More than 70 prominent Australian athletes have called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to establish a federal royal commission into antisemitism, following the Bondi terrorist attack in which 15 people were gunned down at a Hanukkah event, including a ten-year-old girl. In an open letter, they argue that antisemitism is escalating nationwide and that a New South Wales–level inquiry is inadequate to confront the scale of the problem.

The instinct to respond decisively to such an act of barbarism is entirely understandable. But the proposed response is fundamentally misdirected. It treats the symptom, not the cause. If Australia is genuinely serious about preventing future attacks and restoring public safety, the inquiry we need is not into “antisemitism” as an abstract social prejudice, but into immigration policy and Islamist radicalisation. Terrorism does not confine its victims to one community, and neither should the response.

Terrorism Has Many Victims—That Is the Point

Jews are victims of Islamist terrorism. That is undeniable. But they are not the only victims, and they are not the only targets, nor the majority of victims globally. Terrorism, by design, is meant to terrorise entire societies. Every Australian becomes a victim the moment an attack occurs on Australian soil. That is the purpose of terrorism: to spread fear well beyond the immediate casualties.

Across Europe, North America, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific, victims of Islamist violence have included people of every ethnicity and religion—Christians, non-Christians, Muslims deemed insufficiently orthodox, tourists, commuters, and schoolchildren. To frame the problem primarily as “antisemitism” is to misunderstand the nature of the threat itself.

What happened at Bondi was not a niche expression of hatred against one group. It was part of a far broader ideological problem with a long and well-documented history.

Shifting Blame Instead of Naming Causes

Despite this, almost immediately after the Bondi attack, sections of the media and political class shifted the focus toward the so-called “far right,” stretching associations so thin that mere attendance at the same gun range was seemingly treated as incriminating. By that logic, everyone who ever set foot in that location, or shared a demographic characteristic with the attacker, would be culpable.

Of course, that kind of reasoning would rightly be dismissed as absurd in any other context. Yet it is now becoming standard practice. Rather than confronting the ideology that actually motivates Islamist violence, responsibility is diffused until everyone is vaguely guilty and no one is truly accountable, except those whom those in power wish to oppress.

A royal commission into antisemitism would only entrench this issue. It would transform a specific ideological problem into a generalised moral failing, implying that the violence emerges from a society-wide atmosphere of “hate” rather than from identifiable doctrines, networks, and failures of policy.

Antisemitism Is Not the Core Threat

Treating antisemitism as the central explanatory framework for Islamist violence misses the larger and more dangerous reality. It also sends an alarming message to Islamist extremists that, should they commit such horrific acts, a nationwide propaganda campaign will be conducted to disseminate the blame. The fact is, Islamist terrorism is not inspired by “antisemitism” alone.

Since September 11, 2001, Islamist terrorism has killed hundreds of thousands worldwide. Islamist‑motivated terrorism has been a significant source of deaths and injuries globally for decades. According to an extensive quantitative analysis of Islamist‑motivated attacks between 1979 and April 2024, researchers recorded at least 66,872 such attacks worldwide, resulting in approximately 249,941 deaths. The vast majority of these incidents and fatalities occurred in Muslim‑majority countries.

In Western countries, there have been several high‑profile Islamist‑linked attacks that have caused mass casualties. Notable examples include the 2004 Madrid train bombings (about 193 people killed), the 2005 London bombings (about 52 killed), the 2015 Paris attacks (approximately 130 killed), and the 2016 Nice truck attack (about 86 killed). These events illustrate that Islamist‑motivated violence has also struck in Europe and other Western‑aligned countries, even though most global deaths occur outside these regions.

The 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, including many Australians, remain the deadliest Islamist‑linked attack affecting Australian citizens and are widely documented in historical records.

This isn’t about minimising Jewish suffering. It’s about not minimising non-Jewish suffering and treating all victims of Islamist terror equally.

The Bondi Attack Was Not Merely an Antisemitism Problem

What we saw at Bondi was not the eruption of a uniquely Jewish grievance. It was the manifestation of a broader ideological pipeline—one that thrives on factors repeatedly identified in Islamist terror networks, including failures in migration vetting, radical preaching, online propaganda, and a political culture that refuses to name Islamist ideology for fear of causing offence.

Australia has already seen this dynamic play out. When Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was stabbed by a radicalised teenager, the immediate response from elites was not to confront Islamist radicalisation but to warn Christians against “Islamophobia.” The public was told not to fear Islam—even though fear is precisely the intended outcome of terrorism. It’s in the name!

This pattern repeats itself after every attack. Suppress discussion, redirect blame, and criminalise criticism. Public warnings against ‘Islamophobia’ followed quickly in the wake of Bondi.

Why the Wrong Royal Commission Makes Things Worse

A royal commission into antisemitism would not prevent future attacks. It would, instead, likely lower the threshold for “hate speech,” expand surveillance of political dissent, while risking disproportionate focus on loosely defined ‘far-right’ groups, rather than prioritising the disruption of proven Islamist extremist networks.

As historian and commentator Dr Stephen Chavura has observed:

“If you say you’re worried about antisemitism but are not talking about mass Islamic immigration, you’re not really worried about antisemitism… Calling out antisemitism is easy and riskless. Calling out Islamic ideology and calling for deportation is what real leadership looks like.”

He is right. Condemning antisemitism costs nothing and solves little. Confronting radical Islam and the immigration policies that enable its spread requires political courage.

The Inquiry Australia Actually Needs

If Australia is serious about public safety, social cohesion, and preventing future terror attacks, the scope of inquiry must be widened, not narrowed. We need a royal commission that examines:

• Immigration policy and vetting failures
• Radicalisation pathways and ideological networks
• The role of Islamic extremism in motivating violence
• The institutional reluctance to name Islamist ideology
• The misuse of “hate speech” laws to suppress legitimate criticism and political opposition
• The impacts of multiculturalism

A royal commission into antisemitism may satisfy moral posturing, but it will leave the root causes untouched. And when the next attack occurs, as we fear it will if nothing changes, we will again be told that the real problem is vague social “hate,” not an ideology that keeps producing the violence across the world.

Australia can choose symbolic gestures, or it can choose solutions. It cannot have both. We don’t need a Royal Commission focused on one category of victim. We need a Royal Commission into Islamist extremism and the policy failures that allow it to persist.