By the rivers of Babylon…

There we sat down

Yeah, we wept

When we remembered Zion.

Increase of demonisation of Israel and openly antisemitic feeling in Australian society has culminated in the Bondi terror attack, in which 15 Jewish Australians were murdered by Islamist terrorists during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025. This mass murder could be a prologue to worse atrocities in the future.

Antisemites habitually deny being anti‑Jewish, declaring themselves to be anti‑Zionists instead. In doing so they shelter behind Australian law that gives each Australian the right to free speech. Masquerading as anti‑Zionists, these activists have blocked the streets of our nation’s CBDs on most weekends since 2023, spreading the malignant toxicity of anti‑Jewish hatred and disrupting the functioning of our cities. Antisemites are feeling invulnerable and free to undermine the civic peace Australia once enjoyed. Their example inflames other radicals, increasing the likelihood of wider public disorder.

Police often claim to be powerless to act. Burning of synagogues, occupations of university campuses, the threatening and intimidation of Jewish students and staff, derogatory and threatening graffiti, armed guards near Jewish schools and places of worship, burning of cars, and threats of death to Jewish patients in public hospitals are all signs of deeply distressing times that evoke memories of Nazi Germany.

Despite being an acknowledged leader in human rights law, Australia has failed to address the threat to its Jewish community. This failure may be a threshold test for future outrages, in which anti‑Zionism could serve as an excuse for mass terror. The Royal Commission into the Bondi massacre has the potential to address radicalism, antisemitism, and the disturbance of civic peace by examining the ideological drivers of the attack and the climate of hate that preceded it. The Royal Commission has the power to strip away the transparent masquerade that allows antisemites to get away with the world’s oldest hatred.

Zionism, an integral part of Jewish and Evangelical Christian religious belief, should be established as a lawfully protected attribute, along with race, religion, age, gender, and disability. As a result, public denunciations of Zionism would be regarded as antisemitism and thus unlawful under Australian anti‑discrimination and human rights laws. Most importantly, it would criminalise expressions of hatred that target this core belief. It would be the world’s first real advance in minorities’ protection by a democratic state and a mature response to antisemitic extremism in a liberal democracy. It would:

demonstrate Australia’s commitment to the safety and equality of one of its most vulnerable communities;

dispel the impression that the protection and safety of every Australian citizen is anything less than a high priority for the Australian government.

The presently instituted Royal Commission is the perfect forum in which to make this change.

On the rivers of Babylon

Whether the disco group Boney M fully understood the historical and religious significance of Psalm 137:1‑4 (KJV) or not, their 1978 hit Rivers of Babylon carried Zionism into popular culture. The psalm chronicles the suffering of Jewish exiles in Babylon and their longing to return to their land, Eretz Israel, almost 2,500 years ago. There is also an oath of loyalty, devotion and remembrance in Psalm 137:5, where the exiled Israelites promise never to forget Jerusalem: ‘Let my right hand forget her cunning…’ meaning, ‘If I forget you, may I lose my skill to play music, to use my hand.’

At the close of each Passover Seder, Jews recite the phrase ‘Next year in Jerusalem!’ expressing the multigenerational dream and promise of return to Zion. This promise survived more than 2,000 years of pogroms, genocide, despair, and disappointment, and yet it was remembered and kept in the rebirth of the State of Israel in 1948.

As a long‑established and major aspect of Jewish identity, self‑identification, religious belief, and belonging, Zionism is a cornerstone of Judaism. As a major component of Evangelical Christian and Jewish religious belief, Zionism has become and remains a core religious conviction, an interdependent connection and spiritual umbilical cord between two world religions. This core has been debated, encouraged, and persecuted; glorified and vilified; denied and supported by its proponents and enemies alike. Across millennia of theological controversy, political challenge and outright prohibition, one fact has remained unchanged: Zionism’s continued existence. Zionism has stubbornly refused to die.

Zionism is both a religious and a secular foundation of Judaism. Remove it and Judaism itself might wither. There is also a well‑established Zionist Christian belief in Israel’s rebirth and the Jewish return to Zion as prophesied in the Bible. Evangelical belief in the Second Coming is inseparable from Israel’s rebirth and the ingathering of Jewish exiles. Zionism therefore straddles two world religions – Judaism and Christianity – and, as a genuine religious belief, should be treated as a protected attribute.

Those who insist that Zionism is merely a political movement with no religious dimension ignore or wilfully deny that the political aspect of Zionism has always been a tool for advancing the fulfilment of biblical prophecy. For believers in divine intervention, Zionism has several domains – religious, political, military, logistical, and economic – yet the religious domain is by far the most important.

Not surprisingly, dictatorships, including fascist and communist regimes, were resolutely opposed to Zionism, rightly suspecting it of standing against unfreedom and undermining their monopoly on power. The Nazis went as far as committing the Holocaust, and communist regimes helped generate some of the most violent forms of contemporary anti‑Zionism, including the so‑called Palestinian resistance.

Historians such as Ion Mihai Pacepa have described how Soviet intelligence services helped invent modern Palestinian terrorism and weaponised anti‑Zionist propaganda during the Cold War. In cities such as Odessa, Palestinian fighters trained by the Soviet military became a familiar sight, generously funded and feted while anti‑Zionist, and often antisemitic, propaganda saturated public space.

The leader of the Palestinian national movement during the Mandate period, Haj Amin al‑Husseini, openly supported Hitler and resided in Nazi‑controlled Europe during the second world war, where he was received by the Nazi leadership. Their political and personal alliance rested above all on an unreasoning, relentless hatred of the Jewish people.

In light of this history, and of the Bondi massacre that has shaken Australia, recognising Zionism as a protected attribute is not an act of favouritism but a necessary step in defending religious freedom, minority safety and civic peace in a modern democracy.