The most striking thing I witnessed at Bondi Beach yesterday wasn’t what Sussan Ley said ... it was what she refused to say. Faced with a massacre that has left the Jewish community terrified, the opposition leader would acknowledge antisemitism, shied away when pushed to name the ideology driving it. Islamic jihadism remained the unspoken elephant in the room.

I tried repeatedly to ask Ley a straightforward question. Was she prepared to resist the media’s push to turn this into a gun control debate and instead confront the real threat? Each time, her staff stepped in. I wasn’t aggressive. I wasn’t heckling. I was deliberately respectful. Still, I was blocked.

I caught up with Sydney rabbi Mendy Berger less than 24 hours after the Bondi Beach terror attack that left his family, friends and community shattered.

What he told me was raw, confronting and impossible to ignore.

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— Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) December 16, 2025

When I finally got my chance, I put it plainly. There was, I said, “a concerted effort to make this about a gun issue,” and concern from the community that this was a way to “distract and avoid talking about the elephant in the room.” Ley responded, “We will examine any recommendations about guns exactly as we should in a sensible proportionate way but that is not what this is about. This has been about hideous antisemitism.”

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Those words sound strong, but they stopped short. When I tried to ask about the specific kind of antisemitism, Islamic extremism, she walked away.

Notable politicians were just some of the thousands of people that have come to Bondi to pay their respects following the December 14 terror attack, where two jihadi terrorists targeted a ‘Chanukkah by the Sea’ event, slaughtering 15 people and injuring dozens more.

Despite Australia already having some of the strictest gun laws in the world, much of the media coverage immediately pivoted to firearms.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson cut through that nonsense when I asked her about it.

Pauline Hanson quietly attended the Bondi terror attack memorial to pay her respects. What followed was an emotional reception that spoke volumes.

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— Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) December 16, 2025

“It's not about the guns, it's the person behind the gun,” she said. “If they didn't have guns they had bombs in their cars as well … whichever way they could inflict death, pain and suffering on the people.”

Warren Mundine was just as direct. “I've got to say, it's got nothing to do with guns,” he told me. “The real issue is hate. The hate of the Jewish people. And we've got to confront that.”

Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli went further, warning that “It's not about gun control. It's about ideology.”

That is the line Sussan Ley would not cross. And until political leaders are prepared to name the ideology driving this violence, no amount of wordplay will make Jewish Australians safer.