Greg Bouwer
IINZ
On Sunday, a Jewish religious celebration was targeted in Sydney. A Chabad Chanukah event – a gathering of families, children, and community – became the scene of terror.
This was not an isolated incident. It was not a misunderstanding. And it was not disconnected from the rhetoric that has been normalised since 7 October.
When crowds chant “globalise the intifada”, this is what it looks like when that incitement leaves the street and enters real life.
We therefore ask New Zealand’s political leaders, plainly and without hostility:
- When will you denounce antisemitic violence with the same clarity, speed, and moral certainty that you apply to other forms of hate?
- When will you name antisemitism explicitly – without qualifiers, caveats, or contextual excuses?
- When will you acknowledge that slogans glorifying ‘intifada’ and ‘resistance everywhere’ are not metaphorical, but operational?
- When will you stop funding an organisation that employs terrorists and uses textbooks that glorify the murder of Jews?
- When will you, like ASIO did just last month, join the dots between the vile anti-Israel rhetoric and violent antisemitism?
“Never Again” was not meant to be a commemorative phrase, recited safely in museums and memorial days. It was meant to be a warning – and a responsibility. It fails not in hindsight, but in hesitation. It fails when incitement is tolerated, when violence is minimised, and when Jewish fear is treated as politically inconvenient.
Silence, delay, or euphemism in moments like this do not preserve social cohesion. They erode it. They signal that some communities must absorb hatred quietly, while others are protected loudly.
The Jewish community is not asking for special treatment. We are asking for equal moral clarity.
If an attack on a religious celebration does not merit unequivocal condemnation; if incitement against Jews is treated as “contextual”, if leaders cannot say that calling for intifada abroad endangers Jewish lives at home – then we must ask, with urgency and honesty:
What, today, does “Never Again” actually mean?
This article was originally published by the Israel Institute of New Zealand.
