The terrorist attack at a Hanukkah event in Sydney, in which 15 people were killed, was not a surprise. Over the past two years there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents across Australia, including synagogue arson attacks, graffiti and Nazi salutes. Combined with the highly critical policy of the Australian government, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Australia's Jewish community has experienced a serious erosion in both its security and its sense of safety.
The Australian government has consistently claimed that alongside its criticism of Israel's policy in Gaza, it provides full protection to Jews in the country. That promise collapsed on Sunday with the attack at Bondi Beach, one of Sydney's most iconic locations. The Hanukkah candle lighting ceremony targeted in the attack was known in advance, and yet did not receive adequate protection. Beyond the failure to secure the event itself, Australian intelligence services also failed to identify the perpetrators and prevent the attack ahead of time.
These two failures demand attention not only for the purposes of investigation, but above all for drawing lessons, in Australia and beyond. World Jewry, including Israelis living abroad, is now facing an unprecedented level of danger, perhaps the most severe since the Holocaust. Growing criticism of Israel in many countries has unleashed widespread antisemitism, which, together with increasing Muslim influence, is manifesting in a sharp rise in both physical and verbal violence against Jews and Israelis.
At the local level, this requires heightened preparedness and vigilance by Jewish communities and, of course, by local police forces. Events known in advance, as well as permanent sites such as Jewish schools and synagogues, are at high risk. But physical security is not enough. It is the last line of defense, and one that can always be breached. It is preceded by intelligence that require close monitoring and supervision of risk factors. Democratic countries are generally reluctant to do this, out of concern for civil liberties, but it seems they now have no choice. Just as Western states were forced to adapt their intelligence monitoring and physical security during the peak of Islamic State terrorism in the previous decade, they are now required to act in order to protect their Jewish citizens.
Israel, too, has a role to play in this effort. As the nation state of the Jewish people, Israel has a deep and genuine obligation to Jews everywhere. It is duty bound to work to protect them, just as it protects Israelis at home. This is a more complex mission given geographic and physical constraints, but one Israel has bridged in the past in a variety of ways, most notably through intelligence cooperation between the Mossad and the Shin Bet and their counterparts, in order to track suspects and thwart attacks.
However, what worked for decades against a limited threat, primarily from states and organized terrorist groups, is less relevant given the scale of the current danger. It appears Israel must rethink how it responds to the significant challenge now before it. This task is several orders of magnitude larger than the remit of the Mossad's "Bitzur" unit, which is responsible for the issue. It cuts across government ministries and security agencies and requires engagement at a national level as a real operational front: the eighth front, alongside the seven active fronts of war Israel is currently managing in the Middle East.
Against this backdrop, it was striking that the Israeli government continued with its routine on Sunday as if nothing had happened. For all the importance of the meeting at which a framework agreement was signed in Dimona, it is doubtful that such a celebratory event would have gone ahead had 15 Israelis been murdered in a terrorist attack inside Israel. The fact that the prime minister, who devoted only a few words to the attack at the start of his speech, proceeded as planned to the inauguration of a neighborhood named after his brother Yoni further proves the disconnect from the magnitude of the event and from the scale of the danger it poses to Jews worldwide.
An emergency cabinet meeting would have been important at the declarative level, to signal to Jews everywhere that they have a state and a government that stands behind them and protects them. More importantly, it was needed at the practical level, to issue operational directives to the relevant ministries (Foreign Affairs, Defense, Diaspora Affairs, Aliyah) and to the security services. Israel has no shortage of tools to confront this unprecedented threat. The worst possible outcome would be for Jews in the diaspora to feel abandoned twice: by their own governments and by Israel.
A proposal that smells of evasion
Two final points. First, at the height of the unfolding horror, as reports from Sydney began to pour in, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and other ministers chose to focus on what they evidently regarded as a far more important issue: the High Court of Justice ruling blocking the dismissal of the attorney general. Levin's determination to dismantle the judicial system is well known, but on Sunday he outdid even his own previous lows.
Second, the decision to launch, of all days, the proposal to establish a civilian commission of inquiry into the failures of October 7 was outrageous on three counts. First, because of its timing, so close to the deadly attack in Sydney. Second, because Sunday marked day 800 of the war, the last moment when such a deeply divisive proposal should have been raised. And third, because the proposal itself reeks of an effort by the government to evade responsibility for the disaster that occurred on its watch.
