TWO Muslim men, apparently a father-son duo of Indian origin, went on a shooting spree at Australia’s legendary Bondi Beach last week where they targeted Jews, killing 15 and injuring dozens. Another man who bravely grabbed and disarmed one of the shooters, and got critically wounded in the bargain, was also a Muslim. The selfless hero saved Jewish lives and thereby also saved the day for a very reviled idea of secular bonhomie and religious harmony. This man needs to be celebrated in every country and every home that faces racist or religious slight from and against their estranged communities. In his heroism the man — reportedly a Syrian fruit seller — spoke up for Muslims by putting his body on the line regardless of who the terrorists were and who the victims were. It was not too different from Norman Finkelstein or Ilan Pappe and so many others who represent an intellectual but well-grounded resistance that has inspired young and old Jews to thwart Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloodlust for Palestinians. Had Ahmed al-Ahmed not stuck his neck out in the nick of time, rest assured Netanyahu would be digging his fangs into the carotid artery of Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister who recently dared to speak up for a two-state solution for Palestine. Netanyahu had warned Albanese in August against Australia’s decision to recognise a Pales­tinian state. It “pours fuel on the antisemitic fire … emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets”. Albanese was weak and appeased Pales­tinians. Thus growled Netanyahu after the carnage. “You did nothing to curb the cancer cells that were growing inside your country. You took no action. You let the disease spread and the resu­­lt is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today.” Cancer cells! Albanese ignored the sly harangue, kept his calm and declared that it was “a moment for national unity. This is a moment for Australians to come together. That’s precisely what we’ll be doing.” Albanese displayed humanism that’s alien to the likes of Narendra Modi, Donald Trump, Friedrich Merz, Keir Starmer and those others who stood in support of genocide in Gaza actively or by turning a blind eye to the unspeakable horror. Had Ahmed al-Ahmed not stuck his neck out in time, Netanyahu would be digging his fangs into the carotid artery of Anthony Albanese. Religious parochialism or racial bigotry happen to be evenly spread, however. Islamophobia is as much a racist slur as the less-discussed but revolting description of Jews by Martin Luther in 15th century Germany and down to the Nazis and their closet supporters across Europe over centuries. Shakespeare too relapsed into the singular prejudice of his time against Jews and Moors. Far too many followed Luther in arguing that Jewish synagogues and schools be set on fire, prayer books be destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, Jewish homes burned, and property and money confiscated. Hindutva gang leaders are so unoriginal in their bigotry. Europe’s Protestants recast themselves as the Ku Klux Klan in America, targeting Jews and Blacks alike. There’s a gripping scene in Mississippi Burning, a major cinematic commentary on white supremacist resistance to America’s quest for racial equality and civil liberties in the 1960s. Two Jewish boys, both civil rights activists, are driving their black friend to safety in a Mississippi county when they are accosted by the KKK and a police officer. Three shots ring out and the dead boys locked in their car are dumped in a swamp. The story was one of unrelenting reminders that humanism and bigotry are not the monopoly of any single people. It’s only too well known that KKK is the thinly veiled spirit behind Donald Trump’s assault on coloured immigrants. The KKK’s hatred for Jews notwithstanding, Trump’s MAGA movement performs an ideological calisthenic to court his Zionist base. Coming back to Dec 14, the Jewish festival of Hanukkah is celebrated to remember the 2nd century BC revolt against Syrian occupiers of Jerusalem. Regaining control of their religiously decreed temple in Jerusalem, the legend goes, Jews lit a lamp but had enough olive oil only for one day to light the menorah. The lamp miraculously burned for eight days, however, leading to the eight-day festival of lights. How ironic is it that the saviour of the Jews who managed to escape the death trap at the Hanukkah festival was a Syrian, and a Muslim to boot. Bondi Beach in Sydney, the site of the killings, has witnessed a range of cultural concerns, including a campaign to assert rights of nudists or skimpily dressed women to share the beach. Everyone gets to bask in the warm Christmas sun, though, leaving the battle for dress code to history. In the second half of the 1940s, Jews from Germany, Poland and several other European countries migrated to the Bondi area. As Europeans arrived in droves stricken by the vagaries of war, others, for example, including Indians, arrived in Australia for jobs. Among them were the Muslim hero from Syria and the shooters from Hyderabad. The southern Indian city is known for the legendary Muslim cricketers it has given. Mohammed Siraj, Mohammed Azharuddin and Abid Ali stand tall among great players who have won plaudits for India. Hyderabad is also south India’s cultural salad bowl, an urban hub where Urdu is quaintly spoken with a pinch of Marathi and Telugu. The shooters’ link with the city is inconsequential. Yet, before the blood was dry in Bondi, headlines were announcing the role of IS in the Hanukkah tragedy. If this were to be true, the finger should point not at maligned Palestinians or Muslims equally conveniently but at those who reheated sectarianism and invited IS-style figures to the White House as some kind of heroes. It was Netanyahu and Trump, in cahoots with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who installed Ahmed al-Jolani, once of Al Nusra, and now better known as the nattily dressed Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, as the new president of Syria. They preferred a bigoted autocrat to a secular one. The cancer cells are mutating. The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi. jawednaqvi@gmail.com Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2025