Bondi Beach is a popular tourist destination in Sydney, Australia. The beach is located seven kilometres east of the Sydney central business district. The adjacent suburb has a population of 11,513 residents, according to the 2021 Australian census. Two factual television programs, Bondi Rescue (six-time Logie Award winner) and Bondi Vet (two-time Logie Award nominee), were both produced here.

Most of the outside world wasn’t familiar with Bondi Beach until this past weekend. Their new knowledge of this idyllic setting and community will be less than positive for quite some time.

This is due to the Bondi Beach mass shooting, a terrorist attack that took place on December 14. The target was the small Jewish community in Sydney celebrating the first night of Hanukkah. (The core Jewish population in Australia is about 117,000 in a country of over 26 million, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.)

About one thousand people were out celebrating “Chanukah by the Sea,” an annual Chabad (Hasidic Judaism) community event. Sydney is one of Australia’s largest Jewish communities, along with Melbourne. Bondi Beach is located in the eastern suburbs where many Jewish families live. The perfect seaside setting for such an event.

The festivities in Archer Park were interrupted by two men wearing black and carrying a rifle and shotguns. They proceeded to shoot the bystanders in the crowd at will in a horrific and violent scene. Sixteen people were killed that day, and 43 were injured. One perpetrator was in the former category, while the second perpetrator was in the other.

Bondi Beach became the worst terror attack in Australian history, and the country’s second-deadliest mass shooting after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

The two suspected gunmen were identified by Australian news organizations as a father-son duo: 50-year-old Sajid Akram and 24-year-old Naveed Akram. The latter, who is still alive in hospital, had been known to the domestic intelligence agency since 2019. Why? According to Australia’s ABC News, Naveed was “closely connected to Isaac El Matari, who was arrested…and later jailed for planning an IS insurgency as the self-declared Australian commander of the terrorist group.” It was also reported that “two IS flags were found in their car at Bondi Beach, according to senior officials speaking on condition of anonymity.”

It should also be mentioned that the heroic efforts of one man prevented more lives from being lost. Ahmed al Ahmed, a 43-year-old fruit shop owner, ran at Sajid, seized his weapon and turned the gun on him to force a retreat. He was shot multiple times and had to have surgery to deal with his wounds. Ahmed’s father told BBC Arabic that he was “driven by his sentiment, conscience and humanity.” And as the video shows, he “rushed forward, stopped the gunman, and snatched his weapon.”

Ahmed’s family is very proud of what he did during this horrific scene at Bondi Beach. His uncle, who lives in Syria, said that “he made us proud – our village, Syria, all Muslims and the entire world.” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns visited and called him a “real-life hero.”

I completely agree. When Ahmed is discharged from hospital, the Australian government should bestow on him the country’s highest-ranking medal for bravery by a civilian, the Cross of Valour. He certainly deserves it, and so much more.

Then again, it’s hard to envision Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Labor government doing the right thing. Their inaction against the rising tide of antisemitism in the country since Hamas’s attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 helped contribute to this situation. Australia obviously wasn’t unique in this regard as compared to other countries, but it shouldn’t dismiss the fact there were ways to lower the temperature and enforce the law.

Albanese hasn’t learned any lessons from his mistakes the past two years. While he spoke out against the Bondi Beach shooting and called it a “terrorist incident” against Jewish Australians, he then turned his focus to stricter gun laws. It’s a meaningless statement, since there have been strict laws against guns in his country since 1996. It also doesn’t deal with the major reason why the terror attack happened in the first place, antisemitism. The PM should be spending all of his time and energy condemning, curbing and ending this scourge as quickly as possible. It’s unlikely that he will, however. Time will tell.

Will the act of terror we witnessed Down Under ever materialize in another country, including Canada? One hopes not, but it’s difficult to say. All democratic governments should be tackling the rise in antisemitism to help prevent a Bondi Beach-like attack from occurring in their countries. The same way that discrimination and racism against Christians, Muslims, Hindus and others shouldn’t be tolerated. But until each and every politician, leader and party understands this fact and actually does something about it, this possibility will continue to linger.

Michael Taube, a long-time newspaper columnist and political commentator, was a speechwriter for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.