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What can really be done to prevent antisemitic attacks like Bondi Beach?
In the wake of the horrific antisemitic attack in Sydney, Australia, many have called for a stronger response to antisemitism – in Australia and elsewhere – and for us to do more to combat it.
But what would that actually mean in practice? This is not an easy question to answer.
Arguably, the first step in treating an illness is to diagnose it as precisely as possible, with as much objectivity as possible. Yet the demands of reason and those of emotion are at odds with one another. There is a visceral appeal in refusing to go beyond the act of violence itself. Jews were targeted “just for being Jews,” we are told. Antisemitism is purely bigotry – a blind, timeless hatred that has existed since time immemorial.
Lately, this view has been called “Judeo-Pessimism,” since it holds out no hope for change. If antisemitism is an eternal, constant, baseless hatred of Jews across time and space, for any reason or none at all, it can never be eradicated and must only be met with force. That is pessimistic indeed.
Fortunately, as emotionally resonant as this account may be, it flies in the face of the available evidence.
The father-son murderers, Sajid and Naveed Akram, have known links to ISIS. And, according to Israeli intelligence sources, ISIS has released several statements explicitly calling for attacks against Christians and Jews in revenge for Gaza, which it describes as but the latest spasm of violence directed against Muslims by the West (Christians as well as Jews), like others in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sinai, and Yemen.
So, the Sydney attack was both antisemitic and anti-Israel in nature; it punished innocent Jews for Israel’s perceived sins, as if attendees at a Chabad Hanukkah celebration are culpable for (or even supported) the war in Gaza. (The attacks outside a Manchester synagogue in October were similarly motivated.)
But once again, precision is needed. Some pundits and Jewish leaders – Bret Stephens, David Frum, Deborah Lipstadt – have rushed in to insist that this attack is what people mean by “Globalize the Intifada,” the infamous cri de coeur of some Palestinian protesters.
Not likely. In fact, ISIS and Hamas loathe one another – so much so that there was even a conspiracy theory among Gazans that ISIS was secretly being supported by Israel and the United States, in part because it prioritized the fight against Syria over the fight against Israel. ISIS also opposes Palestinian nationalism (and thus the Intifada) because they seek to unite the entire Muslim world in a single umma governed by Islamic Law (and by their own clerics). ISIS has no interest in the Intifada, globalized or otherwise. Nor, of course, does an ISIS-affiliating terrorist care what American campus activists or mayor-elect have to say.
The takeaway: Don’t believe anyone who says that a terrorist attack confirms their prior beliefs.
In light of how little we presently know about the motivations for this attack, what can be done?
The most obvious answer is increased law enforcement. In this case, Australia was already doing a lot: Jewish institutions already had beefed-up security in place, in part paid for by public funds; Australia has strict gun laws; and when antisemitic incidents took place over the last year, Australia’s prime minister and other officials have made strong, unequivocal statements condemning them.
But antisemitic violence has been escalating there in recent years – a synagogue was nearly burned down a year ago – and many have complained that Australia has not taken the threat seriously enough. If that is true (and presumably there will be an investigation), then obviously, the government must do better.
But Jews cannot Security ourselves into absolute safety. Law enforcement can’t protect everyone everywhere, or stop all hate speech everywhere. There are bigots everywhere and nowhere today, especially online, and the few global actors who could really prevent hate speech from spreading – the tech companies – have flatly stated that they will be doing so less in the future, not more. (If anyone deserves public pressure, it is surely them.)
But if law enforcement alone can’t solve this problem, what else can help?
I admit that my answer may seem a little idealistic. But given that an Australian Muslim, Ahmed al Ahmed, has emerged as a hero of this story, perhaps it’s worth remembering that while there may be hundreds of thousands of ISIS or Hamas supporters, there are two billion Muslims in the world and they hold a wide range of beliefs. Imagine if a thousand imams and other religious leaders denounced the attack in Sydney, or if pro-Palestinian activists voiced support for the Palestinian struggle for liberation and opposition to the targeting of any civilians anywhere.
Contrary to what the Sam Harrises of the world say, these voices do exist. I know some of them myself, and there are many with large followings. Here’s Mo Husseini, for example, responding to Sydney:
View on Threads
But does the Trump administration, or the American Jewish establishment, do anything to help them? Quite the contrary. Pro-Palestinian activists (and even some liberal Zionists) are condemned, cancelled, doxxed, ridiculed, trolled, labeled as bigots, and even threatened with deportation. Moderate Palestinians are endlessly undermined by right-wing Israeli governments, who make them look foolish by expanding settlements, allowing settlers to run amok in the West Bank with impunity, and placing roadblocks in the way of Palestinian commercial and residential development.
Meanwhile, here at home, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other figures in the Republican party regularly (including this week) traffic in broad, bigoted generalizations about Muslims, as do, sadly, many in the Jewish community. Consider this repellant diatribe posted by Rep. Randy Fine of Florida after the Sydney attack:
A few weeks ago, two National Guardsmen were shot in DC by a Muslim terrorist.
Today, Muslim terrorists killed twelve innocent lives in Australia on the first day of Hanukkah.
How many more times is this going to happen until we wake up?
Islam is not compatible with the…
— Congressman Randy Fine (@RepFine) December 14, 2025
Islam is not compatible with the West? Could we imagine someone condemning all of Christianity for the bigotry of Nick Fuentes? Or all Jews for the racism of Itamar Ben Gvir or the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein?
Of course, that’s just what antisemites do, isn’t it?
If we want relatively moderate Muslims, Palestinians, and pro-Palestinian activists to reduce the appeal of ISIS, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations, we have to strengthen their hand against the fundamentalists. But the Israeli and American governments, and much of the Jewish community, have been rushing in the opposite direction for decades now.
When (relatively) moderate Palestinians want to build a new city in the West Bank, Israel should help them, not stand in their way. When extremist Israeli nationalists destroy olive groves and conduct pogroms, we should speak loudly in opposition to them, not pretend it isn’t happening and will hopefully go away. And when Jews have the chance to work together with Muslim leaders with whom we may disagree, we should approach them with open minds, not Mamdani Monitors and incendiary rhetoric about enemies of the Jews.
I am under no illusions. No amount of goodwill is going to erase the reality of the videos and images from Gaza that people watched for two years. Whether or not the carnage in Gaza motivated the Sydney terrorists, the sheer brutality of the war, and the likely war crimes that accompanied it, are a nearly insurmountable obstacle.
It is also true that, as I have written many times before, there is far too much stochastic terrorism on the Left: using the harshest language possible to describe the “enemy,” equating all Jews with Zionists and all Zionists with genociders. And any time Jews are targeted – not just with violence but also with taunts, graffiti or angry protests – the line has been crossed.
But there must at least be some vision for the future. People like Rep. Fine have no hope to offer Jews or Israelis. For one thing, there are four million Muslims in America. Is his proposal to gradually make life so miserable for them that they all emigrate, or somehow decide to befriend their oppressors and make nice? Does that make any sense at all?
I’m under no delusion that moderate voices can prevail over every extremist. But when I see Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims, working together in groups like Standing Together, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Sulha Peace project, IfNotNow, Seeds of Peace, and many others, I at least have hope that the feedback loops of Israeli and Palestinian extremism can be interrupted, and that maybe someday the balance might tip. I can at least imagine a world in which the people working for coexistence are supported, rather than stigmatized, prosecuted, and banned from community life.
And even if only for our own sakes, let alone the lives of others, I can imagine a world in which the conditions that cause people to become murderers are less prevalent than they are now. Today, that is the most I can hope for.
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UK threatens sanctions after Israel opens bids for E1 settler homes
(JTA) — JERUSALEM – The United Kingdom threatened to sanction Israelis involved in West Bank settlement expansion after the Jewish state’s Lands Authority opened bids for 1,234 homes in the largely underdeveloped E1 section of the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.
Construction in E1 “would cut across the heart of Palestine and risks separating the West Bank from East Jerusalem, which would endanger the viability of a two-state solution,” the British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said in a special statement he posted on X on Thursday.
Targeted sanctions, Miliband wrote, would be part of a series of measures his government would take. His office also summoned Israel’s charge d’Affaires Thursday to demand a closure of the bidding process, which first opened on Tuesday, and a withdrawal of the construction project altogether.
“Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution,” he wrote. Miliband has held his position for a month and is part of the new leadership Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham appointed when he took office in July.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar attacked Miliband on X, stating that Britain’s “decision to damage the relationship between our countries is deeply unfortunate.”
He said that the U.K. government’s “systematic policy of blaming only Israel while ignoring Palestinian extremism has already contributed to a massive wave of antisemitic hatred and attacks against the British Jewish community.”
The Jewish people have the same right to “live throughout the Land of Israel” just as the British people have a right to live anywhere in the U.K., Sa’ar wrote.
Plans to expand the built-up area of Ma’aleh Adumim settlement by constructing some 3,400 housing units on a largely underdeveloped hilltop within the city’s boundaries have been in place since 1994 when Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister.
Israel mostly froze those plans under pressure from the international community, including the U.S., with many countries warning that building homes in E1 would harm their diplomatic ties with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began to advance the project in earnest in 2012 to protest the United Nations General Assembly decision to grant the Palestinians the status of a non-member state and has since pushed the project forward in spurts, particularly during election seasons.
The publication of the bidding process for the homes was first announced on Tuesday and is set to close on Oct. 19, one week shy of the Israeli elections on Oct. 27. Opening the bids is a move that plays well with Netanyahu’s right-wing voter base, which opposes Palestinian statehood and believes that settlements like Ma’aleh Adumim and the E1 area should be annexed into sovereign Israel.
But the move reverberated globally, with the U.K. signing onto a joint condemnation by France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, in which they warned that settlement building in E1 distanced peace and undermined the country’s international standing.
They also reminded businesses who might bid for E1 construction that they could face legal or reputational consequences, given that such companies could be in breach of international law.
Palestinian Authority Vice President Hussein Al-Sheikh said he welcomed the condemnation, explaining on X that such a position “reflects the importance of the international role in confronting settlement activity and safeguarding the two-state solution.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Argentina removes federal judge over antisemitic remarks in historic first
(JTA) — An Argentine federal judge was removed from office Tuesday for a series of antisemitic posts on his social media accounts that constituted misconduct incompatible with his role, an impeachment panel ruled.
Alfredo Eugenio López, who headed Federal Court No. 4 in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, was removed by Argentina’s Jury of Impeachment, a special panel composed of judges, lawmakers and lawyers.
It is the first time in Argentina’s history that a judge has been removed over antisemitic remarks.
In López’s social media posts, the judge referred to the Jewish people as “a brood of vipers,” Israel as a “fictitious state” and Argentinian Jews as “foreigners.” He has also used such terms as “Zionist” and “gay” as insults.
According to the panel, the judge committed acts of “discrimination and the denial of equal rights against the Argentine Jewish community. For the purposes of these proceedings, it is particularly significant that, by acting in this manner, he shattered public confidence in his continued fitness to administer justice impartially.”The case reached the panel through Argentina’s Council of the Magistracy, based in Buenos Aires, the constitutional body responsible for the selection and discipline of federal judges.
The first complaint against López was filed in February 2025 by the Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas, which is the umbrella organization representing Argentina’s Jewish community. One month later, the Argentine Forum Against Antisemitism also filed a complaint. In July 2025, attorney Yamil Santoro from Apolo Foundation added another one.
In his defense, López argued that his messages were “ subjective and decontextualized interpretations of exchanges on social media, which in no way affect the administration of justice or his impartiality” as a judge. He added that his remarks were unrelated to any pending case and that he had never been recused or removed from any judicial case.
Neither Lopez nor his attorney were immediately available for further comment.
“He was removed because he simply would not stop engaging in hate speech,” jury member Alberto Maques said during a live interview Tuesday on the A24 news channel. “It is absolutely disgraceful for a federal judge to engage in this kind of conduct.”
Maques said there were 15 social media posts that he acknowledged, but more than 50 posts in which he said “outrageous things that are not worth repeating because they truly constituted hate speech.”
“This is not merely an issue of hate speech against the Jewish community. This is someone who lacks common sense,” he added, interviewed by A24 news channel.
Prosecutors in the impeachment proceedings argued that the messages were not isolated political comments but reflected a pattern of hostility toward Jews, Zionism, and the State of Israel.
“No position of authority can shield hatred. This is not a matter of punishing an opinion. It is about sanctioning repeated conduct involving antisemitism, hostility and dehumanization, conduct incompatible with the impartiality, dignity and public trust required of the judiciary,” DAIA said Tuesday in a statement.
“This case sets a precedent: for the first time in more than a century, DAIA initiated proceedings of this nature against a judge. No office is above democracy.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Argentina removes federal judge over antisemitic remarks in historic first appeared first on The Forward.
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California progressive Wahab defeats AIPAC-backed Hernandez in close race
(JTA) — California progressive Aisha Wahab defeated AIPAC-backed moderate Melissa Hernandez in a congressional runoff this week, capping off a contest that had become unexpectedly tight after the pro-Israel lobby entered the fray.
The Associated Press called the race between the Democrats — who were vying to replace a disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell — a full two days after polls closed, when Wahab secured 53.1% of votes to Hernandez’s 46.9%, with 95% of ballots tallied. The gap between them grew by four percentage points from Tuesday evening, when Wahab had held a narrow 51% lead to Hernandez’s 49%.
“We stayed focused on the people, and I will fight for this district that raised me,” Wahab said in a Thursday statement, noting her journey “from foster care to Congress” in her East Bay community.
Although Wahab ended up victorious, the narrow initial margin on Tuesday shocked California’s 14th District, given that she had secured a double-digit lead in preliminary races two months ago.
But in the past few weeks, an unforeseen variable appeared to influence the trajectories of the two campaigns: a massive spending push from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee aimed at turning the tides for Hernandez.
Since the beginning of August alone, AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, and other affiliated groups spent more than $2.5 million on both boosting Hernandez and denigrating Wahab with negative ads and mailers, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
“This was not a landslide for Wahab by any means,” local Democratic strategist Noah Finneburgh, who is not affiliated with either candidate, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“They narrowed the gap for sure,” Finneburgh added, referring to AIPAC. “They spent millions of dollars attacking Wahab very aggressively.”
These attacks, he explained, did not involve Israel and instead focused on divisive issues for the Bay Area, such as public safety and protecting kids.
“Negative advertising with a persuasive message can be very effective,” Finneburgh said.
In her Thursday night statement, Wahab declared that her “district cannot be bought,” describing the race as “one of the ugliest, most expensive elections we’ve ever seen.”
Prior to this influx of cash and related ads, neither AIPAC nor Israel had played a significant role in this short-lived race — which began in April following Swalwell’s resignation over allegations of sexual assault.
When the district held a special primary to seek Swalwell’s replacement on June 16, Wahab and Hernandez finished as the top-two candidates and moved on to this week’s special general runoff election.
California primaries are “nonpartisan” or “top-two” races, in which the two highest ranking candidates move on to the general election, irrespective of their parties. The top-two in this case were both Democrats, like Swalwell, in a district that the Cook Political Report deems solidly blue.
Even though Wahab will now finish the remainder of Swalwell’s term, she will have to compete with Hernandez again in the November general election for a full term that begins on January 3, 2027.
In a June 16 special primary that preceded this week’s runoff, there was still a massive gap between the two candidates, with Wahab accruing 42.8% of the votes, compared to Hernandez’s 16.8%. A separate primary for the November race, which occurred two weeks earlier, placed Wahab at 38.3% and Hernandez at 17.2%.
Wahab, who will be the first Afghan American in Congress, has focused on affordability, civil rights, education and climate change. Her campaign calls for an end to wars and “prolonged occupations” but only specifically calls out U.S. military activity in “Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and elsewhere.”
Though Wahab has been critical of Israel and its operations in Gaza, she has not been as vocal about the issue as many other progressive colleagues nationwide. She responded “yes” when asked if Israel was committing genocide in a primary debate, but she didn’t include Israel or Gaza in her campaign priorities.
During a recent appearance on far-right influencer Hasan Piker’s livestream, Wahab acknowledged that “it’s not a zero-sum game in the Middle East,” adding that “we can care for all people.” She also referenced a resolution she introduced last year in the California legislature, pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza but also condemning Hamas and demanding the release of the hostages.
“We talk about both Palestinians and the Israeli victims there,” Wahab told Piker. “We talk about holding the perpetrators accountable from both sides.”
Asked if she was in favor of “ending all U.S. aid to Israel,” she responded “yes,” while stressing that “humanitarian aid is important to me, too.”
Wahab has earned the backing of multiple labor unions, the California Democratic Party and Our Revolution, the group formed by Sen. Bernie Sanders to advance the progressive movement. The liberal pro-Israel group J Street also recently invested $108,000 in her campaign, according to the FEC. American Priorities, a pro-Palestinian PAC, also spent at least $200,000 on supporting her.
Hernandez has received endorsements from several police and fire unions, as well as Democratic Jewish Reps. Lois Frankel of Florida and Brad Schneider of Illinois.
Come November, Hernandez will gain one additional asset. Due to statewide redistricting, the 14th District will gain about 26,000 new voters from Dublin, where Hernandez previously served as mayor, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
But Finneburgh said he believes that Hernandez has only a minimal chance of winning that race, especially because Wahab will be heading into that election as an incumbent.
He also suggested that if “she plays her card right,” Wahab could even take some endorsements away from Hernandez.
“There’s going to be people who are going to probably move over from the Hernandez camp and back her,” Finneburgh added. “It’s going to be hard to unseat her.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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