The War That Came Home

Three years ago, on the 7th of October, 2023, the world watched in horror as Hamas attacked Israel.

Around 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

What followed was a war that devastated Gaza, traumatised Israel and sent shock waves far beyond the Middle East.

At the time, I wondered whether October 7 might prove to be more than another terrible chapter in the long and bloody history of that region.

I feared it might become a fuse. Sadly, I was right to be afraid.

But I was looking in the wrong direction.

I was looking at the Middle East.

I should have been looking closer to home.

When somebody else's war comes home

I am not Israeli. I am not Palestinian. I have never lived in Gaza or Israel, and I would not presume to tell people who have lived through this horror what they should feel about it.

I cannot know what it is like to live through years of fear, rockets, displacement or war.

What I can know is what I see happening in my own country.

And that concerns me deeply.

Because somewhere along the way, the war stopped being confined to the Middle East.

It came into our streets. It came onto our university campuses. It entered our politics, our social media and our conversations.

And increasingly, it has entered the lives of ordinary Australians who had absolutely nothing to do with the decisions that began the war. Don't get me wrong. Hamas isn’t a victim - they’re the spark and the accelerant. Their attack was no desperate act but a calculated escalation, planned over years with Iranian backing, aiming to derail Arab-Israeli normalisation. Their charter rejects Israel’s existence. In Gaza, they oppress their own - executing dissenters, siphoning aid, and using civilians as shields in schools and hospitals, as UN reports confirm.

And this is where my concern lies.

Not in telling Israelis how they should feel. Not in telling Palestinians how they should feel.

But in asking what is happening to us.

Australia was not at war

Australia did not declare war on anyone. Australians did not choose the Hamas's attack. Australians did not choose the war that followed.

Yet Australians have increasingly been expected to take sides in it.

People have been judged according to their religion, their ethnicity, their politics, their choice of placard - or simply the assumptions somebody else makes about them.

That should worry every Australian.

We have enough divisions of our own without importing somebody else's.

There is nothing wrong with Australians caring about suffering overseas. Quite the opposite. We have always cared.

Australians have marched for causes around the world, raised money for people in disaster zones and opened their hearts to the plight of others who are suffering.

But caring about people overseas is not the same thing as bringing their hatred home.

And that distinction appears to be getting lost.

Antisemitism is not an overseas problem

Since October 7, antisemitic incidents have risen dramatically in Australia.

By 2025, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry had recorded more than three times the annual level seen before October 7.

Synagogues have been targeted. Jewish businesses have been attacked. People have been threatened. 

Then came Bondi.

On December 14, 2025, people gathered at Bondi Beach for a Chanukah celebration.

Fifteen people were murdered. Forty others were wounded.

In Australia.

Not Israel.

Not Gaza.

Australia.

That fact should stop us cold.

A Jewish celebration in an Australian beachside suburb became the scene of a terrorist attack.

It is no longer something we can point to on a television screen and say, that's terrible, but it's happening over there.

It happened here.

What happened to us?

This is the question I keep coming back to.

What happened to the Australia where people could disagree fiercely about politics and still sit down together? What happened to the idea that a person's religion or ancestry did not make them responsible for the actions of a government or an organisation on the other side of the world?

When did somebody else's war become a reason for Australians to hate one another?

I don't want another battlefield

I don't want Australia to become another battlefield in somebody else's war. Sure, we fought in WW I and WW II but this is different. So very different, in my opinion. 

We cannot solve that war from here. In World War II, we were at risk. But somehow, a foreign war has suddenly become ours and we have seemingly imported the very people who wish us harm. 

We cannot undo October 7. We cannot rebuild Gaza. We cannot bring murdered Israelis back to their families. 

Those decisions belong to the people and governments directly involved.

But we can decide what happens here.

We can decide whether hatred is allowed to take root.

We can decide whether disagreement becomes intimidation.

We can decide whether Australians remain Australians first, rather than representatives of somebody else's cause.

And we can decide that whatever happens overseas, we will not import the hatred.

The fire crossed the ocean

Three years ago, I thought October 7 might be the spark that set the Middle East alight.

I did not understand then that sparks travel.

The conflict spread through the region. It affected countries far beyond Israel and Gaza. And the arguments surrounding it travelled across the world through television, social media, universities and demonstrations.

Eventually, the fire reached Australia.

Bondi was the moment when the abstract became horribly real.

Fifteen Australian citizens did not die because they had chosen the wrong side of a Middle Eastern argument.

They died because hatred had found its way here.

That is the part I cannot simply shrug off.

We have something worth protecting

Australia is not perfect. We have never been perfect.

But people from an extraordinary range of backgrounds have managed to build lives here together.

We disagree. We argue. We vote for different governments. We come from different countries.

And most of the time, we get on with the ordinary business of being neighbours.

That fragile arrangement is called social cohesion.

Perhaps we don't think about it much because we have been fortunate enough to take it for granted.

We shouldn't. Harmony is not automatic.

It has to be maintained.

And perhaps that is the real lesson of October 7 for Australia.

I cannot pretend to know what it is like to live through the horrors others have experienced.

But I can say what I want for my own country.

I want Australians to be able to live together without importing the hatred of distant wars.

I want every Australian to be judged by what they themselves do - not by the actions of somebody thousands of kilometres away.

And I want Australia to remain a place where disagreement does not require an enemy.

Because whatever happens in the Middle East, there is one thing we should not allow to happen here.

We should not let somebody else's war become our own.

October 7 was the spark.

Three years later, the question for Australia is not who wins the war overseas.

It is whether we allow the fire to consume something here that took generations to build.

Our ability to live together.

As mates. That is the Australian way.