesting the US cooperation with the IS are an open secret. It’s a Takfiri terrorist organisation, once headed by Golani, who carried a $10 million bounty and is now Syria’s president. It opposes the right of self-determination of Palestinians and pursues its own nefarious agenda.
The existential question remains: Who benefits from this carnage? Certainly not Palestinians-but Israelis do. In February 2025, Max Blumenthal revealed that Australian Jewish institutions were receiving death threats from an unknown source. Later, when the caller was arrested-possibly following Five Eyes intelligence cooperation-it turned out to be a teenager using the pseudonym Khadar, who had made 590 calls from Tel Aviv to Australian Jewish communities.
One must not forget that Israel has a long history of threatening other nations and carrying out murderous attacks-not only against Iranians and Palestinians, but even against its own dissidents. Mordechai Vanunu, the nuclear whistleblower, was kidnapped from Italy by Mossad. The assassination of Iranian scientists and the attempted bombing of a Hamas delegation in Qatar are recent examples.
To play the victim card, Israel has not hesitated to attack its own assets. In 1994, the Israeli embassy in the UK was bombed; former MI5 officer Annie Machon later claimed it was likely a Mossad false-flag operation designed to crush the Palestinian Solidarity Movement. In 1948, Israel bombed Jewish homes in Iraq to force migration. The bombing of the King David Hotel remains the crowning example.
Israeli media have recently reported that Mossad may assist ASIO in investigating alleged Iranian or Hezbollah links to the Bondi massacre. If true, this would represent the subjugation of a sovereign state to a small but aggressive West Asian entity.
After the carnage, the Australian Premier echoed Netanyahu’s rhetoric, framing the assault as a war between those who “seek to extinguish light and promote darkness.” This language paves the way for brutal suppression of Palestinian solidarity-the only invincible force genuinely threatening the existing order, which cannot be crushed.
Jillian Segal, an ardent Zionist, has drawn a straight line between “the October 2023 Opera House protest and the August 2025 March for Humanity – where 300,000 people peacefully marched over Sydney Harbour Bridge – directly to the Bondi shooting”. Both rallies were peaceful, devoid of anti-Semitic slogans. The massive participation of Jews demanding an end to Gaza’s genocide debunked Netanyahu’s claim that he represents world Jewry.
Despite the heroic actions of a Syrian Muslim who disarmed the attacker, Islamophobia is being aggressively injected into Australia’s political bloodstream. Coercive laws are being introduced to suppress dissent against Israel. Segal’s anti-Semitic plan is being implemented: academic institutions and media outlets that identify Zionism with Israel face defunding, while movements supporting Palestinian self-determination are suppressed. Free speech will be defined only by the state and the Zionist lobby.
Palestinians will continue to face genocide, while at Bondi Beach, the Israeli flag continues to flutter, mocking humanity itself. It appears as if those massacred were not treated as Australians but as Israelis. The striptease of Western civilisation is now visible to the naked eye. Even the dead are not spared- they are transformed into promotional instruments for Israel-another capitalist farce. As Bordiga succinctly put it: “If the lampshades made of human skin are put on display, it is to make us forget that capitalism has transformed living human beings into lampshades”.
The writer is an Australian-based academic and has authored books on socialism and history. His Latest Work, “God’s Republic Making & Unmaking of Israel & Pakistan”, is available in Pakistan & on Amazon.com. He can be reached at saulatnagi @hotmail.com