Last Saturday afternoon Sydneysiders in particular and Australians as a whole were horrified and traumatised as a lone man prowled one of our busiest shopping malls attacking people with a knife. That his chosen victims were predominantly female, including – sickeningly – a baby in her pram; that the choice of weapon was a large knife; that the man sported a dark beard; oh, and that Bondi Junction happens to be in the heart of Sydney’s largest Jewish community, only a short stroll from the Central Synagogue, and the shopping centre itself is owned by a well-known Jewish business family, for some reason or other led many to jump to the conclusion that this was an Islamist terror attack prompted by recent events.

Brought horrifyingly to mind was the savagery of 7 October in Israel in which Jewish women were butchered along with their babies by the evil rapists and murderers of Hamas accompanied by eager, bloodthirsty Gazan citizens. Coupled with the vile protests only two nights later on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in which pro-Palestinian thugs screamed ‘F— the Jews!’, ‘Kill the Jews!’, ’Gas the Jews!’ and the equally abhorrent ‘Where’s the Jews?’, the assumption that the Bondi Junction knifeman was a radicalised Muslim was not entirely unreasonable.

Social media around the world certainly thought so, and posts swiftly appeared to that end. Yet here in Australia most responsible media outlets, including this one, were cautious enough to await some kind of official identification of the man and his motives despite the apparently obvious signals. After initial disbelief when the police chief claimed the murders were not related to ‘terrorist ideation’ (whatever that means), such hesitation turned out to be wise. ‘Mental illness’ has over recent times all too often been the excuse given by nervous law enforcement authorities to justify what later are identified as Islamist-inspired attacks, yet on this occasion it transpired that that diagnosis was correct. Thus far, it appears that this was the case of a schizophrenic man whose demons told him to attack women, driven, it seems, by his inability to find a girlfriend. This individual had a history of mental problems and more disturbingly a history with knives. Rather than seeking out the local ‘hate preacher’ for questioning, the authorities must now ask serious questions of themselves as to how such a dangerously ill and unhinged individual was out in public.

But not all media outlets displayed such caution as to the killer’s identity. In what will now almost certainly be a major defamation case, the hapless Channel Seven network ran a report (based, it appears, on a fraudulent social media post) that the murderer was a young 19-year-old Jewish man, whom they happily identified by name. No words can describe the sort of sick individual who would deliberately manufacture that false claim, nor can words describe the reckless stupidity of those at Channel Seven for broadcasting it. It will rightly cost them dearly.

Alas, barely 48 hours had passed before Islamist terror did indeed rear its ugly head, with the stabbing on Monday evening of a popular Orthodox Christian bishop giving his service in his Assyrian church in Sydney’s ‘multicultural’ western suburbs. This particular knifeman also fitted to a tee the clichéd description of an Islamist terrorist –despite being only 16 years old. Tackled to the ground by outraged parishioners, he helped the crowds identify his motivation by ranting about the victim having ‘offended the Prophet’. Within minutes an angry crowd had formed outside the church, and the knifeman was whisked away into police hiding, while some in the crowd took their anger out on the police. Ah yes, the joys of multiculturalism in Sydney’s west.

Desperate to ‘bring the nation together’, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave a press conference in front of not one but three separate flags that are now apparently the ubiquitous symbols of our ‘united’ Australia. Rather than warning any radicalised Muslims against attempting to wage terror on the streets of Sydney, the hapless PM focussed his message on those who had rioted at the church.

No doubt a call to tackle ‘Islamophobia’ won’t be far behind.

As with everything said and done by Foreign Minister Penny Wong, the emphasis with this Labor government is in not doing anything that may cause offence to their precious Muslim vote in western Sydney and Melbourne.

Meanwhile, as One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson pointed out, ‘extremist Islamic preachers in Australia [are] calling for jihad and death – and getting away with it’. She also pointed to ‘the intimidation and violence we’ve seen directed at Jewish Australians’.

Her conclusion? ‘Labor doesn’t care about the threat [Islamist-sympathetic immigrants] represent and continues to import this ideology to Australia to shore up support for its western Sydney MPs.’

At a time when the Albanese government is busily handing out visas to Gazan refugees and with the highest rates of immigration this nation has ever seen, much of it from Middle Eastern and north African nations, she clearly has a point.

If the Prime Minister truly wanted to ‘bring the nation together’ he would return immigration to far more manageable levels and introduce stronger restrictions on immigration from areas where antisemitism and/or Islamist ideology are rife.

Meanwhile, our thoughts and prayers are with all the victims of both knife attacks, and gratitude to those who fought to restrain the killers.