Add Australia to the religious freedom watch list

Published January 13, 2026 6:00am ET



It has now been one month since two gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, killing 15 people, including a 10-year-old girl.

It was an attack that everyone saw coming, except perhaps Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, whose policies rationalizing and appeasing radicalism encouraged greater violence, targeting, and demonization of Australia’s besieged Jewish community. By recognizing a Palestinian state after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Albanese and Wong signaled a willingness to reward terrorism. They signaled to their own domestic extremists that antisemitic terrorism works.

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