The Media Line: Australian Intelligence Chief Says Antisemitism Was ‘Normalized’ and ‘Left Unchecked’ Before Bondi Massacre  

Australian Intelligence Chief Says Antisemitism Was ‘Normalized’ and ‘Left Unchecked’ Before Bondi Massacre  

By The Media Line Staff  

Australia’s top domestic intelligence official said antisemitism in the country had been “left unchecked” and became “normalized” before the Bondi Beach massacre that killed 15 people during a Hannukah celebration last December.  

Michael Burgess, director-general of security for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, made the remarks during testimony before the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, which was formed to investigate events leading up to the Bondi attack.  

“There is no doubt that the war in the Middle East invoked a range of emotions in Australia,” Burgess told the commission. “Some of those violent aspects … and those behaviors, including antisemitism that, in our view, were left unchecked, were therefore normalized and gave more permission for violence … and Jewish Australians were on the receiving end.”  

Burgess said antisemitic activity intensified beginning in late 2024, shifting from intimidation and threats to direct attacks targeting Jewish people and institutions.  

“From late 2024,” he said, antisemitism escalated from “threatening, intimidating behavior to direct targeting of people, businesses, and places of worship.”  

He cited vandalism and arson attacks against homes, schools, synagogues, and vehicles in the months before the Bondi attack.  

The intelligence agency also determined that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was responsible for attacks on a kosher restaurant in Sydney and on Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue, according to Burgess.  

“They use their network of proxies and agents to do their bidding, and that is to bring harm to Jewish people wherever they are in the world,” he said.  

Burgess said the agency raised Australia’s national terrorism threat level to “probable” in August 2024 after determining that the likelihood of terrorist acts had increased.  

The threat level had previously been lowered in November 2022 from “probable” to “possible,” which Burgess described as the second-safest ranking on the country’s five-tier threat scale.  

He said the earlier downgrade followed the defeat of the Islamic State group in the Middle East and a reduction in foreign fighter recruitment.