By Mohamed Harees –

Lukman Harees

Bondi Beach: horror and heroism

The recent Bondi Beach massacre in Sydney, Australia was a horrible terrorist act, which needs to be condemned with all the emphasis at our disposal. At least 15–16 people were killed, and many more were injured when two gunmen opened fire on crowds of Jewish celebrants and beachgoers, attending the Hanukkah festival. Footage and eyewitness accounts describe panic as shots rang out, people ran for cover, and ambulances rushed the wounded to nearby hospitals, with authorities quickly labelling the attack a terrorist assault targeting the Jewish community. Headlines across Australian and global media rightfully called it a “mass shooting,” a “terror attack”, and a “massacre,” leaving no ambiguity about its despicable character. ​

Amid this horror, a 43-year-old Muslim man, Ahmed El Ahmed, emerged as a striking example of courage. Video verified by multiple outlets shows him hiding behind parked cars, then sprinting towards one of the shooters, tackling him from behind, wrestling away the rifle and forcing the attacker to the ground. During the struggle, he was shot twice—in the arm and hand—yet managed to disarm the gunman, then raised one hand and lowered the weapon to signal to approaching police that he was not a threat. The world joined the Australian leaders, including the New South Wales premier and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and publicly hailed him as a “genuine hero” whose bravery “saved many lives,” and donations for him quickly surged past one million Australian dollars.​​ He was a hero indeed!

About “good victims” and “good heroes”

At the same time, this terror incident also showed how clearly Western societies can recognise horror, condemn it without hesitation, and celebrate courage—especially when the victims are close to ‘home’, and the perpetrator fits their “enemy” stereotype. Setting this response beside Western treatment of Israeli massacres in Gaza and the West Bank exposes how language, empathy and political framing change once the victims are Palestinian.​ The Bondi massacre thus showcases Western media at their best and worst simultaneously. At their best, they centre victims’ humanity, tell their stories, and honour those who showed extraordinary courage—including a Muslim man who ran towards danger to save mostly Jewish lives. The fact that Ahmed is a Muslim immigrant fruitseller did not prevent him from being recognised as part of “us”; for a brief moment, public narratives transcended stereotypes that often cast Muslims only as suspects.​

At their worst, this same system of representation starkly contrasts with how Palestinians are depicted when they are the ones under fire. On the same day, a dozen victims fell to the war criminal IOF bullets in Gaza, despite the ‘fake’ ceasefire. In Bondi, there is no talk of “complexity” or “both sides”; no one suggests that festivalgoers or beach families were “human shields” or that their presence near a Jewish event made them legitimate targets. The horror is named clearly, and the heroism of a Muslim man is seamlessly incorporated into an Australian story of shared bravery and national unity. This raises the obvious question: why is such clarity, empathy and inclusion so often missing when the dead and the heroes are Palestinian or when the perpetrator is a Western ally, and the West is also complicit?​

Gaza, the West Bank and beyond! horror normalised and diluted

Israel’s genocide in Gaza and ongoing lethal force in the West Bank have killed civilians on a scale vastly exceeding Bondi; yet, they are rarely framed with the same unambiguous moral language. UNcited figures put Palestinian deaths in Gaza into the tens of thousands since October 2023, with women and children comprising a large share, while entire neighbourhoods, schools, hospitals and refugee camps have been hit. Yet major Western outlets routinely describe these events as “airstrikes,” “operations” or “escalations,” and Palestinian deaths as “casualties” or people who “died in strikes,” blunting both agency and culpability.​

Detailed mediamonitoring studies show stark asymmetries. One analysis of BBC coverage found that when Palestinian deaths were 34 times higher than Israeli deaths, the terms “massacre” or “slaughter” were used vastly more often for Israeli victims than for Palestinian ones. Israeli justifications and security narratives dominated airtime, while Palestinian voices and humanrights perspectives appeared far less frequently and were more heavily caveated. The cumulative effect is to normalise large-scale Palestinian suffering as an unfortunate but expected backdrop, rather than as a series of intolerable atrocities comparable to Bondi.​

When Russia targets civilians in Ukraine, Western leaders and media routinely use terms like “war crimes,” “slaughter” and “terror bombing,” and quickly back calls for international investigations and sanctions. When Israel hits civilian areas in Gaza or kills protesters and bystanders in the West Bank, the same outlets often speak of “strikes,” “clashes” and “security operations,” even where the death toll is much higher. Israeli official narratives about “human shields” and “precision strikes” are often relayed prominently and with little challenge, while comparable claims by adversaries such as Russia are treated far more sceptically.

Civilian victims and “human shields”

Civilian casualties caused by enemies are framed as clear atrocities; civilian deaths caused by allies are framed as tragic sideeffects. Syrian or Russian attacks on hospitals and schools are condemned as deliberate war crimes and used to justify punitive measures. Israeli attacks on hospitals, UN shelters and apartment blocks in Gaza are often introduced with Israel’s justification (weapons caches, tunnels, militants) and accompanied by suggestions that Hamas puts civilians at risk as “human shields,” subtly shifting blame onto the victims. No Western government would accept its own shopping malls, churches or stadiums being labelled “human shields,” yet that logic is treated as plausible when Palestinians are bombed.​

Protest rights and “security”

Mass protests for democracy in places like Hong Kong or against Russian actions are praised as brave exercises of free expression, and crackdowns on those protests are condemned as authoritarian repression. Large proPalestinian demonstrations in Western capitals are framed as “security challenges,” with extensive coverage of a few incidents of antisemitic graffiti or tense moments, even when organisers explicitly oppose antisemitism and focussed on ceasefire demands. Governments that celebrate protest abroad have imposed sweeping restrictions on slogans, flags and campus encampments when those protests target Israeli policy, citing public order or “community cohesion.

Legal accountability and international courts

When the International Criminal Court (ICC) or other bodies move to investigate or indict officials from non-allied states, Western governments frequently applaud and use the language of “ending impunity.” When those same bodies open cases or consider charges related to Israeli actions in Gaza or the occupied territories, many of the same governments denounce the court as “politicised,” threaten sanctions or pressure it not to proceed. This selective support undermines the universality of international law and signals that some states are effectively above the rules.

Speech on Israel vs other states

Harsh, even sweeping, criticism of countries like China, Iran or Russia—accusing them of apartheidlike systems, ethnic cleansing or state terrorism—is widely accepted in Western discourse. Comparable terms applied to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, even when backed by major humanrights organisations, are often portrayed as “beyond the pale,” “onesided” or potentially antisemitic. Politicians and journalists face far more career risk for describing Israel as an apartheid state than for using similar or stronger language about nonallies, even though groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israeli NGOs have issued detailed apartheid analyses.​

Across all these examples, the pattern is consistent: where allies and “Western” interests are at stake—above all in the case of Israel—media narratives and government policies soften language, dilute blame and police criticism; where enemies or distant “others” are concerned, terms like “massacre,” “terror,” “war crimes” and “ethnic cleansing” come much more easily.

Anti-Zionism, antisemitism and the politics of narrative

The Bondi attack targeted a Jewish gathering, and that reality rightly sharpens concern about antisemitic violence. Authorities have classified it as terrorism aimed at the Jewish community, and Jewish Australians are grieving with a specific historical fear in mind. This makes it even more important to insist on a clear distinction between antisemitism and antiZionism, so that necessary solidarity with Jewish communities is not misused to silence criticism of Israeli state violence.​

Antisemitism is hostility or discrimination against Jews as Jews; it is racism and must be opposed everywhere it appears. AntiZionism is opposition to the political project and ideology of Zionism and to a state structure that systematically privileges Jewish identity over Palestinian rights; it challenges occupation, apartheidlike systems and mass killings committed by the Israeli state. Muslim heroism at Bondi—Ahmed al Ahmed risking his life to stop a massacre of mainly Jewish civilians—embodies this distinction in human form: a Muslim man rejecting antisemitic violence by protecting Jewish lives, while many Muslims and others remain fiercely critical of Zionism and Israeli policies.​

Western media and politicians too often blur this line, treating strong condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza or advocacy for Palestinian liberation as suspect or potentially antisemitic. This double standard helps explain why Israeli massacres are described with euphemism and caution, while a massacre like Bondi is described with moral clarity: one implicates an ally, the other does not. The result is a poisoned discourse where Palestinians’ suffering is under-named and those who speak for them are over-suspected.​

Towards one moral standard

Comparing Bondi to Gaza and the West Bank reveals several interlocking double standards. Beginning with the Bondi Beach massacre and the bravery of a Muslim man who saved Jewish lives makes it harder to accept the selective empathy that dominates much Western coverage of Israel–Palestine. If the deliberate killing of civilians at Bondi is rightly called a massacre and a terror attack, then the deliberate or reckless killing of civilians in Gaza, leading to a livestreamed Genocide and the West Bank must be named with the same moral force, regardless of who carries it out.​

In addition, Ahmed al Ahmed’s act at Bondi is a powerful symbol of how ordinary people can refuse the logic of hatred and save one another across religious lines. The challenge to Western media and governments is to match that courage in words and policy: to abandon double standards, to distinguish clearly between antiZionism and antisemitism, and to extend the same moral clarity shown at Bondi to every massacre, including those carried out by allies against Palestinians.