Hillel Newman, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, says he has spent 26 years in his country’s foreign service and has never seen what he now sees in Canberra. “Throughout my 26-year career as an Israeli diplomat, I have never seen such levels of hatred of Israel, and of Jews, as I experience and witness here in Australia.” The same diplomat previously served as ambassador in two Muslim-majority countries, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and wrote in The Australian that those postings did not prepare him for Australia.
Newman’s warning arrived months before the catastrophe that proved it. On the evening of December 14, 2025, two Islamic State-inspired gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 people. The assertion that Australia is more hostile to Jews than the Muslim-majority countries where he served is no longer a diplomat’s lament. It has a casualty count.
A Western Nation More Hostile Than the Muslim-Majority Ones
Newman arrived in Canberra earlier in 2025 and has used his first months on post to deliver the most pointed public comments of any Israeli envoy in the country. In a written piece carried by The Australian, he said “obsessive herds” accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, and of using dogs to rape Palestinian detainees, echo medieval antisemitic tropes about Jews poisoning wells with plague and using children’s blood in rituals. He added that antisemitism disguised as antizionism could help spark further violence of the kind seen at Bondi Beach.
His earlier postings give the comparison its weight. “I served as ambassador in two Muslim countries,” Newman wrote. “Yet, I did not see these levels of hatred.” He added that “the non-radicalised and un-politicised Muslims understood the issues and showed more understanding than the obsessive herds calling for Israel’s annihilation and protesting Israel’s existence on the streets of Australia.” The remarks are markedly stronger than anything said publicly by his predecessor, Amir Maimon, who led the embassy across the October 7, 2023 massacres and into the Bondi aftermath. Newman’s intervention also lands as Labor’s draft national platform is reported to be toughening its opposition language on Israel.
The ambassador said the protests staged at the Sydney Opera House two days after the October 7 massacre, before Israel had begun its campaign in Gaza, disprove the humanitarian framing. “They were supporting the killing of Jews,” he wrote. “Period.” On the chant “from the river to the sea,” Newman wrote that it is “not a call for peace but a call for Israel’s annihilation.” The federal government has not publicly responded to his latest comments.
Throughout my 26-year career as an Israeli diplomat, I have never seen such levels of hatred of Israel, and of Jews, as I experience and witness here in Australia.
The line is from Newman’s op-ed in The Australian, reported at length by Newman’s full op-ed on Australia’s hostility to Jews.
The 316.5% Surge Behind the Diagnosis
The numbers Newman is reading from did not start at Bondi. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry released a report on December 1, 2024 tracking incidents from October 2023 through September 2024. It counted 495 antisemitic incidents in 2023 and 2,062 in 2024, a year-on-year jump of 316.5%.
The violence, not just the rhetoric, moved with it. Physical assaults went from 11 in 2023 to 65 in 2024, a 491% increase. Opposition leader Peter Dutton called the findings “not just a Jewish issue – it is a national crisis, and it demands urgent action. Enough is enough.” ECAJ research director Julie Nathan, who compiled the report, said the raw figures “understate the seriousness of the surge in antisemitism that has occurred” and that “many new forms and expressions of anti-Jewish racism that would once have been considered alien to Australia” had become commonplace. The Antisemitism Research Center documented the violence accelerating into January, with arson, swastika vandalism, “F*ck the Jews” graffiti, and death threats against Jewish community leaders recorded in successive weeks.
- 2023 antisemitic incidents in Australia: 495 (ECAJ)
- 2024 antisemitic incidents in Australia: 2,062 (ECAJ)
- Year-on-year rise: 316.5% (ECAJ)
- Physical assaults 2023 → 2024: 11 to 65 (491% increase, ECAJ)
- Share of global antisemitic incidents recorded by ARC the week of January 9-16: approximately 10% (CAM Antisemitism Research Center)
Read in one place, the data behind the ECAJ report on the 316% surge in Australian antisemitic incidents is a country where, for the Jewish community, daily life has changed faster than the politics around it.
Six Minutes at Bondi on the First Night of Hanukkah
On December 14, 2025, a Jewish community gathering called “Chanukah by the Sea” was held at Archer Park, just east of the Bondi Pavilion, with around 1,000 people in attendance. At 6:42 p.m. AEDT, Sajid Akram and his son Naveed Akram, parked on the Campbell Parade footbridge in a silver 2001 Hyundai Elantra, began firing into the crowd. Fifteen people were killed: 11 men, 3 women, and a 10-year-old girl. Sajid Akram, an Indian national and Australian permanent resident, was shot dead by police. His son, an Australian-born citizen, was wounded and survived. Islamic State later claimed credit for the attack. The full chronology is laid out in the Wikipedia timeline of the December 14, 2025 Bondi Beach shooting.
The shooting is the first fatal attack on Jews in Australia and the worst terrorist attack ever committed on Australian soil. It is also the deadliest mass shooting in the country since the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, in which 35 people died and which triggered Australia’s strict gun laws. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the shooting was “deliberately targeted at the Jewish community on the first day of Chanukah.” The National Cabinet responded by unanimously backing further restrictions on firearms and the largest gun buyback since Port Arthur.
The attackers carried a Beretta rifle, two single-barrel shotguns, and four homemade bombs, all of which failed to detonate. As one gunman opened fire from the footbridge, a Russian-Jewish Australian couple, Boris and Sofia Gurman, noticed an Islamic State flag on the parked vehicle and struggled with a second attacker for his gun; they were both killed. Ahmed al-Ahmed, an unarmed 43-year-old Syrian Australian Muslim and father of two, crouched between two parked cars, tackled a gunman from behind, and seized his weapon before being shot and wounded. Reuven Morrison charged the disarmed gunman and threw a brick at him; he was killed. Newman’s prior warning that toleration of “the new inflammatory antizionist antisemitism” could produce further violence now had its case study.
- 5:00 p.m. – “Chanukah by the Sea” begins at Archer Park
- 6:40 p.m. – Gunmen park silver 2001 Hyundai Elantra on Campbell Parade; a couple who confront them are killed
- 6:42 p.m. – Gunmen begin firing into the crowd from the footbridge; first emergency calls received
- 6:47 to 6:49 p.m. – Older gunman walks off bridge; a bystander disarms him; gunman returns and picks up another rifle
- 6:49 to 6:51 p.m. – NSW Police fire on the gunmen; both are shot and fall
- 9:36 p.m. – Police commissioner declares a terrorist attack
- 10:13 p.m. – Police disarm bombs in the suspects’ car
Clergy, Fatwas, and the Sermons That Kept Coming
The Bondi massacre did not end the public religious rhetoric that critics say feeds it. Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, Grand Mufti of Australia, was listed third among the “Members Participating in the Fatwa” of the Fiqh and Fatwa Committee of the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), a body linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Arabic document is dated March 28, 2025.
The fatwa’s language leaves little ambiguity. It declares it obligatory for all Muslims and Muslim nations to engage in jihad against “the Zionist entity and all those collaborating with it,” calls for supplying weapons and intelligence to mujahideen, and frames jihad as a religious obligation binding on Muslims worldwide. The same document cites Quranic verse 5:51 to caution against taking Jews and Christians as allies. Abu Mohammed had previously met former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during a Gaza visit with a delegation of Muslim scholars. Jewish Onliner has published the Arabic fatwa signed by Australia’s Grand Mufti alongside its reporting.
In Brisbane, Imam Uzair Akbar of the Holland Park Mosque had been feted as a moderate and invited to share a stage with Queensland Premier David Crisafulli at a December 21, 2025 interfaith vigil for the Bondi dead. Weeks later, in a YouTube video titled “Are Muslims Pushing People Away?” uploaded in January, Akbar called Jews the “greatest enemy of the prophet of Allah” and described their “sinister ideology, their sinister plotting and planning until today.”
Akbar apologised after the recording drew public criticism, saying certain words were inappropriate and “could reasonably be understood as offensive and hurtful to members of the Jewish community,” and that his faith prevents him from harbouring hate on identity grounds. An open letter to Crisafulli from Minority Impact director Hava Mandelle, community advocate Daniel Eskin, and University of Queensland Professor Yoni Nazarathy called the remarks “textbook anti-Semitism” and warned that preaching hate after claiming to stand against it sends a message to the congregation that hate is acceptable. The Australian National Imams Council, the body that hosts Abu Mohammed, has separately said it was “appalled” by the Albanese government’s hate speech legislation and warned it could criminalise sermons.
Why were they expelled? Because they gave a hard time … they were breaking the contract they were signing … and we can see their sinister ideology, their sinister plotting and planning until today.
The line was recorded in Akbar’s sermon and reported in The Australian and other outlets. He has since apologised for the wording while defending the broader theological discussion.
Albanese’s Bill, and the Old Testament Defence
Parliament sat for two days on January 19 and 20, 2026 to rush through the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Act 2026. The new law creates a serious racial vilification offence, a new listing for prohibited hate groups at a lower threshold than the terror group listing, harsher sentences for hate crimes, expanded visa cancellation powers, and the biggest gun buyback since Port Arthur. The federal government tied it directly to Bondi. “The terrorists at Bondi beach had hatred in their minds, but guns in their hands,” Albanese said. “This law will deal with both.”
The text of the bill includes a carve-out for religion. The new racial vilification offence does not apply to conduct that consists only of directly quoting from, or otherwise referencing, a religious text for the purpose of religious teaching or discussion. Albanese defended the carve-out by urging critics to read the Old Testament, telling reporters it includes content that, taken literally, would itself be outlawed. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland called the package “the toughest hate laws Australia has ever seen.” The exemption drew immediate criticism from legal scholars and from the Australian National Imams Council, whose leader is the Grand Mufti, on the grounds that it could leave religious sermons effectively immune from prosecution. The bill’s text is laid out in the draft text of Australia’s hate speech bill with religious text exemption.
ASIO’s Verdict: ‘In Terms of Threats to Life’
Mike Burgess, the Director-General of ASIO, told Parliament in March 2025 that “in terms of threats to life” antisemitism is ASIO’s top priority, adding he believed it was the first time a form of racism had held that position at the agency.
Six months later, in his November 4, 2025 Lowy Lecture, Burgess broadened the diagnosis. Australia’s “social fabric is fraying,” he said, “fraying in ways we have never experienced before.” He warned that inflammatory rhetoric and provocative, disruptive actions have been normalised, and that hatred of one community creates a permissive environment for similar behaviour toward others. His concern was that even with the ceasefire, the cohort dynamics he was seeing would continue to test Australia’s cohesion. The full text of ASIO’s 2025 Lowy Lecture on fraying social cohesion is published on the National Intelligence Community site.
In his Annual Threat Assessment, Burgess named Iran as directing arson attacks against Australian synagogues through the IRGC Qods Force, identified a former Australian resident in Iraq as the director of the December 2024 Adass Israel Synagogue attack, and catalogued antisemitism as a current that runs across neo-Nazi, Islamic extremist, issue-motivated, state-sponsored, and anarchist networks at once. “My point is that violent antisemitism is not a single, or simple, intelligence problem,” he said. ASIO has foiled 31 major terrorism plots over the past reporting period, and the agency’s counter-terrorism officer count in 2025 is almost double the 2005 figure.
- ASIO national terrorism threat level: raised from “possible” to “probable” in August 2024
- ASIO major terrorism plots foiled in the recent reporting period: 31
- ASIO counter-terrorism officers in 2025: almost double the 2005 figure
- Bondi Beach casualties: 16 dead including one attacker; 41 injured including the accused
The Royal Commission, and the Questions It Leaves Open
A federal Royal Commission was announced in the wake of the Bondi attack. The inquiry is running alongside the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion that was already in public hearings when Newman wrote his op-ed. ECAJ president Daniel Aghion KC said the inquiry must provide “an honest examination of government policies and the conduct and policies of key institutions and figures in major sectors of our society” in allowing antisemitism to thrive.
The commission will have to weigh the contradiction at the centre of Newman’s diagnosis: a country that can register a 316.5% year-on-year rise in antisemitic incidents, host an Islamic State-inspired mass shooting that kills 15 Jews on the first night of Hanukkah, and watch its Grand Mufti sign a religious ruling calling for jihad against “the Zionist entity and all those collaborating with it,” all while passing hate speech laws whose religious text exemption may cover sermons of the kind Imam Akbar recorded in January.
Newman has waited on the federal government for a public answer to his diagnosis since his op-ed was published. He has received no public response. The question he left hanging in Newman’s warning that the pattern may not be over is whether the country he now calls home intends to act as if what happened on the first night of Hanukkah was a warning, or as a finale.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened at Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025?
On December 14, 2025, two Islamic State-inspired gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration called “Chanukah by the Sea” at Archer Park, Bondi Beach, Sydney, around 6:42 p.m. AEDT. Fifteen people were killed and 40 injured, and Islamic State later claimed responsibility. It is the first fatal attack on Jews in Australia and the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history.
What did Australia’s Grand Mufti sign in March 2025?
Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, Grand Mufti of Australia, was listed third among the members of the Fiqh and Fatwa Committee of the International Union of Muslim Scholars who signed a March 28, 2025 ruling stating it is “obligatory for all Muslims and Muslim nations to engage in jihad against the Zionist entity and all those collaborating with it.”
What did Australia’s hate speech bill do about religious texts?
The Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act 2026, passed by Parliament in January 2026, created a new racial vilification offence and an accompanying exemption: the offence does not apply to conduct that consists only of directly quoting from or referencing a religious text for the purpose of religious teaching or discussion.
Who is Hillel Newman?
Hillel Newman is Israel’s ambassador to Australia, a 26-year Israeli diplomat who previously served as ambassador in two Muslim-majority countries, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, before arriving in Canberra in 2025.
