On December 14, 2025, Australia was shaken by one of the most horrifying terror attacks in its modern history. What should have been a peaceful celebration of Hanukkah by the Sea on Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach—attended by families, children, and elderly members of the Jewish community—was turned into a massacre. Gunmen opened fire during the public event, killing at least 15 people, including children and a Holocaust survivor, and injuring dozens more. Australian authorities swiftly confirmed what was evident from the target and method: this was a deliberate terrorist attack aimed at the Jewish community.
As investigations unfold, intelligence agencies in Australia, Israel, and beyond are reportedly examining whether the attack formed part of a wider Iranian-backed terror plot. Mossad and Israeli security officials are said to be exploring possible links to Tehran’s global network that has repeatedly targeted Jewish and Israeli interests abroad. This line of inquiry is understandable. Australia has already faced Iranian-linked antisemitic violence in recent years, including arson attacks on Jewish businesses and synagogues, which led Canberra to expel Iran’s ambassador and formally designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.
Yet focusing exclusively on Iran risks repeating a familiar and dangerous mistake: allowing other long-standing sponsors and exporters of terrorism to slip out of the frame.
The Attackers and the Pakistan Question
The perpetrators of the Bondi Beach massacre were identified as a father-son duo of Pakistani origin. Reports indicate the attack was not spontaneous but carefully planned. The father, a licensed firearms holder, was killed during a police response; the son survived and remains hospitalized. Authorities found evidence of preparation, including legally acquired weapons and an improvised explosive device, suggesting training, ideological conditioning, and intent well beyond that of a lone-wolf outburst.
Despite this, there has been conspicuous reluctance in global discourse to openly interrogate Pakistan’s role in the global terror ecosystem—particularly its long-documented history of radicalization, training infrastructure, and state tolerance, if not sponsorship, of extremist groups.
This omission matters.
Pakistan’s Record: A Pattern, Not an Exception
Pakistan’s association with Islamist terrorism is neither new nor speculative. It is part of the historical record. The world’s most notorious terrorist, Osama bin Laden, was found in Abbottabad—deep inside Pakistan—living for years in a fortified compound just a short distance from the country’s premier military academy. That discovery alone shattered the notion that Pakistan was merely an innocent bystander in the global war on terror.
Over decades, Pakistan’s military-intelligence establishment, particularly the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has been accused of nurturing, protecting, and deploying militant groups as instruments of state policy. Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people—including Jews targeted at the Chabad House—was trained, armed, and sheltered on Pakistani soil. Despite official bans, such groups continue to operate under new names, with leaders moving freely and fundraising openly.
India has been the primary victim of this machinery. From the Indian Parliament attack to Pulwama, Mumbai, and countless assaults in Kashmir, the pattern is consistent: militants trained in Pakistan, ideologically motivated by jihadist doctrines cultivated there, and directed against civilian targets.
The Bondi Beach attack fits uncomfortably well into this broader global pattern.
Iran, Pakistan, and the Danger of Selective Accountability
None of this absolves Iran if evidence proves its involvement. Tehran has a documented history of directing or inspiring attacks against Jewish targets worldwide through proxies and clandestine networks. If Iranian intelligence or affiliated groups had a hand in the Sydney massacre, accountability must be swift and uncompromising.
But accountability must also be complete.
Too often, the world has pursued the wrong address while sparing the real hubs of terror. After 9/11, despite most attackers being Saudi nationals and Osama bin Laden being sheltered in Pakistan, the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Pakistan, meanwhile, continued to receive billions in aid and avoided meaningful sanctions. Saudi Arabia, despite its role in exporting extremist ideology, escaped direct consequences.
The result? Terror networks adapted, survived, and spread.
Today, as investigators explore an “Iran angle” in Sydney, there is a real risk that Pakistan’s role—as an incubator of extremist ideology and a launchpad for trained operatives—will once again be ignored.
A Global Problem, Not a Regional One
The Bondi Beach massacre was not just an Australian tragedy or a Jewish tragedy. It was a global warning. Terrorism exported through radicalized individuals and transnational networks does not respect borders. Diaspora communities can be weaponized. Ideology, training, and operational knowledge can travel quietly until they erupt in violence thousands of miles away.
Australia and Israel, both seasoned targets of jihadist violence, understand this reality. Their intelligence cooperation is critical—not only to identify Iranian fingerprints, if they exist, but also to examine whether the attackers had links, direct or indirect, to Pakistani-based networks, institutions, or radical preachers.
Ignoring that possibility would not be prudent. It would be negligence.
Justice Requires Naming All Enablers
The Sydney Bondi Beach terror attack brutally exposed the cost of selective outrage and selective investigation. Iran may be involved. But Pakistan must not be allowed to escape scrutiny simply because it is geopolitically inconvenient to confront.
For India, which has bled for decades under Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, the pattern is painfully familiar. For Australia, this should be a wake-up call. For the world, it is a test of whether we have learned anything from history.
True justice for the victims of Bondi Beach demands that all enablers of terror—ideological, logistical, and state-backed—are held to account. Not some. Not the convenient ones. All of them.
Anything less ensures that the next massacre is only a matter of time.
