Further thoughts on this diabolical terror attack:
Conversations and commentary about the horrific shooting in Sydney earlier this week will continue for a long time to come. I have already penned several pieces on it and more will likely be forthcoming. In addition to what has already been said, I here offer a number of somewhat random reflections on this jihadist attack, and how we might proceed.
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This terrorism is just the latest example of why the fav leftist talking point, ‘Diversity is our strength,’ is a load of utter nonsense. UNITY is our strength, and if those coming here cannot agree to our language, values, beliefs and culture, they should go back to where they came from.
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Leftist loonies at the ABC like Laura Tingle who claim that this attack had ‘nothing to do with religion’ offer the best reason yet – out of so many – why the national broadcasters should be stripped of ALL taxpayer funding immediately – all $1.1 billion of it annually!
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Imagine Jews now feeling safer in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem than in Sydney. It is shocking to see just how far this nation has fallen in such a short period of time. It appears that we have learned nothing from recent history. And if you do not learn things pretty fast, there might not be much of an Australia left in the decades ahead.
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This has made news around the world. President Trump early on spoke to this, and more recently the US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said this:
The tragic Islamist terror attack against those at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia sadly should not come as a surprise to anyone. This is the direct result of the massive influx of Islamists to Australia. Their goal is not only the Islamization of Australia but the entire world—including the United States. Islamists and Islamism is the greatest threat to the freedom, security, and prosperity of the United States and the entire world. It is probably too late for Europe—and maybe Australia. It is not too late for the United States of America. But it soon will be. Thankfully, President Trump has prioritized securing our borders and deporting known and suspected terrorists, and stopping mass, unvetted migration that puts Americans at risk.
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Labor, the Prime Minister, and the Greens have been normalising antisemitism for years now. They are the ones mainly responsible for all this. We should have an election now, and vote these clowns out of office.
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Words that I have previously shared from Rowan Dean are worth repeating here:
I also include among those who have blood on their hands every single person who has participated in a pro-Palestinian march, every university campus, every politician who marched over the Sydney Harbour Bridge in lockstep with Islamist fanatics, every single media commentator who has echoed some kind of sympathy for the Islamist, pro-Palestinian cause; every antisemite who has muttered under their breath obscenities about ‘the Jews’. You all disgust me. You all brought this on despite all the warnings we repeatedly gave you for the last two years.
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As Jason Thomas just wrote in the Australian Spectator:
The Islamist global insurgency has been provided sanctuary in Australia by all sides of our political leadership who believed that by acquiescing to those with evil intent, they would eventually become less evil. By welcoming back those who joined ISIS, by ignoring the burning of our Australian flag, through protests which praised Hamas, the recognition of a non-existent Palestinian State, and labelling of anyone who stood up for Australian Judeo-Christian values as ‘Islamophobic’—through all of this our policy makers thought they could do what no other Western nations have done and satisfy the Islamists.
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That fool of a woman (even if she does claim to be Jewish) and the Greens councillor who dared to disrupt and antagonise the Jewish mourners the other day should have been arrested. We KNOW that this has already been the case in Sydney when a Jewish protestor attempted to come to a pro-Palestinian march. Labor double-standards once again.
On conspiracy theories: There has already been plenty of online talk about actors at Bondi, of this being a psy op, and so on. I am not running with that. Going from one dumb extreme to another helps no one. As I have said for years now, prior to the Covid Wars, too many conservatives and Christians were too gullible, naïve and unquestioning.
After it, too many conservatives and Christians started questioning everything and believing nothing. So now, many are into the real conspiracy theories, the biggest, baddest and oldest being: ‘The Jooos did it!’ Now every problem in the world is blamed on Israel and the Jews, be it the latest earthquake, a traffic jam in New York City, getting sunburnt, or losing your car keys.
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Christians of all people are to be discerning – they should “test all things”. We should not believe every brainless and reckless thing being said (as in the nonstop nutter claims of Candace Owens). We should NOT suspend rational judgment and careful analysis. Indeed, what we should do is heed Chesterton’s wise words: “The problem with a lot of open minds is that they need to be closed down for repairs.”
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I have had enough of all the Jew-haters and Israel-phobes clogging up my social media pages. I am more than happy for them to unfriend me or block me, and I am more than happy to let them go as well. Hopefully I no longer have any of these twisted and demonised folks left on my friends’ list, but if I do, I have two words for them: GET LOST!
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It seems that Albanese’s sole “solution” here is tougher gun control laws! Australia already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the world, and he thinks this will solve our problems. Existing laws sure did not stop the Bondi gunmen. We do not have a gun problem in this country, we have an antisemitism problem. We have an Islam problem.
As John Howard said yesterday: “I do not want this debate, post this horrible event, the focus on guns to be used as a pretext to avoid the broader debate about the spread of hatred of Jewish people and anti-Semitism. That would be an evasion of responsibility.” But yes, he was behind the strict gun control measures passed in 1996. He said yesterday that he supported the laws being strengthened “where sensible tightening can occur”.
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As one social media post recently put it: “If not a rifle, a shotgun. If not a shotgun, a bomb. If not a bomb, a truck. If not a truck, a car. If not a car, a knife. If not a knife, a hammer. The West always had guns and cars. We used to control who came into our nations, and locked up violent people already here.”
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Some conservatives are saying that this is about Islam, not antisemitism. Well, it certainly is about Islam. But Islam is virulently antisemitic, and trying to separate antisemitism from Islam is like trying to sever Jesus from Christianity. The two always go together. Therefore we should be resisting BOTH Islam and antisemitism. It is both/and, not either/or.
And some say we should forget about Islamic theology, and deal with the people who believe it. But the life, actions, words and teachings of Muhammad as found in the Qur’an, Hadith and Sira ARE the very basis and rationale for Islamist terror and violence – they cannot be separated.
Sure, Western governments cannot change nor correct basic Islamic beliefs and teachings. But governments CAN recognise the roots of the problem, and act accordingly, starting with deporting all the hate preachers. Consider for example this from the Daily Telegraph:
“Senior Liberal James Paterson said an Islamic centre in Sydney’s south west needs to be ‘shut down immediately’ following reports it had been frequented by one of the alleged Bondi shooters.” This makes clear the connection between Islamic teaching, jihadist activities, and what governments can do about them.
And this from a speech given by Josh Frydenberg today:
Firstly, prime minister, ban the hate preachers. On October 8, in Lakemba … you had Islamic preachers say that October 7 [Hamas attack] was an act of courage and pride. When the Muslim community hears that message for the last 2½ years, is this any surprise? The shooter here, who did this, was linked to a factory of hate in Bankstown. How can that factory of hate be allowed to open its doors for one day more? I say no, I say never.
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The truth is, not every antisemite is Islamic, and of course not every Muslim is a jihadist. But hatred of Jews is part and parcel of Islam. And the flip side of this is a genuine worry. It is hard enough for the mainstream media and most politicians to admit that we have a real problem with antisemitism, but it seems even harder for them to use the “I” or “M” words. This IS indeed a problem with Islam and Muslims.
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Being aware of what Islam is really all about is incumbent upon all of us who value freedom and democracy and want to see an end to these jihadist attacks all over the West. That is why I have on my website some 680 articles on Islam: https://billmuehlenberg.com/category/islam/
The Babylon Bee satire site recently posted this meme (with relevant pics of these actions): “Groundbreaking new study finds Islamophobia may be partially caused by Muslims killing people all the time.” They got that one right!
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One social media friend, Andrew George, recently posted this:
In the last 48 hours:
– A Muslim killed 3 Americans in Syria.
– 5 Muslims arrested for plotting a massacre at a Christmas market in Germany.
– Paris concert cancelled due to concerns over Muslim violence.
– 2 Muslims murdered 16 people at a Hanukkah party in Australia.
Here’s the thing. God loves people. He wants Muslims saved. However, until our government policies recognize that Islam is not a religion but a geopolitical system that has governmental, financial, military, legal, and religious components, these atrocities will only continue to happen.
Yes we must keep praying for Muslims and keep sharing gospel truth with them.
13 Replies to “Bondi, Islam, and Some Home Truths”
Sorry, but every moslem IS a jihadist if they really follow the koran. It is one of the 8 pillars.
Thankfully many (most?) Muslims do not really follow the Koran. And yes, Jihad is considered to be the sixth pillar of Islam by some Muslims.
It’s been said that it’s a shame that more Christian don’t follow the example of Jesus Christ and a blessing that more Muslim men don’t follow the example of Mohammad.
Thanks Ian.
In 1998 I returned for year as a Commonwealth exchange teacher to the NSW country town of Young, ‘the cherry capital of the world’. I returned after an absence of 27 years to Young High School where for four years I had run the art department in the early 70s. Much had changed, notablly the influx of Lebanese who had moved out of Sydney. I remember the Muslims boys who kept to themselves as being agressive and arrogant. But how the school bent over backwards to make them feel welcome.
I am afraid that the Aussie, laid back attitude of ‘mateship’ and phrases like ‘No drama’, ‘No worries’ and ‘No sweat’ have finally run out surf and hit the beach.
David Skinner UK
Many thanks for that David.
Hello Bill, your commentary’s are very insightful and have been a great source of stability in the age of lies and deception. I would recommend reading the book sword and scimitar from Raymond Ibrahim and also watching his latest interview online with the British duo from Triggernometry
It has had 1.6m views in 3 days. It it one of the most informative videos on Islam I have watched.
Thanks Bill for accurately using the term Islam, not radical Islam.
Radical muslims are the ones not committing these murders.
And while we should pray that God turns them to the truth, we should not be seeking to allow ourselves or our loved ones and countrymen to be martyrs while this happens.
Thanks Bill.
In every outrage of this kind we hear the repeated bleat from the usual quarters that “most Muslims are moderate, and peaceful”, that they would not countenance the sort of atrocity we have seen lately at Bondi, and prior to that in a multitude of places around the world.
However, I well remember back in 2005, in the aftermath of the London bombings, friends and neighbours of the culprits saying, “We knew them; they were nice people. We had no idea that they would do such horrible things.” I have heard similar excuses along the line since then in reference to the many atrocities perpetrated by Muslim “extremists”.
Yet these “moderate” Muslims, and their co-religionists, in the wake of whatever the latest atrocity happens to be, will shout not only “Allahu Akbar”, but issue statements lined with quotations from the Qur’an and the Hadiths. It is high time the authorities took seriously the statements that these Islamic thugs themselves issue, and stop hiding behind the now-standard aphorism that “religion has nothing to do with their actions”.
Let me state as a principle what I have long believed: the difference between a militant Muslim and a moderate is, respectively, “Those who take the Qur’an seriously, and those who don’t”.
Yes correct Murray.
Thanks Bill for all the comments as sadly, it takes a massacre to wake up our politicians and those who vote for them. When Muslims were a minority we hardly heard anything but Sydney did have the Lindt Cafe siege 15-16 Dec 2014 which left two deceased and the lone gunman plus “on 2 October 2015, Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar, a 15-year-old boy, shot and killed Curtis Cheng, an unarmed police civilian finance worker, outside the NSW Police Force headquarters in Parramatta, Sydney. Jabar was subsequently shot and killed by special constables who were protecting the headquarters. As of 27 April 2016, four other men have been charged in relation to the shooting, among whom Raban Alou was convicted of terrorism offences in March 2018. NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione described the event as a politically motivated act of terrorism.”
Now it seems we have thousands of people from Gaza, the Muslims seem to be looking like a majority compared to the Jewish community. As Benjamin Netanyahu said, ‘The writing has been on the wall for a while.’ I agree with James Patterson and others, whatever mosque or group cell taught these people to kill innocent people needs to be pulled down or dismantled and anyone encouraging this type of murderous hate speech should be deported. The Raymond Ibrahim video sent by Andrew Z was worth watching.
Sorry, but every moslem IS a jihadist if they really follow the koran. It is one of the 8 pillars.
Thankfully many (most?) Muslims do not really follow the Koran. And yes, Jihad is considered to be the sixth pillar of Islam by some Muslims.
It’s been said that it’s a shame that more Christian don’t follow the example of Jesus Christ and a blessing that more Muslim men don’t follow the example of Mohammad.
Thanks Ian.
In 1998 I returned for year as a Commonwealth exchange teacher to the NSW country town of Young, ‘the cherry capital of the world’. I returned after an absence of 27 years to Young High School where for four years I had run the art department in the early 70s. Much had changed, notablly the influx of Lebanese who had moved out of Sydney. I remember the Muslims boys who kept to themselves as being agressive and arrogant. But how the school bent over backwards to make them feel welcome.
I have just read this article dating from 2014.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/exclusive-report-young-nsw-is-the-unofficial-muslim-capital-of-the-outback/news-story/75fb4a75788a06f09a922853aff37ab2
Ten years later we have this
https://iqna.ir/en/news/3492585/growing-muslim-community-in-rural-australia-spurs-construction-of-new-mosque
I am afraid that the Aussie, laid back attitude of ‘mateship’ and phrases like ‘No drama’, ‘No worries’ and ‘No sweat’ have finally run out surf and hit the beach.
David Skinner UK
Many thanks for that David.
Hello Bill, your commentary’s are very insightful and have been a great source of stability in the age of lies and deception. I would recommend reading the book sword and scimitar from Raymond Ibrahim and also watching his latest interview online with the British duo from Triggernometry
It has had 1.6m views in 3 days. It it one of the most informative videos on Islam I have watched.
https://youtu.be/Y64jGdPHDmM?si=MfuHEoUggKb2EhbE
Thanks Andrew. Yes he has penned a number of very important books on Islam: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/05/09/ayman-ibrahim-and-raymond-ibrahim-on-islam-jihad-and-christianity/
What sort of society would put up with this ;
https://www.memri.org/reports/australian-imams-and-islamic-scholars-have-been-glorifying-jihad-against-jews-infidels
Thanks Bill for accurately using the term Islam, not radical Islam.
Radical muslims are the ones not committing these murders.
And while we should pray that God turns them to the truth, we should not be seeking to allow ourselves or our loved ones and countrymen to be martyrs while this happens.
Thanks Bill.
In every outrage of this kind we hear the repeated bleat from the usual quarters that “most Muslims are moderate, and peaceful”, that they would not countenance the sort of atrocity we have seen lately at Bondi, and prior to that in a multitude of places around the world.
However, I well remember back in 2005, in the aftermath of the London bombings, friends and neighbours of the culprits saying, “We knew them; they were nice people. We had no idea that they would do such horrible things.” I have heard similar excuses along the line since then in reference to the many atrocities perpetrated by Muslim “extremists”.
Yet these “moderate” Muslims, and their co-religionists, in the wake of whatever the latest atrocity happens to be, will shout not only “Allahu Akbar”, but issue statements lined with quotations from the Qur’an and the Hadiths. It is high time the authorities took seriously the statements that these Islamic thugs themselves issue, and stop hiding behind the now-standard aphorism that “religion has nothing to do with their actions”.
Let me state as a principle what I have long believed: the difference between a militant Muslim and a moderate is, respectively, “Those who take the Qur’an seriously, and those who don’t”.
Yes correct Murray.
Thanks Bill for all the comments as sadly, it takes a massacre to wake up our politicians and those who vote for them. When Muslims were a minority we hardly heard anything but Sydney did have the Lindt Cafe siege 15-16 Dec 2014 which left two deceased and the lone gunman plus “on 2 October 2015, Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar, a 15-year-old boy, shot and killed Curtis Cheng, an unarmed police civilian finance worker, outside the NSW Police Force headquarters in Parramatta, Sydney. Jabar was subsequently shot and killed by special constables who were protecting the headquarters. As of 27 April 2016, four other men have been charged in relation to the shooting, among whom Raban Alou was convicted of terrorism offences in March 2018. NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione described the event as a politically motivated act of terrorism.”
Now it seems we have thousands of people from Gaza, the Muslims seem to be looking like a majority compared to the Jewish community. As Benjamin Netanyahu said, ‘The writing has been on the wall for a while.’ I agree with James Patterson and others, whatever mosque or group cell taught these people to kill innocent people needs to be pulled down or dismantled and anyone encouraging this type of murderous hate speech should be deported. The Raymond Ibrahim video sent by Andrew Z was worth watching.