There are moments when plain language is not just helpful—it’s necessary. Bondi Beach is one of those moments.
In the aftermath of the shooting, two very different styles of reporting emerged. One, largely reflected in American and Australian coverage, carefully assembled facts while cushioning the ideological core. The other—most notably in European reporting—put the ideology front and center, quoting those closest to the attackers and letting the public see, unfiltered, what radicalization actually looks like in real life.\
The contrast matters.
Fox News, quoting Australian authorities, acknowledged radicalization and potential Iranian-linked influence. But the piece was written with a studied restraint, a kind of institutional throat-clearing that never quite lands the plane. Readers are told what happened, but only cautiously why. The story tiptoes around the most uncomfortable truth: this attack was animated by a religious worldview that teaches hatred of Jews as virtue.
By contrast, the UK’s Telegraph reported something far more revealing—and far more damning. It quoted the dead terrorist’s wife, who described her son, one of the shooters, as a “good boy.” Why? Because he didn’t drink. He didn’t smoke. He didn’t party. He didn’t club.
And—astonishingly—his participation in the attempted annihilation of Jews did not, in her mind, disqualify him from being “good.”
That single quote tells you more about the problem than a thousand euphemisms ever could.
This is what radicalization looks like when it has fully taken hold. Moral inversion. A worldview in which outward piety is the measure of goodness, while the murder of Jews is not merely excusable, but righteous. The wife’s words weren’t defensive. They were matter-of-fact. She was not shocked by what her son did. She was confused that anyone else might be.
That doesn’t happen accidentally.
People are not born believing Jews deserve to die. They are taught. They are trained. They are saturated in a theology that frames Jews as eternal enemies—corrupt, treacherous, cursed—and that casts violence against them as obedience to God. Over time, the horror fades. The killing becomes normalized. Even sanctified.
This is not theoretical. It is observable. From the charters of Hamas and Hezbollah, to sermons broadcast across satellite television, to Iranian-funded “cultural centers” across the West, the message is consistent: Jews are the problem. Jews are the obstacle. Jews must be removed.
Iran didn’t invent this hatred, but it has industrialized it.
The Islamic Republic has spent decades exporting antisemitic doctrine with money, weapons, and ideology. It backs terror groups not merely as geopolitical tools, but as religious instruments. The goal is not borders. The goal is purification—beginning with Jews, and eventually extending to the West that protects them.
Bondi Beach fits this pattern perfectly. A father and son radicalized together. A family steeped in belief. A mother who cannot recognize evil because the theology has redefined it. And a media class that seems terrified to state the obvious.
Why the hesitation?
Because naming Islam—plainly and without modifiers—forces a reckoning many would rather avoid. It means admitting that this problem is not limited to “extremists” who misread the faith, but to interpretations of Islam that are widely taught, funded, and defended. It means confronting the uncomfortable reality that religious ideas, not just socioeconomic grievances, drive this violence.
So instead, stories are softened. Language is diluted. The ideology is blurred. And the public is left with the impression that these events are tragic but inscrutable—acts of madness rather than acts of belief.
But Jews are dying because of belief.
They are being hunted in synagogues, markets, beaches, and schools not because of who they vote for or what policies they support, but because they are Jews. Because Islam, as it is taught in these radicalized environments, has convinced its adherents that killing Jews is not evil.
If that sounds harsh, it’s because reality is harsh.
The free world cannot survive on denial. It cannot protect its people by pretending that doctrines don’t matter, or that theology stops at the border. Every time we refuse to name the source of this hatred, we make the next attack more likely—and the next grieving family more alone.
Bondi Beach should end the pretending.
People are being radicalized. Jews are being targeted. And unless we are willing to speak honestly about why, this will not be the last time we say it.
It was Islam. Again.