This morning, two terrorists unloaded their guns on a Chanukah party in Bondi beach for the first day of candle-lighting.
The story is developing. Sydney natives are sending mixed messages about locals still under siege and remaining in place until the attack is definitively under control. Two men have been arrested as videos circulate. Videos that remind me of October 7. Pools of blood. Bodies strewn. The eeriness of the similarities with initial videos I saw from the attacks in the Israeli town of Sderot on that hellish morning two years ago is hard to stomach.
Why? Because we warned everyone, because we have screamed, because we have been silenced by the media, the governments and the Clementine Ford Hamas fanatic, who have this Jewish blood on their hands. Initial reports are claiming various numbers dead, at least three verified. This news broke only moments after news from Brown University over in the US of another mass shooting. Whether there is any relation between these events remains to be seen. But what is certain is that the West is falling.
I am currently on a highway in Israel after a week long delegation about which I cannot wait to share extensive reports with you. I am travelling to the deep southern desert to decompress under the stars and could not fathom this pogrom breaking while en route. And yet I recall only months ago thinking to myself that as soon as the Gaza war ended, and likely before Christmas, we would see terror attacks spreading over the West.
I will write more in the coming days about my experiences here but by and large the through line is a closing of so many circles that began for us on October 7 and for me intimately during my first war reporting trip here in December 2023. I have witnessed the journeys of Israelis - be them Nova survivors, hostage families, scholars and lawyers and first responders, IDF soldiers and beyond - and I see a major shift now in all of them. A shift towards moving forward. Not forgetting but rebuilding. They are not defining themselves by the atrocities but demanding purpose to do something with what happened. To focus once more on their dreams. For people in the depths of post trauma to have such imagination once more is breathtakingly inspiring.
And yet this morning at one last breakfast in Tel Aviv, I thought to myself — as Israel heals, the West is belligerently ignoring a rude wake up call. It is self-sabotaging hubris. An hour later and here we are. We appealed to them in every way. We repeated it till our tears ran dry and our voices broke: Appeasing to terrorists doesn’t work. The capitulating governments of Australia, Spain, France, Britain, Ireland and Canada will learn their lessons in the most brutal ways. Your innocent people are going to die. Free Palestine is a death movement.
Since I’ve been in Israel, many friends have texted me from the diaspora to ask if I’m safe, worrying about me here. I keep saying there’s nowhere safer. The ball still hasn’t dropped. It happened here first. It’s happening where you are now. Not just to Jews. To everyone. But let’s not forget the specificity of us Jews: because that part is important.
I was interviewed by the Jerusalem Post and I filmed an episode of the Aish podcast with Jamie Geller here, both to come. In both interviews I said: it is not our responsibility as Jewish people to save the West from its own suicidal empathy. It is theirs. We came to assimilate, to contribute, to innovate and build. We have been betrayed. We have been abandoned while we demanded accountability for the West’s refusal to keep its promise to us after the horrors it ignored last century. Ultimately, we have a place to go. They do not.
On Thursday morning, I saw the most comprehensive and undeniable collection of evidence for the October 7 massacre yet, comprised of even more extensive harrowing video footage from Hamas body cams, from first responder units and from articles found alongside the neutralized Hamas and Gazan civilian invaders. They include conclusive evidence of UNRWA complicity, proof that Gazan “journalists” are Hamas militants who participated in October 7, and unparalleled documentation of the Jihadist ideology of Hamas, of the indoctrination of children from a very young age, and the usage of the most hateful verses of the Hadith and Quran. It is being held here in Israel and my sincere hope is that it reaches those who must witness it. I will share the exhibit with you shortly.
Suffice to say, after I exited this military exhibition, which is not yet open to the public, I turned to friends and said: what’s stopping the Western imported terrorists of Islam from getting weapons illegally and doing the same massacres in Western countries? They are protected by the practitioners of law in all of these Western democracies. But of course those practising the law are themselves terrorists. As George Clooney revealed about his wife Amal, a human rights lawyer at a London chambers, only two weeks ago.
I am sick to my core today. My heart is with the Jewish community of Bondi, in Sydney. And with the Jews of Australia, a community I adore and have spent so much time around. Stay strong.
Why must the Jewish people continue to tell this story about ourselves?
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