It breaks my heart to write this piece. Today, the resurgence of anti-Semitism that has percolated and festered in Australia for the last two years has come to a murderous, horrific climax.

In a balmy early summer evening a few hours ago, Sydney’s Bondi beach was the scene of appalling carnage, At least 11 people are dead, and more than two dozen wounded, including two police officers. One of the gunmen is also now dead.

Fanatics, zealots and political activists who preach or abet Jew hatred must be held to account and punished – not, as they have been, treated by the authorities with kid gloves

‘This attack was designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community on the first day of Hanukkah’, said New South Wales state premier, Chris Minns. ‘What should have been a day of peace and joy, celebrated in that community with families, has been shattered by this horrifying, evil attack.’

It was supposed to be a night of celebration, of good fellowship. Children, women and men gathered on the beach to start the festival of Hanukkah by lighting a menorah. It was a celebration of faith, but the gathering was also an expression of the solidarity and resilience of Australia’s Jewish community after more than two years of blow after blow against their faith, and against them, simply because they are Jewish.

The two shooters took up firing positions – next to a children’s playground – before opening fire into the crowd. One gunman shot in one direction, the other in the opposite. Had it not been for the courage of a lone bystander, who jumped and disarmed one of the shooters, the death toll could have been even higher.

Within minutes, outrage spread around the world as it became clear this atrocity was committed against the Jewish community. But it was especially felt in Israel. Israel’s president Isaac Herzog said, ‘Our sisters and brothers in Sydney, Australia, have been attacked by vile terrorists in a very cruel attack on Jews who went to light the first candle of Hanukkah. We repeat our alerts time and again to the Australian government to seek action and fight against the enormous range of anti-Semitism plaguing Australian society.’

Former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, made another telling observation. ‘When people call for globalising intifada, this is what globalising intifada looks like … you’re globalising terror, and you’re importing it to everywhere, to New York, to London, and yes, to Sydney, Australia’, he told Sky News Australia.

Herzog and Bennett are right. Anti-Semitism, long thought to be eradicated from Australia, merely went underground, only to resurface after the Hamas atrocities on 7 October 2023. The depth of the overt hatred for Jews in sections of Australian society has been revealed in anti-Semitic incident after anti-Semitic incident. Clearly, current hatreds have built on older prejudices that never quite went away.

In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, Australia’s political leaders have uttered the expected words of comfort and condolence. From Prime Minister Anthony Albanese down, they genuinely are shocked and saddened at what happened today. But they are also complicit. They did not foster the anti-Semitism rearing its ugly and now murderous head. But they have done too little, too late to stand up to the fanatics and bigots who have unleashed hatred on their fellow Australians.

If political and electoral considerations have influenced government indifference, and helped make Jewish Australians fearful strangers in their own country, tonight politicians must look into their hearts and finally act. Anti-Semitism must be stopped. Jewish Australians must not only be safe in their own country, but feel safe. Fanatics, zealots and political activists who preach or abet Jew hatred must be held to account and punished – not, as they have been, treated by the authorities with kid gloves for fear of causing other ethnic and religious communities offence.

A stunned nation is shocked and sickened. It’s not only Australia’s Jewish community who mourn their dead tonight. All decent Australians mourn with them. Muslim religious leaders have condemned this murderous act of terror and condoled with their fellow Australians. That, at least, is something.

One can only hope that the thousands of people who attended weekly anti-Israel protests since the atrocities of 7 October also feel grief and shame tonight. One can only hope the 90,000 people who marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge earlier this year, waving Hamas flags and brandishing pictures of Iran’s president, share in the pain, anger and grief that such awful violence should be wrought on their fellow Australians merely because they are Jewish.

One can only hope that the Australian people, and especially its leaders, are finally brought to their senses about the moral cancer that has been allowed to metastasise and fester. If words tonight don’t translate into decisive action tomorrow, Australia will be the worse for it. The lives so brutally snuffed out tonight deserve nothing less.

Hanukkah is the Jewish festival of light. It is to our national shame that, tonight, Australia has been plunged into such appalling darkness.