Israeli cartoon: Iranian "octopus" strangles Australia
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When a horrific tragedy befalls Jewish victims as it did in Australia this week, there are two types of responses: the easy, lazy way of approaching it; and the complicated, nuanced way. Bibi Netanyahu and Zionist apologists have chosen the cheap, exploitative hysterics; while the approach here will address the attack in a more complex way. It’s easy to fall into patterns which emphasize simplistic thinking. It’s harder to penetrate the miasma of events in a manner that clarifies them.
Here is someone who’s done the work and offers a thoughtful, heartfelt appraisal:
— Elad Nehorai (@eladn.bsky.social) December 14, 2025 at 10:01 PM
The ultra-Orthodox Chabad sect, hosted a Hanukah by the Beach celebration, attended by 1,000 people. During the event, two shooters appeared and sprayed the crowd with bullets killing 15 participants. Authorities have identified the attackers as two Australian-Indian Islamists who traveled to an ISIS stronghold in the Philippines shortly before the assault. Police killed one of the gunmen and arrested the other, who was the man’s son. They have released no information on the motive for the attack. That, of course, hasn’t stopped the Israel apologists from spreading misinformation, which exploited the catastrophe on behalf of Zionist interests.
The killings were clearly anti-Semitic in nature, since they attacked Jews celebrating a Jewish holiday. That is the classic definition of the term. But pro-Israel apologists went far beyond that when they linked the anti-Semitism to Israel. They claimed that Australia itself was a hotbed of Jew hatred and the government had refused to act aggressively to combat it.
This was patently untrue. The accusation was a cheap shot, which argued that the country’s official policy supporting a two-state solution caused Australian Muslims to attack Jews. The truth is that Israeli genocide and the mass murder of 70,000 Palestinians generated hostility of Arabs and Muslims throughout the world. It added fuel to the fire of Islamist fundamentalism. Here is Netanyahu spreading this calumny against the Australian government:
Netanyahu rushed to blame Australian PM Anthony Albanese for the Bondi Beach attack, citing his support for a Palestinian state: “Your govt did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism … You let the disease spread and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.” pic.twitter.com/rp9AF9g32Z
— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) December 14, 2025
Hostility toward Israel has nothing to do with Australian government foreign policy and everything to do with Israel’s slaughter in Gaza. Nevertheless, it should not and must not be directed at Jews, as it was at Bondi. The vast majority of Muslims understand that distinction, as do most Palestinians. They don’t blame Jews for Israel’s crimes. For example, there have been no attacks by Hamas against foreign Jewish targets for decades. The few such foreign attacks have been directed largely against Israeli-Zionist targets.
Yediot cartoon uses classic anti Semitic imagery to (falsely) accuse Iran of Bondi attack & incite anti Iran hate pic.twitter.com/eaKB9dQeIq
— Tikun Olam 🍉🇮🇷 (@richards1052) December 16, 2025
Attackers were “lone wolves,” neither Palestinian nor Iranian
Further, Israeli media have offered outright lies in their reporting. They widely featured anonymous so-called “senior intelligence sources” blaming Iran for the attack, without offering any evidence to support it. An Israeli security source rebutted this claim to me, saying that the attackers appeared to be “lone-wolves,” which turned out to be much closer to the truth. Though they did train with an ISIS affiliate, they were radicalized in Australia. There is not yet any account of how the radicalization process happened. Though the surviving son was investigated in 2019 for his association with other Islamists planning a terror attack there.
Now that the Iran connection has been debunked, Zionist media have pitvoted to blaming ISIS, Al Qaeda and the global jihad movement for such terrorism. This Haaretz headline is characteristic of that approach:
Israeli intelligence says the Bondi shooting attack reflects a global rise in antisemitic violence, fueled by jihadist networks like ISIS, Al-Qaida and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
This again represents sloppy analysis that takes the easy way out. There is nothing in common among these three groups. In fact, they represent wholly different agendas and largely hate each other. Further, I recall neither ISIS nor Al-Qaeda assaults on Jews or even Israelis. They are largely uninterested in Israel as a legitimate target. The IRG is a different entity because of the decades-long attacks by Israel against Iran. Though it has never succeeded in mounting any attack within Israel, it has committed several against Israeli foreign targets. Of the few of these, all failed to cause any serious damage.
The Zionist narrative regarding Bondi is exploitative. It deliberately confuses a Jewish tragedy and makes it about Israel. To be clear, the attackers obviously believed that attacking Jews there was a blow against Israel. But further explanation is necessary: Zionism itself conflates itself with Judaism–and Jews with Israel. In this conception, when the latter defends itself, it is protecting all Jews everywhere. When it is in danger, all Jews are in danger. When it is attacked, all Jews are attacked.
Not only is this false, it is anti-Semitic: if Israel and the Diaspora are one and the same, it’s hardly surprising that Islamists would view all Jews the way Zionists do, making no distinction between them. Of course they would be wrong to do so; and it would be clearly anti-Semitic. But can we expect them to have a more complex analysis of the issues than Zionists themselves?
The anti-Semitism-mongers’ rush to judgment is not rooted in concern for, or protecting Jews. It has purely political motives. It diverts attention from Israeli genocide. It argues that Muslims hate Jews and will always hate them (“the eternal hatred”). This transforms Israel’s actions, its so-called defense against Palestinian terror, from crimes to existential necessity. How can a country be guilty of protecting its own from such unprovoked attacks? It is a classic example of playing the victim card.
For Netanyahu, the Bondi attack offers another benefit besides distracting from Israeli genocide; it is a cudgel he can use against countries horrified by Gaza, which leads them to endorse a Palestinian state. Some have even instituted sanctions against Israel. Bondi is a blunt instrument he can use to beat them back into place. It is a warning to any country contemplating breaking from the Zionist narrative–that if such an assault happens on your territory, we will come for you next. What politician wants to contemplate that?
There is another category of critics (see screenshot) which attack “leftist anti-Semitism” for justifying the killings. While there are anti-Zionists offering such a perspective, they are a distinct minority. I call them the anti-imperialist left and consider them to be outliers. They are not representative of anti-Zionism, which is not anti-Semitic precisely because it argues for a distinct separation between Zionism and Judaism. Jews are not responsible for Zionism and its crimes. Jews celebrating a religious holiday, whether Zionist or anti-Zionist, are not legitimate targets.
This tweet offers a tired hasbara meme: leftist anti-Semitism. It argues that there is Jew-hatred on both right and left. It ignores the total imbalance between the two. Right-wing hatred of Jews is homicidal and has killed scores of Jews in multiple attacks over decades here in the US. Anti-Semitism on the left consists of a few conspiracy theorists posting social media memes. To argue that the danger they pose is equivalent is preposterous.
Finally, that this Bluesky user claims to be “antizionist” [sic] indicates she doesn’t understand its principles.
Rabbi Eli Schlanger’s (@SchlangerEli) favorite word was “Amalek”, referring to the Palestinians, referring to the genocide against the Palestinians.https://t.co/SrCJZROnL7 pic.twitter.com/dMvKBgFvW2
— Free Palestine🍉 (@Anonymostw) December 14, 2025
Chabad, Islamophobia and Judeo-messianism
The event was sponsored by Chabad, an ultra-Orthodox sect with close ties to the Israeli settler movement. In fact, the movement’s Australian shaliach, Eli Shlanger, who organized the Bondi event, was a radical settler who espoused hateful views of Palestinians and all Arabs. The official publication of the Judeo-messianists who seek the destruction of the Haram al-Sharif (Al Aqsa mosque), has extolled him for making a pilgrimage to this Muslim sacred site: “His face beamed when he saw the Temple Mount.”
In the embedded tweet above Shlanger repeatedly posted the word “Amalek” referring to Gazans. It is a reference to a Biblical tribe whom the Israelites were commanded to exterminate. Amalek was an ancient Jewish act of genocide, now used by Zionists to legitimize Palestinian genocide. These tweets and other videos he posted confirm that his outreach mission in Australia was to proselytize on behalf of Israeli genocide, couched in religious terms.
In this he reflected the official view of Chabad. While this in no way justifies the murders, it adds an important element of context, which few media reporting addresses because it adds complexity to the account, which is more difficult to convey.
When ultra-Orthodox Zionists seek to obliterate one of the most sacred sites in Islam, what should Muslims believe about them? That they are simply Jews performing a religious ritual? Or that they are part of a movement seeking to destroy Palestinians, and attack the foundations of Islam.
Security failure
There is another element of this tragedy not reported either in media accounts or even social media commentary: where was the security? Most synagogues throughout the world now have law enforcement or private security companies protecting communal institutions. They also have security systems which protect access to them. With a public event attracting 1,000 people, both Chabad and local law enforcement should have had a massive presence there. Had there been, it’s likely they could have confronted the killers far earlier and neutralized them and reduced the casualty count. Some Bondi victims claim there were officers on scene who “froze” and did nothing to confront the shooters during the 20-minute assault. Video footage shows one of the attackers firing from a bridge above the crowd. This is precisely the sort of location law enforcement should have tagged as a potentially vulnerable security site. In short, this seems to be a massive security lapse.
No one, as far as I know, has raised this critical security issue. Instead of blaming Australian law enforcement for not stopping so-called anti-Semitism, why don’t Zionists look dispassionately at what could have been done to prevent or mitigate the tragedy that did happen? Of course, this is a rhetorical question since they prefer to take the easy way out and not examine the event and what went wrong, so that future episodes can be prevented. Again, that is far too complicated for the easy, lazy thinking of the “anti-Semitism obsessives.”
The sheer parochialism in the initial Zionist response to the tragedy was to assume that the brave individual who confronted the shooter and disarmed him was a Jew. Not only was he not Jewish, he was (worst of all) Muslim. That shook up the paradigm. He ran towards the attack, rather than away. He grabbed the shooter and wrestled the weapon away from him and subdued him. If he had not done this, the death toll would have been even greater. Zionists, Jews–none of this mattered to him. Only saving human lives. Because that is an Islamic tradition. Unlike the Chabad [per]version of Judaism which values only Jewish lives.
No, that’s not accurate— while his name is Arabic, Ahmed Al Ahmed, the hero of Bondi Beach, is NOT a Muslim ☪️
He’s a Maronite Christian ✝️ who emigrated to Australia🇦🇺 from Lebanon🇱🇧
Maronite Catholics are the largest Christian ✝️ group in Lebanon, followed by Greek Orthodox pic.twitter.com/gH54HTHHQK
— 🟥50ft Queenie, Force 10 Hurricane!🎗️ (@BroadWithABrain) December 14, 2025
Next, what did Zionists do? Because of their ideological bias, they disrespected the hero and falsely claimed he was a Lebanese Maronite; as if transforming him into a Christian somehow righted the anti-Muslim narrative. In reality, he is a Syrian Muslim from Idlib who came to Australia to escape the carnage in his country. Netanyahu, in his rancid social media posts, offered him a cursory compliment in the midst of his rantings about the scourge of Australian anti-Semitism.
Finally, this story shows that you cannot make snap judgments about refugees as Trump and other anti-immigrant leaders do. Refugees are the backbone of society. Some are a godsend while a small minority gravitate toward anti-social acts. One saved souls in Bondi and two others took them. We should focus on the former, who enrich our societies.
Following the tragedy that unfolded at Bondi I found, alongside many others, the bravery displayed by Ahmed al Ahmed as a small ray of hope amidst the gloom and despair surrounding the Israel/Palestinian “conflict” (I use that word very loosely for reasons that are obvious); a Muslim man risking his life to take down an armed man committing a horrific act on Jewish people at a Hanukah celebration. The footage is extraordinary, but once again the mass media have chosen, consciously or otherwise, to exercise selection bias in their reporting and have missed a golden opportunity to highlight that all hope is not lost. While under normal circumstances, the religion and background of the individual should not matter, surely under these circumstances it would be prudent and relevant to highlight Ahmed al Ahmed as a Syrian immigrant (which was widely reported) who is presumably Muslim (which was not); and I say “presumably” for the reason that many news articles chose not to highlight it, and when it was, unsubstantiated rebuttals quickly followed (driven by factors that are too convoluted to mention here). In a world where the media (both left and right leaning) is being used as a tool to propagate false information and propaganda to widen the partisan divide, a rare opportunity to do the opposite has been ignored, and indeed quashed. While my next comment would normally convey something along the lines of “it feels all hope is lost”, perhaps we can spend some time focussing on the video and Ahmed al Ahmed and try to convince ourselves that, perhaps, that small ray of hope does indeed exist.
I find myself wondering if such attacks might be rarer if the organized Jewish communities of the west and their official bodies, elected or self-appointed, were less cowardly and benighted than they have been and if Jews in the West were not – for the most part – passive and silent in the face of Israel’s annihilationist war. Alas the Gaza holocaust has elicited not the faintest note of dismay or protest from these quarters . Not the slightest misgiving or reservation. On the contrary, the norm has been support, accompanied at times by applause. Granted, “the Jewish community” isn’t monolithic and hardly speaks with one voice. Yet it’s no exaggeration to say that the majority of its members, whether because misinformed or disinformed or else blindly parti pris, endorse Israel’s barbarism without murmur or cavil. Dissenters from the received world-view – a xenophobic tribalism that hears no evil and sees no evil – are a negligible minority, in the Diaspora no less than within Israel itself nowadays.
As Jew living in Canada, I know whereof I speak.
It will be objected that the victim is being blamed here, yet there is a sense in which the “Jewish community,” ventriloquizing the government of Israel and uncritically serving as its megaphone, cannot claim to be shocked when people who are politically radicalized or simply driven mad by the spectacle of annihilation seek (inexcusably) to relieve their feelings by assaulting its members. The lawless, bloodthirsty and predatory settler-colonial state that insists that it speak for so many Jews in North America and Europe and claims to act on their behalf – a claim they are inclined to accept, tacitly or enthusiastically if in varying degrees – is of course the main accelerator of contemporary antisemitism, growing in proportion as the business of extermination proceeds apace. But Jews in the Diaspora, it grieves me to say, will continue to witness the “rise in antisemitism” they allege inasmuch as they identify, and are seen to identify, unreservedly with that state. Their visible indifference to its monstrous behaviour and their approval of it, unspoken or outright, positively invites ill-will and outrage, as how can it not? Silence in the face of horror is assent. Assent leads to reaction, sometimes violent though never justified when so.
@ D. Rodan: I think you misstate one important thing: you are talking about the organized Jewish community. Those who affiliate with pro Israel groups, synagogues, etc. Over 30% of Jews belong to no denomination, affiliate with no pro-Israel group. They are either left wing, anti-Zionist, secular, or disaffected. There are hundreds of thousands of us in the US alone. We may not have a powerful voice like Aipac or Jewish federation representing us or speaking for us. But that doesn’t mean we ratify the views of the organized, affiliated Jewish community.
For some further context about the Bondi Chabad mob look to this day in September – link to facebook.com On this day it was a group of Jews against the occupation who organised a paddle out in support of the Gaza flotilla, it was high jacked by neo nazis standing with the hateful racist Chabad mob who screamed the peaceful protestors should be raped and the Palestinians should all be fried. They went on to claim Bondi was their beach and everyone should go to a beach called Cronulla where rabid white racist attacked and bashed muslims 20 years ago.
And having blamed Iran for the actions of two Indian nationals the son born in Australia, the ranting continues today with the collective punishment of 99.9% of the Australian’s who are not jewish and don’t care to hurt jews at all thanks to the same rabid ghouls from September and a hard core racist group of Ukrainian and South African jews.
I spoke with some Muslims here in Maryland. They said that while of course they strongly oppose what Israel does, that they want peace and they want justice for everyone. One woman mentioned she knows that the majority of Israelis oppose what Netanyahu is doing. I say that the international community must do something about those bases in the Philippines where those shooters were trained. Other than that, it must be pointed out that due to Australia’s strict gun controls that since 1996 there have been far less shootings than what’s occurred in the United States and there is a strong chance that as a result of this tragedy Australia will make those controls stricter. Another thing I must mention is that there isn’t just antisemitism. There is islamophobia, homophobia, and racism. The expression of any of this must be outlawed in the public square with prison sentences for violators. And when anybody is injured or killed in the name of this, that must mean life in prison. I’m adding that the punishment for the latter must be so severe that nobody will want to commit that again. Yes, everybody has rights but everyone’s rights must end where the next person’s rights begin.
They did not go to the bases in the Philipines to be trained, it’s clear by the day this was a mossad false flag because Australia finally decided to give a crumb to the Palestinians. Now for some short history – it was racist Australia post WW11 who betrayed the Palestinians by insisting on the illegal partition of Palestine not because he cared about jews but because he didn’t want them in Australia and Israel has used this to blackmail us ever since
@Marilyn: Please do not spread unfounded, unproven claims here about Israeli false flags either in this case or others. There is plenty of evidence of real Israeli crimes w/o inventing new ones.
Thank you for this Richard. It’s one thing if we humans have to learn anew each generation; it’s another if we never learn. That’s because we don’t understand. Hate blinds.