In the wake of the Bondi Beach massacre, Hugh Hewitt asked me during a segment on his show whether I thought Jews should arm themselves. I responded that Jews in America are indeed, in increasing numbers, following Vladimir Jabotinsky’s exhortation to “learn to shoot,” though in Australia that choice is foreclosed by the country’s famously restrictive firearm regulations.
The freedom to make that choice is what’s most important, because it is a sign of a political system that values individual rights and requires a degree of humility on the part of the state. Australia’s national government, currently led by the cold, feckless Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, exudes neither humility nor a respect for individual citizens. The result is not just atrocities like Bondi Beach but the flagrant mishandling of its aftermath and the robotic adherence to the status quo that produced the tragedy in the first place.
But perhaps there is a third way—a sort of Australian federalism. New South Wales is the Australian state in which the massacre happened, and its premier is openly contemplating the possibility that the main Jewish watch organization, the Community Security Group, will be permitted to carry firearms.
“While there were police on site, [it was] clearly, clearly not enough to deal with the threat, as history has tragically shown,” the premier, Chris Minns, acknowledged of the Bondi attack.
A full investigation into the Bondi Beach failure, he said, might tell us which of several potential solutions, including arming the CSG, should be implemented: “It’s one of the reasons why we need a royal commission, to get the information [and] to provide it to government, so that we can make the changes to keep the community safe.”
Minns’s wording here is important. He called for a “royal commission,” which is the highest-level state inquest that Australia can initiate, and the one with the most far-reaching powers to gather evidence.
The very same day that Minns made these comments, a group representing families of 11 Bondi Beach victims released an open letter asking for a royal commission. Such a commission would not just investigate the attack but the overarching issue of Australia’s approach to combating anti-Semitism.
“We demand answers and solutions,” the families wrote. “We need to know why clear warning signs were ignored, how antisemitic hatred and Islamic extremism were allowed to dangerously grow unchecked, and what changes must be made to protect all Australians going forward. Announcements made so far by the federal government in response to the Bondi massacre are not nearly enough.”
Hard to argue with any of that. Unless, of course, you are Anthony Albanese. The prime minister announced that the investigation will be limited to the Australian security agencies and what was known about the suspects in the shootings. Valuable in its own right, surely, but as the Guardian’s chief political correspondent—yes, even the Guardian appeared disappointed in Albanese’s refusal to examine the question of anti-Semitism—wrote: “such a narrow inquiry is not a substitute for a commonwealth royal commission, with the powers it has to compel evidence and, just as crucially, the national public spotlight it commands to ensure accountability.”
This is a very important point. It is not only that there is very good reason for a royal commission here, but also that the very fact of an extended “public spotlight” on the problem would make it much more difficult for Australia’s political establishment to ignore. There is transparency that comes with any inquest conducted publicly into the state and its failings. The process itself would be part—only a minor part, to be sure—of the solution.
Albanese is plainly interested in avoiding full accountability. That, in itself, should answer Chris Minns’s question about arming the main Jewish security group. There are murmurings that Albanese can still be pressured into a royal commission. If he cannot, and if the national government refuses to protect its Jewish citizens, then the next best thing would surely be to enable the Jewish community, in partnership with the regional state government, to at least attempt to protect itself.
