The Media Line: After Bondi: Arab-Muslim Social Media, Misinformation, and the Battle Over Narrative 

After Bondi: Arab-Muslim Social Media, Misinformation, and the Battle Over Narrative 

By Giorgia Valente / The Media Line 

The deadly attack on a Hanukkah gathering near Sydney’s Bondi Beach reverberated far beyond Australia, triggering a fast-moving and deeply polarized debate across Arab and Muslim social media. Within hours, reactions fractured into competing narratives—ranging from unequivocal condemnation and solidarity with the Jewish community to politicized reframing, conspiracy theories, and, in some corners, language that attempted to rationalize or justify the violence through the lenses of the Israel–Gaza war. 

At the center of the story stood Ahmed al Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim bystander who intervened during the attack, confronting and disarming one of the assailants before being seriously wounded himself. His actions were quickly elevated into a symbol—and then pulled into the same fight over narrative that followed the victims’ names and faces online. 

On the social platform X, posts celebrating al Ahmed circulated alongside quote cards and tributes. One of the most shared images carried a line attributed to Malakeh Hasan al Ahmed, al Ahmed’s mother, saying “My Son Has Always Been Brave,” as mentioned in an X post by Sohail Ahmed, a counter extremism expert based in the UK (@SohailSNAAhmed).  

Others turned al Ahmed into a pop-culture figure. The X account user Abdullah, apparently a Muslim living in Belgium, (@Blahhhhh34) posted an AI-style image of Ahmed standing among superheroes with the caption “Ahmed Al Ahmed—A Hero without Cape.”  

Another widely shared post on X by Noor Dahri (@dahrinoor2), a well-known counterterrorism expert, under the heading “Muslim vs Islamist,” praised Ahmed as a “43 years old Muslim hero,” and framed his intervention as proof that “Muslims save lives,” while “Islamists take innocent lives.” 

Many Arab and Muslim voices indeed responded with direct condemnation of the attack and empathy for the victims, stressing that the event targeted Jewish civilians at a religious celebration. 

Sal Naseem, a best-selling author, award-winning public servant, and founder of True North Leadership, described his reaction bluntly with The Media Line. “I saw the news in Bondi and just felt sick. Seeing the violence inflicted on the Jewish community in what should have been a moment of joy during Hanukkah. My thoughts and prayers have been with the Jewish community frightened, grieving or affected by this,” Naseem said.  

He rejected ambiguity around moral judgment: “And I understand, as a Muslim, that there can be a perceived pressure to speak up at times like this but that isn’t something I feel, I think it’s very easy to condemn evil wherever and whenever we see it,” he noted.  

Naseem framed the aftermath as a test of ethical consistency in a climate he described as increasingly hostile. “In a world where hateful, divisive words dominate and have taken root, borderless compassion, empathy and understanding become even more important to cultivate and grow. This needs to be our path away from all the division and hate, toward something centered on our shared humanity,” he added. 

For Muhammad Chaudhry, senior supplier development auditor at RECARO Aircraft Seating Americas, Ahmed al Ahmed’s intervention represented the opposite of identity-based hatred.
“He acted out of pure humanity, without asking who the victim was or who the perpetrators were. That, to me, is a true reflection of his character and a remarkable achievement,” Chaudhry told The Media Line. “The bravery and courage he showed shine as an example for the entire world,” he said. 

Chaudhry then addressed younger audiences consuming the aftermath through algorithmic feeds. “To the younger generation: let this inspire you. True greatness is not measured by titles or wealth, but by the courage to do what is right, even when no one is watching. Trust in God, stand firm in your values, and let compassion guide your actions. When you act with integrity and humanity, you become a light for others—and that light can change the world,” he noted. 

Ahmed’s heroism did not settle the debate. It intensified it—especially around the meaning of a Muslim intervening to stop an attack on Jews. 

Naseem underlined why the identity question surfaced at all. “Then we have Ahmed al Ahmed, who, in disarming one of the terrorists and being seriously injured himself, manifested to the world what true bravery looks like. The fact that Ahmed is also a Muslim shouldn’t really matter and yet it does,” he said. 

He warned against what he described as a potential backlash. “In the coming days as these terrorists are named, we have to be cautious against racism, since the opportunistic far-right will take advantage of this tragedy to scapegoat a whole community for the actions of two individuals that happened to be Muslim,” he added. 

Alongside expressions of solidarity, misinformation spread rapidly on X—often in ways that repositioned the victims as suspects, or the attack as staged. 

One example came from the account user erkan (@ErkanYalnErkan2) based in Turkey, which alleged that Jewish human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky had falsely claimed injury in the Bondi attack and appealed for help—then asserted that “blood and wounds” in photos were created with special-effects makeup before the attack. The post paired the real bloodied image with “behind-the-scenes makeup photos,” to imply a staged narrative, despite being later verified by the platform as content created with AI.  

This train of thought often widened into “false flag” narratives—posts insisting one of the attackers was secretly Jewish under the fake name of “David Cohen,” as published by the X account user labeled as “Unapologetic Muslim Palestinian,” Jvnior (@JvniorLive), or that the attack was secretly engineered by the Mossad to shift attention away from Gaza. Even when framed as “questions,” the content traveled as insinuation and was reposted as screenshots and stripped of context. 

A more polarizing stream reframed the attack through Israel’s war in Gaza, shifting attention away from the criminal act and toward the alleged political identities of those killed. 

The verified X account Arya (@AryJeay), a pro-regime Iranian journalist, posted that Rabbi Eli Schlanger, identified as among those killed, was “a known Rabbi to have supported the genocide in Gaza,” arguing that his political views and links to Israel made the killing morally legible. The post included screenshots of real photos intended to recast the victim not as a civilian target but as a political actor. 

In its starkest form, the “Gaza lens” crossed into conditional endorsement. The verified X account of a war correspondent in Southern Lebanon, Hadi Hoteit (@HadiHtt) cited as follows: “Two true statements: Killing Jews is bad for humanity. Killing Zionist warmongers is a service for humanity and for Jewish people. Good morning.” 

Another of his posts showed a real image of the deceased Rabbi Eli Schlanger, in his hands what seems to be the head of a missile or nose cone, paired with the following caption: “Is he a terrorist?”.  

A parallel strand came from Arab and Palestinian voices warning that the online environment was sliding from anti-Israel sentiment into pure antisemitism. 

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (@afalkhatib), a well-known Palestinian American Middle East analyst and former Gaza resident, wrote that the aftermath revealed what he described in an X post as “two types of antisemites,”—those who keep a low profile when Jews are attacked, and those who remain hardened haters regardless of circumstance. He warned that anti-Zionism “regularly devolves into antisemitism,” arguing that the post-Bondi discourse again showed how quickly violence against Jews is treated as politically explainable rather than unequivocally criminal. 

On Instagram, the discourse was also pulled into an ideological contest—often through short, emotionally framed videos. 

In a widely circulated Instagram reel, Elica Le Bon, a well-known Iranian dissident and prominent Middle East content creator and commentator, argued that the attention had been directed too heavily toward Ahmed al Ahmed’s heroism rather than the victims. Her point was not to deny his courage, but to question what the emphasis revealed—that some who helped create a hostile environment for Jews may find it easier to spotlight a Muslim hero than to confront their own role in normalizing rhetoric that fuels antisemitism. 

In his reel, Michael Gamal known on Instagram as @koptickparah0548, a Coptic Christian from Egypt known for his support for Israel, rejected any attempt to relativize the attack through politics. In his framing, the attack targeted Jews for being Jews—and questions about whether it happened on a holiday or in a synagogue context, or probing the victims’ political views or personal backgrounds were irrelevant to the core moral fact. 

Brigitte Gabriel, a well-known Lebanese American Maronite Christian New York Times best-selling author, framed the Bondi attack as part of a broader civilizational threat in another reel.  

Gabriel argued that what begins with Jews historically does not end with Jews, warning that Christians and Western societies are next, and referenced attacks on Christmas markets in the West. She recited verses from the Quran in Arabic to argue that extremist ideology carries a broader hostility not only toward Jews but toward Western society. While acknowledging that a “brave Muslim” stopped one of the attackers, she criticized what she portrayed as a tendency to center the hero rather than the victims and concluded that the “peaceful majority” of Muslims was, in her view, less politically relevant than a radical minority—urging Western societies to “wake up.” 

The polarization did not run only between communities; it also erupted inside Arab discourse, particularly around those who expressed sympathy with Jewish victims. 

The verified X user Khaled Hassan (@Khaledhzakariah), an Egyptian intelligence analyst based in the UK, wrote that “Saudi influencers are attacking Emirati influencers for standing with the Jewish community after the Bondi beach terrorist attack,” using the backlash itself as a measure of how charged basic expressions of sympathy have become.  

He amplified a video published on X by Mariam Almazrouie (@mariam_almaz11), a medical science student from the UAE, who said, “I am a Muslim. I am an Arab. And today, I stand with the Jewish community in Australia and condemn the attack.”—a message that drew both praise and vitriolic pushback in reposts. 

Another widely shared thread on X came from Amjad Taha (@amjadt25), Emirati expert in Middle East strategic and political affairs, who posted, “NOT ONE … not a single Muslim organization in the UK has condemned the Sydney Bondi Beach attack on Jews,” then pointed to protests in Birmingham and referenced a video reposted “from Basil the Great,” using it to argue that some organizations were mobilizing politically rather than condemning antisemitic violence.  

As the story ricocheted across platforms, Ahmed al Ahmed’s intervention remained the one point that most narratives could not ignore—even when they sought to weaponize it. 

Naseem distilled the argument in one line that cut across the discourse war, “hatred isn’t restricted to any color or faith and neither is heroism,” he concluded.  

As investigations continue, the digital aftershocks of Bondi’s attack show how quickly local violence is absorbed into global ideological battles. Arab and Muslim social-media responses did not speak with one voice. They revealed a fractured moral landscape—where grief competes with geopolitics, heroism competes with deflection, and empathy is filtered through algorithmic outrage. 

Bondi’s attack has become more than a crime scene. It has become a mirror—reflecting not only courage and loss, but the unresolved tensions shaping how violence is explained, justified, resisted, or mourned far beyond Australia’s shores. 

Methodology note: This overview is based on a review of widely circulated posts and video reels collected by the reporter on X and Instagram in the 48 hours following the Bondi Beach attack. The reporter presents several examples (not every post uploaded on the topic), offering a neutral analysis of different voices.