The Bondi terror attack was designed to drive us to rancour – but there is no peace in division | Thomas Keneally

Published 2 hours ago
Source: theguardian.com
The Bondi terror attack was designed to drive us to rancour – but there is no peace in division | Thomas Keneally

A desperate opposition may be tempted to stoop to gross opportunism, but we must not set one group of society against another

The Bondi attack was an unutterably cruel event, all the more horrifying for being ours, and we can’t stop ourselves saying so. It is a sword that fell on the necks of two sets of Australians. Yet again, young Australian Jews will be asking parents why they are hated, and that is heartbreaking. In a different sense, so will young Muslims.

During their apparent sojourn in a Campsie B&B, the alleged terrorists could not have been confident of their own survival, but they must have been confident in producing a reaction. It is a matter of civic pride that a Muslim man accosted one of the gunmen and took a weapon from him; a matter of a small yelp of praise and gratitude amid the cruelty.

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