In brief
- The Bondi Beach attack demonstrates how foreign political and religious conflicts can be imported into Western societies.
- New Zealand is uniquely positioned to manage migration and establish clear boundaries on which conflicts it accepts.
- COVID border closures challenged claims that high migration is economically inevitable.
- Perhaps New Zealand’s social cohesion should be recognised as a legitimate policy constraint, not a moral taboo.
NZ has a rarely discussed advantage when it comes to immigration
The terrorist attack at Bondi Beach was directed at a Jewish community event and has been declared terrorism by Australian authorities.
While the alleged attackers were Australian residents, the conflict they acted on was not Australian, local, historical, or civic. It appears to have been imported wholesale from a Middle Eastern political and religious conflict into a Western setting. The issue is not about illegal migration. It is whether a host nation absorbs conflicts it did not create and cannot resolve.
By contrast, given its geographic isolation, New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world that can, to a large extent, determine who arrives, how many, and under what conditions. There is no equivalent of the English Channel, the US southern border, or Indonesia’s island chain. That is not true of Europe, the United States, or Australia.
In practical terms, New Zealand is free to reject immigration on almost any grounds it chooses, including political alignment and a demonstrated willingness to leave foreign conflicts behind. It should be noted that radicalisation can still occur post-arrival or persist quietly long after formal integration.
Still, New Zealand’s natural advantage to fully control immigration is rarely discussed. Rather, New Zealanders are repeatedly told the labour market demands constant population growth, that without sustained migration, jobs will go unfilled and the economy will stall, and that the country must think like a globalised transit state rather than a bounded nation.
In much of the world, that mindset is unavoidable. Borders are porous. Conflicts spill across them, whether or not governments consent.
Migrants do not come without culture, politics, religious commitments, grievances, or historical loyalties. Most integrate peacefully. Some do not. The question is not whether migrants are good or bad people. It is whether the state has a responsibility to treat social cohesion as a real policy constraint rather than an abstract virtue.
Setting limits is not hostility
None of this requires collective blame. It does, however, require adult policy thinking. If New Zealand can fully control migration, what should it prioritise? Economic contribution alone? Cultural compatibility? Commitment to liberal democratic norms? A willingness to leave foreign conflicts behind? Or simply numbers?
These are questions about limits and about the risk of importing unresolved conflicts rather than assuming they will somehow dissolve on arrival.
When foreign conflicts arrive intact
Australia’s experience should prompt reflection. The Bondi attack followed years of imported Middle Eastern tensions, street protests, and antisemitic intimidation that went insufficiently challenged.
This dynamic is not unique to one side. Polarisation and moral absolutism are now features of activism across the spectrum.
A clear separation between diaspora politics and foreign wars has been largely absent from much influential pro-Israel advocacy.
Even among intelligent and articulate advocates, the dominant tone is often one of mobilisation rather than mediation, leaving little room for olive branches, restraint, or calm debate detached from the conflict itself.
Together, these dynamics have been compounded by a persistent reluctance among political leaders to draw firm lines about what conflicts are not welcome on Australasian streets.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to publicly condemn Australia as weak on antisemitism further shows how quickly a domestic tragedy can be absorbed into a global political narrative.
New Zealand has already begun importing elements of these dynamics. Protests that replicate foreign slogans. Rhetoric untethered from local history. Foreign conflicts reframed as “us vs them” absolutism.
Ironically, the political left frequently warns against importing overseas culture wars. Yet many of the most visible pro-Palestinian protests (and the reaction to them) are themselves direct imports of a foreign conflict, which has little connection to New Zealand’s own history.
All of it unfolding in a country with no strategic role in the original war.
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