Published: 5 January 2026
Last updated: 6 May 2026
In November 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, an Israeli religious extremist. At the time, Benjamin Netanyahu and figures on the Israeli right angrily rejected any suggestion that months of incitement, dehumanisation, and the misuse of religious language had helped make the murder possible. Responsibility, they insisted, lay with a single fanatic.
Three decades later, that account has not survived historical scrutiny. Amir may have pulled the trigger alone, but he acted within a political culture that had rendered Rabin a traitor and made political murder morally imaginable.
That history matters now. In the aftermath of the Bondi massacre, a similar refrain has taken hold: two isolated “lone wolves”, tragic but disconnected from any wider social environment. Australian police have stated that the father and son acted alone and were not part of a broader terrorist cell, even while acknowledging ideological motivation.
“Acted alone” is a description of logistics, not an explanation. Yet it has shaped media commentary and opposition to calls for a Royal Commission, on the premise that there is no structural or systemic problem to examine, only individual pathology, gun reform and security failure.
This is a convenient absolution. It recasts concern about antisemitism since 7 October as hysteria, opportunism, or cynical attempts to suppress free speech, while insulating the surrounding rhetoric from scrutiny.
Comments8
Muriel18 January at 10:27 pm
Was this massacre really antisemitism? Was it ever spoken by these two gunmen that they were targetting jews or was it just an opportunity for them to create as much carnage as possible in a huge gathering at the time. Are we being devisive here too? What of the 2 innocent people gunned down on the street on their way to Bondi? Were they jewish? I just feel this was an assault on ALL Australians. Jewish or not, we are all Australians. Religion should not come into it.
Boaz10 January at 05:25 am
Mr bracka is correct by saying that “hundreds of thousands of Israelis who, since 7 October, have taken to the streets week after week demanding accountability” but is awefully wrong that they demanded a ceasefire and by not mentioning their main demand – the release of the hostages. Sadly, out of rage, hatered and revenge, most Israeli jews supported their government inhuman onslaught on Gaza. An aggression that only served a corrupt prime minister and an extreme government in Israel and a jihadist terrorist mob in Gaza
Vicky Grosser9 January at 10:17 am
Thanks you Jeremy for this article, and breadth of scope about anti-Semitism in practice. I would appreciate hearing your definition or how you describe Zionism to other people.
Ruth Wilson9 January at 12:06 am
There are facts underwritten by our intellect and then there are opinions, reflecting our emotional state, Like Simon Tatz in a previous article, this author navigates his way skilfully between the two, highlighting what it takes to achieve moral clarity in a very murky discourse. There is rarely right without some degree of wrong.
Nathan8 January at 10:50 pm
Excellent. Subtle. Onya.
Michelle Braunstein7 January at 09:25 pm
Good article. Just because the terrorists did not seem formally affiliated with IS or another jihadist group it does not mean they weren’t one themselves. These are not centralised organisations with elected hierarchies or formal legal structures. They’re cells. Authorities need to stop projecting liberal constructs onto Jihadism. It’s ridiculous to measure it with the same frame, but Albo et al probably already know this. The lone wolf hypothesis is more weaseling out of revealing their role in the Bondi attack. The terms of reference of any RC need to incorporate comprehension of the crucially different ontologies of Islamism and liberalism but it’s doubtful that will happen, as liberal humanism is by its nature so narcissistic, it thinks everyone wants to be it.
LARRY LIGHT6 January at 05:09 am
Excellent analysis Jeremie.
The analogy of Yigal Amir acting “within a political culture that had rendered Rabin a traitor and made political murder morally imaginable” is valid.
Gabby5 January at 06:15 pm
Good article Jeremy. I think you aught to be involved with a Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Radical Islam in Australia