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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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PEN America president, defending Israel’s critics, resigns after report warns of threats to Jewish authors
(JTA) — The president of PEN America resigned over the weekend in protest of a report on boycotts targeting Jewish and Israeli authors, part of yet another round of internal division over Israel at the literary free-speech institution.
Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian-American novelist and Bard College professor, told The Atlantic he was stepping down because he believed the PEN report, “A Silent Moratorium,” failed to defend the free-speech rights of participants in the movement to boycott Israel.
“It’s the First Amendment that allows all of us to engage in boycotts, not PEN America,” Mengestu told the publication. “PEN America as a free expression organization is supposed to defend that right.”
The author did not respond to multiple Jewish Telegraphic Agency requests for comment, but in an Instagram post Monday alluded to an interest in creating a new organization to rival the prominent nonprofit, which defends the free expression rights other writers.
In response to an interview request, PEN sent a statement to JTA saying it was “grateful” for Mengestu’s leadership and would “respect” his decision. The statement also alluded to PEN’s own past turmoil: “We tell hard stories, in politically challenging moments, about writers from a range of perspectives, even when it’s uncomfortable for us given our own recent history.”
In its report, published on its blog, PEN described “Jewish and Israeli writers who feel that the mainstream literary world is increasingly shutting them out because of their identity, nationality, or views.” Interview subjects include several Israel critics, as well as literary agents who assert that they face more difficulties signing Jewish authors after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and amid the subsequent war in Gaza. The report also repeatedly cited a JTA report about a 2024 viral list of “Zionist” authors to boycott.
Among other details, PEN’s report revealed that Israeli novelist Etgar Keret and public radio host Ira Glass had cancelled a planned live event in Australia over fears of threats and protest.
“This silencing and exclusion of writers is a threat to what PEN America is fundamentally committed to defending: a culture of free expression for all,” according to the report.
In addition to the report, PEN also altered its institutional policy toward cultural boycotts, which the organization has long opposed. Although its report on Jewish authors asserted that boycotts “threaten the free expression rights” of their targets, the revised guidelines say that the group will also defend the right of writers to participate in boycotts.
Mengestu’s resignation comes at a perilous moment for Jews facing cultural boycotts, both within the standard-bearers of PEN and elsewhere. PEN’s Jewish former longtime CEO stepped down in 2024 following months of blowback from rank-and-file authors who felt the organization was insufficiently critical of Israel and caused PEN to cancel a festival for global authors.
Since the leadership change, PEN leadership has published and retracted a condemnation of a boycott effort trained at an Israeli comedian and also published a report cataloguing Israel’s “cultural destruction in Gaza.”
Mengestu had assumed the role of board president in 2025. But PEN’s report about Jewish and Israeli writers on Thursday, he wrote, “makes clear that [change] will not happen.”
The Anti-Defamation League said it was “deeply troubled” by Mengestu’s resignation Monday. “Freedom of expression means opposing efforts to boycott, silence, or exclude writers because of their identity or nationality,” the organization tweeted, saying that the author’s decision to leave PEN over his objections to the report on Jewish authors “sends a chilling message.” Jewish authors also objected.
“Imagine running a free expression org and resigning because it refuses to blacklist authors based on their nationality,” the author David Zweig wrote on X, musing whether Mengestu would object to boycotting authors from his birth country: “Ethiopia doesn’t exactly have a good human rights record.”
In response to The Atlantic’s story that quoted sources from inside PEN who were critical of his resignation, Mengestu wrote a lengthy Instagram post Monday in which he stated, “This piece is about trying to suppress constitutionally protected speech,” criticized past PEN reports critical of the BDS movement, and added, “What PEN America fails to understand is that boycott is a form of dialogue.”
He announced his intention to “help make something better,” receiving affirmative comments from notable authors including Viet Thanh Nguyen, Angela Flournoy, Jewish pro-Palestinian novelist Jess Row and Pulitzer Prize-winner Benjamin Moser, author of a forthcoming history of Jewish anti-Zionism.
Other Jewish authors on the left were among those defending Mengestu’s decision to step down.
“Dinaw is one hundred percent correct that this kind of fake victim propaganda can be used to support anti-Boycott legislation which violates the First Amendment and is everywhere as popular support for Palestinians grows,” author Sarah Schulman wrote on Facebook. Calling PEN’s blog about Jews “one of those fake anti-semitism pieces,” Schulman added, “If PEN wants to survive, they have to get out of the Israel/Zionism business.”
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Church of England backs study of Palestinian Christian document accusing Israel of genocide
(JTA) — The Church of England’s legislative body voted Monday to encourage churches across England to engage with a document produced by Palestinian Christians that accuses Israel of genocide despite requests from Jewish organizations and Britain’s chief rabbi to reject it.
The document is titled “Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide” and is also known as Kairos II, after the Palestinian Christian movement Kairos Palestine that produced it. It describes Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide, states that Israel is a “colonial enterprise built on racism,” and says decades of “occupation,” “apartheid” and “settler colonialism” are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The vote on Monday does not adopt the accusations as church doctrine but says the church should hear the documents as “heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians,” and to engage with them in order to better understand the conflict.
Ahead of the debate in York, several Jewish organizations expressed concerns, and Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis asked Synod members to reject the amendment. Mirvis called Kairos II “deeply concerning” and that it “risks undermining decades of careful relationship-building” between Christians and Jews.
“It is truly shocking that a document which purports to speak in the name of truth contains so much falsehood,” he said.
Afterwards, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Phil Rosenberg, issued a statement calling the passage of the motion “highly problematic.”
“Kairos Palestine may come from a place of genuine pain, but the falsehoods and distortions of Kairos II, including its erasure of Jewish identity and experience, is a prescription for more division and not the answer to conflict in the Middle East,” he said.
“This document reflects the pain and trauma of the Palestinian people. As a pastor, I hear the cry of our Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers — a cry that rises from the ruins of Gaza, and from the violence and oppression of the West Bank,” she said.
She added, ”I also hear the concerns of the chief rabbi, the co-leads of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, and the Board of Deputies, and I thank them for their honesty.” She said the church remained opposed to antisemitism and committed to safety for Israelis as well as Palestinians.
The Synod debate followed Mullally’s visit to the West Bank in June, where she met Palestinian Christian communities in Birzeit. During the visit she said, “I will use my role as Archbishop to seek the peace you desire and the freedom you deserve.”
The debate marks the ascendance of Israel-related issues in another major church, after the Catholic Church’s Pope Leo XIV angered Jewish groups soon after being elected last year by endorsing an investigation into whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
The post Church of England backs study of Palestinian Christian document accusing Israel of genocide appeared first on The Forward.
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Mike Pence denounces alleged arson of Israeli flag in his Indiana hometown
(JTA) — Former Vice President Mike Pence has weighed in against antisemitism after officials in his Indiana town say a costly fire may have been caused by arson to an Israeli flag displayed on a local barn.
The alleged arson broke out early Friday morning, damaging a historic home in Zionsville, Indiana, where Pence lives, and causing an estimated $150,000 in damages, according to the Zionsville Police Department.
Zionsville Mayor John Stehr said during a press conference on Friday that officials believed the fire began when an individual set fire to an Israeli flag that had been displayed outside the building alongside an American flag. The town later announced that the FBI had joined the investigation and that officials were examining whether the arson “may have been motivated by bias” but said no determination had been made.
“Absolutely despicable,” Pence tweeted on Sunday. “There can be no tolerance in America for Antisemitism or political acts of violence, and it is heartbreaking to see in our adopted hometown of Zionsville, Indiana. We thank God no one was hurt and urge anyone with information to contact law enforcement.”
Pence has long cast himself as a staunch supporter of Israel, including after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, and has also repeatedly spoken out against antisemitism in the conservative movement and beyond.
Republican Indiana Sen. Jim Banks also condemned the alleged arson in a post on X Saturday. “Antisemitism will not be tolerated. Not in Zionsville. Not in Indiana. Not anywhere,” Banks wrote. “Thank you to the federal, state, and local officials working to bring the perpetrators of this despicable arson attack to justice.”
On Sunday, the Jewish community in central Indiana hosted a rally condemning the alleged arson attack, chanting, “We will stand up,” according to local outlet Fox 59. While Zionsville does not have a large Jewish community of its own, other suburbs of Indianapolis have significant Jewish populations, and Zionsville is also the longtime home of a Reform movement summer camp, the Goldman Union Camp Institute, which is in session now.
“The founding fathers founded a country where we have the ability to resolve differences among each other; we don’t do it by firebombing homes,” rally organizer David Schiller told Fox 59. “It’s inexcusable and unacceptable.”
The Zionsville Police Department did not respond to an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the status of the investigation on Monday.
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