Weaponising Grief

The media’s response to the Bondi tragedy

The Bondi massacre was unprecedented, unforgivable, unjustified and horrific. The aftermath presented an opportunity for serious reflection on the nature and causes of antisemitism in Australia, to honour the lives lost, the grieving families, and to protect the nation from any similar future acts. Instead we have seen a descent into partisan politicking the likes of which we’ve never seen before in Australia.

As Robert Manne wrote recently (“Don’t mention the war: After Bondi”), and others have pointed out, the response by the media and political class to previous Australian mass shootings was firstly to set aside partisan politics in the spirit of healing and solidarity. In the weeks following the Bondi massacre, the mainstream media has done the opposite. It has weaponised community grief, launching a campaign against the prime minister and taking every opportunity to generate political heat and score political points. Without evidence, it has re-broadcast outrageous claims about the causes of the tragedy, and about where responsibility lies. News editors have also given a helping hand to unscrupulous politicians such as Barnaby Joyce, Pauline Hanson and Andrew Hastie to steer public debate towards anti-immigration.

Manne called the response to the Bondi massacre “seriously strange”, and his essay is essential reading. I would go further and describe the response to Bondi as disturbing and alarming. Excepting the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, those seeking calm, reasoned and dignified responses to the crisis have found very few in the major news outlets.

We don’t know the exact beliefs of the Bondi killers yet of course, but that hasn’t stopped the re-broadcasting of claims and subtle imputations that they were somehow influenced by peace marchers and pro-Palestinian protesters. The underlying claim – sometimes stated outright – is that the pro-Palestinian protests created an “atmosphere” of antisemitic hate that led to the killings. This has barely been examined, let alone rebuffed, by most political commentators – across The Australian, the Murdoch tabloids, the Nine papers, even the ABC and Guardian. So let’s do so now: there is no evidence for it. Anyone who has attended or paid any attention to these marches knows that their overwhelming purpose was peaceful, that they were against mass violence, and that organisers (including several Jewish groups) were insistent that their protests were against the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians by Israel and avowedly not against Jewish people as a whole – and especially not those living in Australia. It is concerning that this even needs to be said, but when people are marching against mass violence, it’s because they are against mass violence. Most Australians strongly oppose mass violence against civilians, and this applies both to Bondi and Gaza.

These outlets have brushed over the intelligence failures that led to two men associated with Islamic State (IS) acquiring weapons, planning the attack, and travelling undetected to the region of the Philippines where IS train militants. And nowhere has it been noted that Islamic State is not pro-Palestinian: its fundamental goal is a caliphate – a global theocracy – with no national or territorial borders. Islamic State groups have even denounced Hamas, in some cases fighting physical battles with them over their differences. So if the Bondi massacre was an Islamic State operation, or driven by Islamic State ideology, it was almost certainly not a pro-Palestinian one.

People have a right, even a moral obligation, to speak out about genocide if they believe a genocide is in progress. I don’t need to point out the welter of evidence now supporting this in the case of Gaza. Indeed, in 2026 it requires an almost impenetrable degree of delusion or intellectual dishonesty to deny the legitimacy of these claims. This is the same mindset that renders all criticisms of Israel’s actions as antisemitic.

Linking the Bondi killers with pro-Palestinian protests is entirely “vibes”-based, and concocted for political purposes. To prove the point: this bizarre imputation of blame has already been leveraged to change NSW law to ban such protests.

NSW authorities’ own role in fomenting antisemitism, however, has remained entirely unexamined. In early November, NSW police approved a public rally of neo-Nazis in front of NSW parliament house, where far-right activists paraded underneath a sign calling to “abolish the Jewish lobby”. Why is the “atmosphere” of antisemitic hate being blamed on those defending Palestinian human rights, rather than those actually enunciating antisemitic hate?

Clearly NSW authorities have some soul-searching to do, as do national intelligence agencies, but it is dispiriting that they would seek to direct public blame and anger away from their own failings and towards a peace movement.

Similarly, the fact that anyone, let alone someone closely associated with terrorist networks, was able to legally acquire a stash of guns like those used in the attacks should indicate a serious problem with our gun laws. Yet instead of analysing actual failures around the massacre, media coverage recently has been dominated by a growing chorus of calls for Anthony Albanese to hold a royal commission. These follow weeks of loaded accusations against him, including that he “hasn’t done enough” to combat antisemitism and in fact had inflamed antisemitism. These claims were given their initial impetus by none other than Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu – the man who is subject to an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity because he has overseen the indiscriminate killing of tens (or hundreds) of thousands of civilians and the total destruction of Gazan society; because he has enforced deliberate starvation, withholding critical aid for civilians; because he has prevented humanitarian organisations from safely providing welfare and health services to men, women and children; and overseen the murder of journalists and their families. This is the man whose views have shaped the Australian media pile-on against its own leader.

Netanyahu’s government is killing more than 15 people every day in Gaza, even after promising a ceasefire. I wonder if it ever grates on Albanese – getting moral lectures from this man?

What makes the media’s post-Bondi campaign against Albanese even stranger is that he could scarcely have been a better supporter of Israel in recent years. Netanyahu pointed to the Australian government’s very conditional recognition of the state of Palestine as a driver of antisemitism. This rewarded Hamas for the murders on October 7, according to Netanyahu.

Albanese in reply pointed out that his government was only doing what 150-odd other countries had already done.

Even so, Albanese, leading a country whose majority strongly disapproves of Israel’s violence in Gaza, has done little to rebuke or curtail Israel. His government hasn’t imposed sanctions against any Israeli government figures or on any trade, and hasn’t ceased Australia’s involvement in weapons trade to Israel. Ministers’ rare statements of disapproval towards Israel have been of the wet-lettuce variety – gestures only. At every stage, Albanese has reiterated his strong stance against antisemitism and his support for the people of Israel. He appointed an obviously pro-Israel envoy to combat antisemitism, and appeared alongside her when she handed in her divisive report; he set up AFP Special Operation Avalite to crack down on threats, violence and hatred towards the Jewish community; he announced tougher hate speech laws; he put $32.5 million into strengthening security at Jewish community sites including synagogues and schools; and put $8 million into a museum fund for historical exhibits about antisemitism. To prove his ongoing support for Israel, Albanese even invited its president, Isaac Herzog, to visit Australia.

In the wake of Bondi, pundits have argued, most prominently in the Murdoch papers but elsewhere too, that Albanese should have better understood and reflected the public mood, and taken responsibility for both the “atmosphere” that led to the attacks, and the anger since it. Take a step back: why on earth would the focus of all vitriol after a mass killing such as this be directed personally at Anthony Albanese? Should he have overseen tougher gun laws? The calls for tougher gun laws have seemingly dissipated already. Was he responsible for the intelligence failures? Or the “atmosphere” of antisemitic hate? Can they point to a single offensive thing he has said since the massacre? Honestly.

I called the campaign against Albanese disturbing and alarming earlier, but it’s not really strange, is it? It’s just another News Corp-led smear campaign, a power play to undermine and browbeat a Labor prime minister using the grief of others for political gain. News Corp, the company that launches hate campaigns against minorities for fun, that has long fought against hate-speech protections and anti-discrimination laws. Yes, that News Corp. The strange thing – disgraceful, more like – is that they would stoop this low so soon after a mass killing. Doubly disgraceful has been the enthusiastic participation in the campaign by virtually every other major news organisation.

The heavily orchestrated, weeks-long calls for a royal commission are now fuelled by an argument, both stated and implied, that Albanese is resisting a royal commission because he is afraid of what it would reveal. In other words, he is now trying to cover up his failure. The more he resists, apparently, the guiltier he becomes. Anyway, you know who else has resisted calls for an independent inquiry into a historically unprecedented mass killing of Jews on home soil, that might have exposed embarrassing intelligence failures and politically disastrous past calculations? Benjamin Netanyahu.

Many of the arguments for a royal commission are legitimate – of course we want to understand how it happened – but all fall down for one key reason, which has as yet been ignored entirely by the legacy media: there is no way to hold an effective royal commission into the Bondi attacks without jeopardising the trial of the alleged perpetrator. Once a case is before the courts (that is, when the accused has been charged), even a royal commission is subject to sub judice laws. It would be impossible for the commission to openly discuss, investigate or conclude anything about the motivations or actions of the accused in relation to the Bondi shootings – anything that would influence the court – until the criminal proceedings are concluded (which is likely to take years). To do anything else would risk prejudicing the jury.

As lawyer Fiona Roughly wrote in the UNSW Law Journal, quoting an earlier legal judgement, “If a royal commission were to be established ... and tasked to inquire into the same matter the subject of pending criminal proceedings, the commission ‘would almost certainly be held to be an interference with the course of justice and consequently to constitute a contempt of court.’”

How could a royal commission investigate the influence of antisemitism in this case without examining the motives and actions of the accused? Or are we to believe the commission could closely examine the Bondi massacre and make conclusions about underlying motivations without looking into the circumstances and beliefs of the actual perpetrator? In this case, it would be looking at everything but the most salient facts. Perhaps some believe that private/closed hearings into these aspects would be an acceptable way forward, but this surely defeats the purpose of an open royal commission. In the meantime, the lumbering nature of royal commissions and the secrecy would give critics endless material with which to beat Albanese and pro-Palestinian voices over the head. (By the way, it’s almost undeniable that if Albanese had immediately called a royal commission, News Corp would be attacking him for kicking the can down the road, because he needs to take responsibility and do something now, not in three years!)

Or worse, are those calling for a royal commission saying that the accused’s right to a fair trial is secondary? I think some are, and the corollary logic is chilling: a politically motivated campaign obviously intended to harm the sitting prime minister has overridden the most basic principle of our legal system.

No doubt there’s a section of the community already saying that circumstances are exceptional. It is naive in the extreme to believe that just because we are certain of the outcome, we can ignore the proper process of the law. It would be an incredibly dangerous precedent, especially for a nation whose media is dominated by an organisation as ruthless and unprincipled as News Corp. For what it’s worth, when over 130 lawyers signed a letter calling for a royal commission, it was a royal commission “into antisemitism”. The Daily Telegraph, 7news, and AFR and others reported them as calling for, variously, a “Bondi shooting royal commission”, and “a royal commission into the Bondi terror attacks”. Very different.

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An open letter by the progressive Jewish Council of Australia asks us “to stand strong against those who are weaponising the Bondi massacre to push bigotry, hatred and division. Jewish safety and the safety of every other marginalised group go hand in hand. Pitting Jewish safety against Palestinians, Muslims and migrant communities, and eroding all of our civil liberties, doesn’t make Jews safer. It makes the real fight against antisemitism harder.”

Robert Manne’s essay speaks memorably “of the strange atmosphere of strictly enforced unreality that has accompanied the growth of antisemitic sentiment in Australia since October 7”. I would add that this characterisation also applies to all legitimate criticism of Israel in Australian public life. Major media outlets in Australia still cannot speak the truth of Israel’s genocide, and are therefore themselves complicit in the suppression of genuine dialogue about both antisemitism in Australia and the actions of Israel.

Writes Manne, “the sharp rise in antisemitic acts — insults, tweets, graffiti, arson, but no physical violence so far as I am aware before Bondi — did not occur for no reason. They are self-evidently connected, in ways we must try to understand in open, non-censorious discussion, to the character of Israel’s war in Gaza following the murder of 1200 and the kidnapping of 250 of its innocent citizens at the hands of Hamas.” Manne is careful to distinguish antisemitism from legitimate criticism of Israel and its “annihilation of a people, their cities, towns and market gardens, and their culture”.

If the connection between rising antisemitism and the “character of Israel’s war” was included in the royal commission’s terms of reference, though, one could easily imagine support for it evaporating. An open, non-censorious discussion on antisemitism, if we are a thoughtful society, will not be driven by political journalists seeking a scalp or news outlets with an agenda. We will need to find our own way to navigate it. It’s not at all clear that the public shares the media’s enthusiasm for a royal commission; reader comments online and social media indicate otherwise – and public trust in the effectiveness of royal commissions has rightly taken a hit in recent years. Albanese may believe there’s no genuine thirst for another one, and that there are more direct and safer means to investigate the failures and causes of the Bondi attack (he has pointed to a limited intelligence inquiry, and the state royal commission that’s already been announced). He will have discerned the partisan political and personal edge to the campaign too. Being Albanese, there’s every possibility he will fold under pressure, but he has every right to reject the calls.