The Bondi attack was an unutterably cruel event, all the more horrifying for being ours, and we can’t stop ourselves saying so. It is a sword that fell on the necks of two sets of Australians. Yet again, young Australian Jews will be asking parents why they are hated, and that is heartbreaking. In a different sense, so will young Muslims.
During their apparent sojourn in a Campsie B&B, the alleged terrorists could not have been confident of their own survival, but they must have been confident in producing a reaction. It is a matter of civic pride that a Muslim man accosted one of the gunmen and took a weapon from him; a matter of a small yelp of praise and gratitude amid the cruelty.