The clash of civilizations on Bondi Beach

The murderous and premeditated attack started at 6:45 p.m. this past Sunday, with two gunmen, now known to be a father and son, unleashing horror at the start of Sydney’s “Hanukkah by the Sea,” an annual event that had just begun on the city’s famous Bondi Beach. At least 15 people were killed, and several remain in critical condition. Victims ranged in age from 10 to 87—and included at least one Holocaust survivor.

Australian authorities soon reported that the shooters were a Pakistani father and son and stated the obvious—that this was a targeted act of anti-Semitic hatred and mass murder. The Australian government later said that Islamic State flags had been found in the suspects’ car. Australia’s prime minster, Anthony Albanese, declared: “This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah, which should be a day of joy. An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian.”

The prime minister said the right words of moral solidarity, but his comment did not make the true nature of the attack quite obvious. This was not just a targeted terrorist attack on Jewish Australians, though it surely was that. It was also a dagger thrust in the heart of Western civilization. Freedom of assembly means nothing if citizens are too afraid to assemble.

The pattern is all too clear. Just consider attacks on Christmas markets in Germany—with new arrests for conspiracy to commit further attacks announced just in recent days. The death toll mounts as the attacks in Western nations multiply. The murderous shooting on the campus of Brown University in the United States happened in a classroom where a Jewish scholar was professor. Coincidence?

There are two undeniable patterns here. The first is the pattern of anti-Semitic violence. The second is the larger pattern of terror tied to immigration and Islam.

Some people will recoil at the suggestion that immigration and Islamic terrorism have anything to do with these attacks, but the facts are plain to see. Western civilization now faces a direct threat to both liberty and civilizational survival, and denial is not a strategy. It is a form of self-induced delirium.

First, consider the crisis of immigration, and in some nations that means both legal and illegal immigration. At the beginning of this century, 23% of Australia’s population was immigrants. Last year, that count had risen to almost 32%—meaning that nearly one third of the nation’s current population consists of immigrants.

Nation by nation, the numbers (acknowledged and unacknowledged) are less important than the fact that millions upon millions of those who have arrived in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia have come from radically different cultures with different worldviews and conceptions of citizenship. Western nations understand citizenship to be a shared project marked by a commitment to the nation. It is now clear and undeniable that millions of recent immigrants have no intention of assimilating into their new host cultures.

This emerges in news stories, often with the truth about immigration denied or submerged. Just consider the news about millions of dollars of fraud through government programs in Minnesota, largely within the Somali immigrant community. The story is surely bigger than immigration, but immigration is clearly part of the story.

Any doubts about the fact that the West faces an existential crisis in the form of immigration should be dispelled by a quick look at the quarters of Paris now effectively taken over by Muslim immigrants of several generations. Look at what happened after former German chancellor Angela Merkel opened the nation to unprecedented immigration and largely opened its borders. Look at what is happening now in nations like Sweden or see how the political landscape has been changed in Britain.

Every nation owes it citizens a responsible immigration policy. And it is not racism to argue that any sane nation’s immigration policy is premised upon the newcomers’ commitment to join the national project, and not to subvert it. One way or another, every enduring nation adopts an immigration policy consistent with its values and its national interest. To fail at either task represents national disaster. An immigration policy right for America, for example, would uphold American values and require newcomers to join in support of the American project, the perpetuation and enrichment of the American future, consistent with American values and identity.

To be blunt, the only alternative to this is the dissolution of the nation, the subverting of our national interest, and the abdication of national responsibility. For too many years, America’s own uncontrolled borders have been, not only a way for rightful immigrants to join the American dream, but for felons and miscreants and worse (even international terror suspects) to enter the nation. The number of people illegally crossing the border has decreased, especially under the Trump administration, but our laws remain a mess. At present, our own broken immigration laws make a mockery of our national interest and our national responsibility.

Finally, we face the fact that the threat from Islam is real. The reality is that the vast majority of Muslims around the world, quite consistent with their own convictions, do not want to join the civilizational project of the West, including the national project of the United States. Just in case you wonder, they say this out loud. Islam does not sit easily where Islam does not dominate, and that fits the pattern of the Islamic worldview. Consider this: We are constantly told of liberal Islamic figures in the United States as indicative of Muslims becoming part of the American dream, and some do, of course. But just think of New York City’s incoming mayor, Zohran Mamdani. The mayor-elect can openly make his case in America’s largest city. It’s less likely that he could safely make the same case, presenting as a Muslim man but acknowledging his liberal views on LGBTQ issues, for example, on the street in Pakistan.

At the present, an honest national conversation about these things seems almost impossible. Meanwhile, the headlines mount and the tragedies continue. Our hearts go out to the people of Australia, and particularly to its Jewish community. This news story will soon disappear from the headlines. The problem, however, will not disappear on its own.