Bondi Terror: Media Release by Peris, Mundine, Trotter, Ngaro
MEDIA RELEASE
17 December 2025
A CALL TO ACTION
The Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem, together with our Australian Indigenous colleagues, is appalled by the attack on members of the Jewish community celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach on 14 December 2025.
As friends and allies of the Jewish people, we have watched with growing alarm as their small community has endured a surge in hate incidents over the past two years, in Australia and across the world.
Australia’s Jewish community—numbering just 117,000 within a national population of 28 million—has been subjected to 1,654 antisemitic incidents in the year leading up to the Bondi Beach attack. These have included fire-bombings, arson, and the vandalism of synagogues, Jewish centres, businesses, and private properties. Jewish congregants and patients have been threatened. Jewish neighbourhoods and schools have been deliberately targeted.
No one can credibly say, “We didn’t see this coming.” Nor can we plead ignorance about the forces that have fuelled this hatred.
This is the product of two years of incitement to violence - incitement supported at times by media outlets, academia and politicians. From the infamous Sydney Opera house protest held just two days after the 7 October Hamas terrorist attack - where the cries of “fuck the Jews” and “where’s the Jews” was heard, to the months of mindless mobs calling to “globalise the intifada” - the message was clear; it was a call for Jewish blood.
Throughout this period, the pleas of our Jewish brothers and sisters have too often been ignored, minimised, or dismissed.
No more. This moment demands that their voices be taken seriously.
Let this attack be a catalyst for change—an inflection point that compels us to confront the root causes of antisemitism. We call on leaders and governments in Australia, New Zealand, and around the world to take a clear and principled stand against Jew-hatred in all its forms, and to take substantive action to dismantle the culture of hatred and violence that has been allowed to fester over the past two years.
If we fail to stand firmly for the values that underpin our societies—life, dignity, and freedom—those values will be eroded, and the voices of Jew hatred will prevail.
Nova Peris OAM OLY
Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO
Dr Sheree Trotter
Hon Alfred Ngaro
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