By Jeremy Salt
Aftermath of Bondi Beach shooting. (Photo: Sardaka, via Wikimedia)
The genocide cannot be dealt with by constantly backing away from what needs to be said openly and honestly or by banning demonstrations by people justifiably horrified by the mass slaughter in Gaza.
In the backwash of the Sydney massacre, numerous questions arise, puzzling and otherwise. One, which readers of PC may be able to solve for this writer, is who shot Ahmad al-Ahmad?
Ahmad was the man who tackled one of the gunmen, wrestled him to the ground, and disarmed him. He pointed the gun at the gunman but didn’t fire, resting it against a tree as the gunman stumbled off.
In the context of this confrontation, the BBC said that he was shot “multiple times.” Al Jazeera reported that he was shot “during the incident.” Social media reports had him being shot by “another gunman” (not the other gunman). Yeshiva World quoted his relatives as saying, “he suffered two gunshot wounds in his arm during the confrontation … his injuries were sustained by stopping the attacker.”
However, the most interesting remarks were made by his former immigration lawyer, Sam Issa, after visiting Ahmad in the hospital. “He’s having multiple surgeries,” he said. “It’s a serious injury, far more serious than has been reported. Doctors have yet to remove a bullet from the back of Mr Ahmad’s shoulder.”
Issa described Ahmad’s wounds as “weird … given the fact that he was facing the shooter, how could he get a bullet in the back of his shoulder? It’s strange.”
Whether fired from the back or penetrating from the front, we don’t know, but from the video, no shots were fired during the struggle. At no stage was the gun pointed at Ahmad. He pushed it down and it stayed down all the time. Mobile phone videos lingered on Ahmad well after the struggle, but there is no video of Ahmad being shot then, several times, according to reports.
The surviving gunman and his father are of Indian Muslim ethnic background. The father came to Australia from Hyderabad 27 years ago and has returned only on a few occasions.
The black flag seen stretched inside the windscreen of their car is widely used by takfiri Muslims, and is not necessarily evidence of attachment to the Islamic State. The two men had visited the Philippines, leading to speculation that they were in contact with IS, but there is no evidence of this yet.
The presumption is that the motive for the massacre was Israel’s onslaught on Gaza. There is another interesting aspect in view of the Indian connection. The Sydney festival was organized by the Chabad Lubavitch sect, whose Mumbai centre was attacked by militant Pakistani Muslims in November 2008. Six people were killed, including three rabbis. The attack was general, but the Chabad house and synagogue, frequently visited by Israeli backpackers, were singled out as a target.
Fifteen people were killed in Sydney, including one child. One gunman, the father, was killed by police. The son was wounded and is now under police guard in the hospital. He has refused to be interviewed by the police, so his motives are not known.
This was a murderous attack on a vulnerable community far from the Middle East, but Israel is a self-proclaimed Jewish state, and while some Jews have separated themselves from Israel and Zionism because of the genocide, the majority still support it.
Israel has sought to implicate all Jews in its activities from the very beginning. The symbol of a religion flies from the pennants of the tanks destroying Gaza and the West Bank. It is a decal on the wings of aircraft firing missiles into high-rise office and apartment blocks in Gaza.
It is drawn on the walls of the devastated and defiled homes in Gaza and the West Bank by triumphant soldiers, along with the same kind of abuse of Arabs now being scrawled on the walls of Sydney against Jews.
Netanyahu advocates and justifies mass murder on the basis of the ancient Jewish past, as depicted in the Bible. West Bank settlers speak as Jews first when violating international law. As Jews responsible only to God and the promise of Abraham, many defy the state even as it protects them and builds further settlements.
They attack and kill Palestinians, burn down their houses, and destroy their olive trees as Jews. Palestinians don’t say ‘the Israelis are coming’ as tanks, armored cars and settlers approach. They say, ‘the Yahud (the Jews) are coming.’ For them, the Star of David is the symbol of menace, death, and destruction.
The self-declared Jewish state is now committing genocide in Gaza, in the judgment of international genocide scholars and human rights organizations. The state organizes the genocide, the military carries it out, obeying orders as other militaries have done in violation of the laws of war.
Palestinians and others have for decades stressed the difference between Zionism and Judaism. Zionism and Zionists are responsible for the catastrophe in Palestine, but the fact remains that they are still Jews. For Netanyahu, there is no difference. Being Zionist is what it is to be Jewish.
In Australia, peak Jewish organisations such as the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), and the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) claim to be representative bodies of the tiny (about 120,000) Australian Jewish population.
These organizations support Israel all the way, whatever it does. What they have been ‘supporting’ since October 2023 has been summarized by Jeffrey St. Clair in Counterpunch.
So far, Israel has killed at least 72,000 people in Gaza. That is only the low figure because of the high number of bodies buried under the rubble. The true figure is likely to be hundreds of thousands. At least 170,000 people have been wounded, including the loss of feet, hands, arms, and legs.
Apart from the low estimate of 20,000 children killed, 45,000 have suffered “new war-related injuries”, according to the UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Nearly half – 21,000 – have been disabled.
Children have been deliberately starved, and hospital patients have died because of the lack of medicine or the widespread destruction of life-preserving equipment such as dialysis machines.
It is hard to describe the current situation as catastrophic when it was already catastrophic. Can there be a double or a triple catastrophe? The Palestinians are being washed out of their tents by floodwaters. Thousands of tents are available, but are prevented from entry because Israel pretends to regard tent poles as ‘dual-use’ war material.
Having massacred the Palestinians, destroyed their homes, deprived them of food and medical supplies, and starved them, Israel continues its air and ground attacks on these totally helpless people, in violation of the ceasefire.
The short Al Jazeera documentary entitled ‘Target Iran’ has covered Israel’s attack on Iran in June. More than 1000 civilians were killed, including scores of children.
Then there is southern Lebanon, where, since the November 27, 2024, ceasefire, which Israel has not just broken but never observed in the first place, the UN says 127 civilians have been killed.
OHCHR (the UN office for human rights) said four Israeli drone missile attacks in November 2025 on the Ain Al-Hilweh refugee camp in the coastal city of Sidon killed 13 civilians, including eight children. Israel’s attacks on the south have included the destruction of village homes, factories and construction sites. Scores of civilians have also been killed in Israeli air attacks on Syria in the past year.
The core lobby groups in Australia, the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA), the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), and the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), support Israel, whatever crimes it commits.
They dwell incessantly on October 7, as if Israel had done nothing to warrant such an attack. Their targets are not just Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, but any group, government or individual in Australia standing up for human rights and international law on the Palestine question. They enjoy across-the-board support from federal and state governments and the media.
Other groups include the Australian Jewish Association, which stands for “the strengthening of Jewish identity and support for Israel.” It affirms that “Judea and Samaria” are “integral parts of Israel’s history and religious history,” and it opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
StandWithUS Australia is “proud to support Israel education and pro-Israel activity,” while the Australian Jewish Funders “stand united in support of Israel.”
The small Jewish anti-Zionist organizations include the Jewish Council of Australia, which opposes the destruction of Gaza and has called on the federal government to impose sanctions on Israel.
However, according to Jeremy Leibler, president of the ZFA, polling shows that the “overwhelming majority of Australian Jews are Zionists and in particular, support Israel and the IDF since October 7.” The poll he quoted shows 72 percent “support” Israel, 25 percent give uncritical support and 55 percent give support “in critical terms.”
Parliamentary support for Israel includes the Australia Israel Allies Caucus, which has federal and state branches. An MP member of the caucus, Andrew Wallace, describes Australia and Israel as “two pioneering and freedom-loving nations.
The bolstering of trade comes from the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, while media support for Israel is led by Murdoch’s Sky News and News Corporation’s daily, The Australian.
Palestine is no longer just foreign policy. This is something politicians everywhere have to deal with now. Australia has a population of about one million Muslims and like a returning tide, the ‘Palestine question’ is flooding back into the political mainstream of ‘western’ countries whose governments (like Australia’s) created a Jewish settler state in Palestine and have maintained it with strong political, military, and economic support ever since.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the Bondi attack as an act of “evil.” The NSW premier, Chris Minns, referred to “cowardly acts of terrifying violence,” federal home affairs minister Tony Bourke to an “appalling act of violence,” and former opposition leader Tony Abbott to “an absolute atrocity …. There should be no place in Australia for the kind of evil we’ve seen this evening.
None of these expressions have ever been used by any of them to describe the horrors of Gaza and the rampaging of soldiers and settlers across the occupied West Bank. Israel is never called out for its state terrorism.
Instead, the politicians justify genocide as self-defence and stress the value of Australia’s relationship with Israel, and have sought to defend the continuing supply of weaponry or weapons parts to Israel through third countries.
Even allowing for the unwillingness of politicians to speak directly, the statements made by Albanese and other politicians are totally removed from what is really happening on the ground.
They can see what is going on in Gaza and the West Bank as well as any of us, but, as has been the custom in Australia for decades, they are not going to criticize beyond the limits imposed by the patchwork of organizations called the Israeli lobby.
In late October 2025, Francesca Albanese released a report naming 63 countries that fall into the category of genocide enablers, Australia among them. “Framed by colonial narratives that dehumanize the Palestinians,” she wrote, the genocide has exposed “an unprecedented chasm between peoples and their governments, betraying the trust on which global peace and security rest.”
The genocide cannot be dealt with by constantly backing away from what needs to be said openly and honestly or by banning demonstrations by people justifiably horrified by the mass slaughter in Gaza.
Irrespective of their religion, and in fact in defence of it, Jewish Australians should also be condemning outright the genocidal state that has the effrontery to speak in their name and threatens their safety by its actions.
Some are doing just this, but others – still the majority – remain blindly attached to a state that could hardly do anything more to earn its reputation as a global pariah. If ‘never again’ means anything, it means joining all those standing against the genocide being committed by the state of Israel.
After October 7, 2023, the Sydney rabbi Eli Schlanger wrote to Anthony Albanese to act firmly against terrorism “by removing the cloak of legitimacy around those who spread hate.”
Yet on a visit to Israel, Schlanger was photographed holding an assault rifle, holding a missile, hugging, kissing and dancing with soldiers, sharing a meal with them and clearly identifying completely with the inhumane assault on Gaza. This celebration of the mass murder of Palestinians ended with Schlanger’s own death when he was killed during the Bondi massacre.
– Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press) and The Last Ottoman Wars. The Human Cost 1877-1923 (University of Utah Press, 2019). He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
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