Of Bondi Beach and Birds

On December 14, 2025 Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia was the scene of yet another Islamic terrorist shooting.  During an afternoon Hanukkah celebration attended by about one thousand people, two gunmen opened fire killing fifteen people, including a ten year old girl and wounding another forty people.  One of the gunmen was disarmed by an unarmed bystander, later identified as Ahmed-al-Ahmed, a Syrian Muslim father of two who owned a fruit shop.

The Australian Prime Minister concluded the obvious in a broadcast, that it was an anti-Semitic attack on Australian Jews during the first day of their Hanukkah festival.

       The atrocity is not unique but is part of a pattern of anti-Semitism endemic in the world and especially prominent in Islam, where some imams refer to Jews as apes and monkeys.   

The slur is hardly surprising, since this sort of thing is found in the Qur’an.  The curse on Jews who broke the Sabbath reads, “Be like apes! Be outcasts!” (Q. 2:65 and also 7:166).  Concerning the Jews and Christians who rejected Muhammad, the Qur’an says that God rebukes in the following words: “Say, ‘Shall I tell you who deserves a worse punishment from God?  Those God distanced from Himself, was angry with, and condemned as apes and pigs’” (Q. 5:60).   Given this, Muslim reference to Jews as “apes” and “monkeys” should not be unexpected. But, more alarmingly, it is part of a pattern of violence towards Jews which, as we saw at Bondi Beach, goes well beyond mere verbal violence.   

The call for “global intifada”— i.e. religious violence— is part of a well-thought out agenda.  Its classic name is “jihad”.  Bondi Beach revealed that all talk about “jihad” being mostly an “inner, spiritual struggle to overcome ego, base desires and evil inclinations, striving for moral perfection” [thus AI’s online description] is more propaganda than reality.  For the attackers in Australia whose car was flying the flag of the Islamic Republic jihad meant death to the infidels.

The anti-Semitism on display in Australia does not find its cause in the present policies and actions of the State of Israel in Gaza, for there is no possible connection between the Jews of Sydney and the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu.  What sane person would say, “I am enraged at the actions of the Israelis in Gaza so I will shoot Jews I know nothing about on Bondi Beach?”  The anti-Semitism and the willingness to use violence to express and extend religion forms an ingrained part of the religion of the attackers. 

Not, I hasten to add (and as Bondi Beach also showed) that such violence lives in the hearts of every single Muslim, since the brave man who disarmed an attacker at considerable risk to his own life was also a Muslim.  A distinction must be made between Islam as a religion and Muslims, some of whom allow violence to lodge in their hearts and some of whom don’t.

And what about the Jews?  Jews around the world are reporting that they no longer feel safe in places where they once did feel safe—places like my own Canada.  Indeed, in Toronto one hears of reports of a Canadian carrying around a Palestinian flag in Jewish residential areas.  I myself have seen police cars parked out in front of a Toronto synagogue as a protective measure for the Jews who worship inside.

So what about the Jews?  I suggest that they are the canary in the coal mine.  In the old days, miners would protect themselves from gas in a coal mine by taking a canary down with them.  The caged bird would be the first to show distress and die from any otherwise undetectable gas leak such as carbon monoxide, alerting the minors to the presence of gas so that they could quickly evacuate. 

The Jewish population may be considered to be a canary in our cultural coal mine.  For the attacks on Jews will not end with the Jews. It will spread to others as well.  Even now we hear of Islamic attacks on Christians at Christmas fairs in Germany.  This is not multiculturalism or ethnic diversity.  This is jihad.

What should be our response as Christians?  I suggest three things.

First of all, we must continue to love everyone, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, atheist.  All were made by God and redeemed by Christ and our hearts must strive to embrace all, praying for their repentance and salvation as part of Christ’s Church.  Though Jihadis are responsible for these atrocities, they are not our enemy.  As St. Paul wrote long ago, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against the world forces of darkness, the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenlies” (Ephesians 6:12f).

Secondly, we must speak the truth.  All sorts of people for all sorts of reasons do not want to hear the truth and western society is well supplied with bullies who will try to silence those with whom they disagree by pinning labels on them (“Islamophobic!”), by denouncing them, by cancelling them, and (in Canada) by charging them with “hate speech”, whenever they seriously challenge their agenda.  (So much for “the true north, strong and free”!)  But we must continue to speak the truth nonetheless. 

In this we may take some encouragement from the prophet Ezekiel.  He also was charged to speak to a hardened people regardless of whether or not they would listen to him (see Ezekiel 2-3).  What God said to him, He says also to us: “If you warn the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself” (Ezekiel 3:19).  By our courage and speaking the truth we deliver our souls.  God does not demand that we succeed; He demands that we be courageous and faithful.

Finally, we must denounce anti-Semitism wherever we find it.  This does not mean that we must support everything that the State of Israel does.  The actions of Palestinians and Israelis are a completely different and separate issue.  We are called to love and support our Jewish neighbour when he is being attacked with violence, just as we would support our Muslim neighbour should he be attacked with violence.  The politics of the Middle East have nothing to do with local love of neighbour.  When a lawyer asked our Lord the question, “Who is my neighbour?” he was told that he should be a neighbour to whoever needed his help (Luke 10:29f).  For us that includes Muslim, Christian, and those of any religion and those of none.  And today that certainly includes the Jew.