The Bondi beach attack in Australia, which left at least 15 people dead during a Jewish Hanukkah gathering, was a horrific act of violence that deserves unequivocal condemnation. Terrorism is indefensible regardless of who commits it, where they come from or what faith they claim to follow. Yet, as the dust settles, what is equally disturbing is how quickly tragedy was weaponised to advance old prejudices, fresh propaganda and a familiar hierarchy of blame. Australian authorities have said early indications point to a Daesh-inspired attack while making an important and necessary distinction: these were the actions of individuals aligned with a terrorist idea, not a religion. That clarification matters in a global climate where Islamophobia is not a fringe sentiment but a mainstream political currency. The attackers were Muslim. So, too, was the man who risked his life to stop them. That reality alone punctures the lazy civilisational narratives that paint Muslims only as perpetrators, never as protecters.
What followed the attack, however, exposed a deeper sickness in global discourse. Brown bodies, especially Muslims, are expected to apologise incessantly for crimes committed by individuals who happen to share their faith. This burden of collective guilt is astounding in its persistence. It is never imposed on the Global North where extremists are treated as lone wolves or mentally disturbed or – in the case of Zionists – as self-defence. But when a Muslim commits violence, an entire faith, and often entire nations, are placed in the dock. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the fake news frenzy that briefly engulfed Pakistan. Before facts were established, sections of Israeli and Indian media gleefully floated a Pakistani angle. Social media timelines filled with insinuations, dog whistles and outright lies. Amusingly, Indian journalists who rushed to implicate Pakistan are now conspicuously silent once it emerged that one of the attackers was from Hyderabad, India, and the other an Australian citizen. The retraction never travels as far as the lie. This unfortunately is part of a sustained propaganda ecosystem in which Pakistan is a convenient villain, especially for India’s Godi media. Since India’s military humiliation at Pakistan’s hands in May, this ecosystem has seemed particularly desperate for distraction. Any international tragedy becomes an opportunity to smear Pakistan, facts be damned. What is telling is what did not happen. Pakistani media did not flex an Indian angle once the attacker’s background became clear. Instead, there was visible concern about the likely backlash Indian Muslims would face in an India already intoxicated with Hindutva ideology.
Equally troubling was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to link the Bondi attack to Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state. Prime Minister Albanese has rightly rejected this insidious claim. Yet such framing found eager amplification among anti-Muslim voices who never miss a chance to conflate Palestinian resistance, Muslim identity and global terrorism into a single, dangerous caricature. Social media has made this landscape far more lethal. Platforms like X actively amplify outrage, misinformation and Islamophobic narratives. There is no comparable frenzy when gun violence kills children in US schools or when Muslims are slaughtered, as they were in Christchurch. By the time facts emerge, reputations are damaged, communities are endangered and hate is normalised. Countries like Pakistan are dragged into crimes they had nothing to do with. Accountability from social media companies remains elusive, particularly when those at the helm openly flirt with far-right, anti-immigrant politics. The Bondi attack – a tragedy no dount – is also an unfortunate reminder of how easily Muslims and Muslim-majority countries are cast as default culprits. We must condemn terrorism. That can easily be done without surrendering to racism, propaganda or the obscene demand that some people apologise forever simply for their faith.
