News and Views 19th December 2025 

Antisemitism

A shocking surge of antisemitic abuse has followed on the heels of the tragic terror attack in Bondi Beach, Sydney, last week. Some of the most recent and disturbing incidents of global antisemitism include:

Worldwide

• A wave of anti-Jewish bigotry has appeared on social media following the Sydney Hanukkah killings, along with a new antisemitic conspiracy theory, blaming Israel for the deadly shooting.

Australia

• It took an incident as horrendous as the Bondi Beach massacre for the University of Sydney to finally sack academic Rose Nakad months after she branded Jewish students 'parasites' in a tirade of harassment against them.
• A Jewish-owned Sydney bakery has announced that it is closing down due to near-constant antisemitic harassment and fears for staff in the wake of the Bondi Beach slaughter.
• A popular Sydney bagel business has been inundated with one-star reviews within 24 hours of the devastating Bondi Beach massacre, in what is seen as antisemitic abuse.

United Kingdom

• The BBC has continued in its anti-Israel bias after describing Palestinian uprisings in which thousands of people were killed as “largely unarmed and popular”.
• Labour donor and green energy tycoon Dale Vince has sparked a backlash after linking the Bondi Beach massacre to Israel’s actions in Gaza, saying Benjamin Netanyahu “wants antisemitism to be a thing” and “acts to make it so”. 
• Another academic, Prof David Miller, has been reported to police for an alleged hate crime after criticising the existence of around 140 Jewish schools in Britain.
• Jewish students in Birmingham say they are facing a surge in antisemitic abuse, describing recent incidents as "terrifying".

Europe

• The Austrian public broadcaster-host of the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest says it will not prohibit the Palestinian flag from the audience nor will it censor any booing directed at Israel’s performance, marking a departure from previous events where such expressions were suppressed.
• Violent anti-Israel protests erupted in Amsterdam just hours after the horrific Bondi Beach massacre, when pro-Palestinian demonstrators targeted Hanukkah events in the city.

America

• The brother of political commentator Tucker Carlson, insinuated on social media that the injuries of the victims’ in the Bondi Beach massacre were faked and that key details were fabricated. Buckley Carlson claimed that “Zionist networks and intelligence staged shooting incidents,” and described the attack in Sydney as “theatre.”
• A group of Jewish Chabad students were verbally and physically attacked while travelling on the New York City subway after returning from a Hanukkah event.
• Elsewhere in New York, a 35-year-old man was stabbed in broad daylight in the Crown Heights neighbourhood after the attacker shouted explicit antisemitic slurs.
• An assailant fired roughly 20 shots into the home of a Jewish family in Redlands, California, during an apparent antisemitic drive-by attack.

Israel

• Israel prepares for a ‘mass immigration event. Several weeks prior to last Sunday’s tragic terror attack in Sydney, Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, together with the National Emergency Authority, and around 100 representatives of different government ministries, non-profit organisations and essential services came together to strategically prepare for a situation where 800 people immigrate every day for two weeks in response to a state of emergency in their home country, bringing more than 10,000 people to Israel in a short timespan. Authorities made clear that “This is an extreme scenario, but not an apocalyptic one.” In 1991, Israel airlifted over 14,000 people from Ethiopia in a day and a half, while more recently, some 75,000 immigrants arrived from Russia and Ukraine in the span of months after the war broke out in 2022.

Immigration

• Islamist Christmas market attacks in Germany. Three Moroccans, an Egyptian and a Syrian were arrested in Germany last week over an Islamist-motived plot to drive a vehicle into people at a Christmas market in Bavaria. The Egyptian man was said to be an imam at a mosque in the area. In a little-reported incident further north in Germany that same week, police in North Rhine-Westphalia arrested a 15-year-old migrant from northern Iraq following the life-threatening stabbing of a 16-year-old German teenager near the Christmas market in Herford. The incidents follow previous attacks at Christmas markets in Germany, most notably in Magdeburg last December, which killed six people.
• Foiled Islamist Christmas market attack in Poland. In a third European Christmas market incident last week, across the border in Poland, police arrested a 19-year-old man accused of preparing a terrorist attack against a public civilian gathering, including a Christmas market. The student was said to be “fascinated by Islam and terrorism” and had established direct contact with representatives of the Islamic State. Islamist doctrine has long emphasised attacking targets associated with Western culture and Christianity.
• Paris cancels iconic New Year concert on the Champs-Élysées. Authorities in Paris have cancelled the city’s iconic New Year concert on the Champs-Élysées, which tends to draw hundreds of thousands of people, sometimes nearing one million. France remains on a high-security footing, and many suspect the reason for the ban is fear of an Islamic terrorist attack. For that reason, some are calling it capitulation. As this pertinent article concludes; “unless Western governments confront the ideological roots of this violence — including its fixation on Jewish communities and its exploitation of open societies — the slow retreat from public life will continue.”

Church Matters

• Putting Christ back into Christmas. Rev John Root, in his Out of Many, One People Substack, commenting on Tommy Robinson's outdoor carol service in London last weekend, noted;  “There was one clear loser from the carol service - the Church of England. It marked one more step in its doleful journey away from the white working-class. One more failure to connect. Robinson’s professed conversion to Christianity and his mounting a Carol Service to express it surely ought to have elicited an at least partly positive response from church leaders, instead we saw bishops majoring on negativity and fear. No one, as far as I am aware, bothered to make personal contact with Robinson. Their responses abandoned much that the Church of England claims to stand for:

             * A church which professes tolerance responded judgementally, wrongly foreseeing a white nationalist jamboree.
             * A church which advocates listening made no attempt to hear the white working-class grievances that the service expressed.
             * A church which seeks to be generously inclusive implied to many believers that we don’t wish to include them.
              * A church which prides itself on being a ‘bridge church’ jumped decisively onto the progressive side of an imagined culture war event.
              * A church which advocates unity adopted a polarised stance.
              * A church which argues for humility and penitence came across as aloofly self-righteous."

• Striking response to the quest for non-woke churches. In response to the Church of England’s attack on Tommy Robinson’s carol service event, TCW (The Conservative Woman) has been seeking to help readers discover churches that haven’t succumbed to woke ideology, where the vicar knows his theology, etc. Following an online appeal, the response was described as “overwhelming, uplifting and inspiring! … A splendid affirmation of the fact that, contrary to popular opinion, Christianity is alive, well and indeed thriving in this country.” The recommendations ranged from high church traditional to modern evangelical, with “more than a smattering of free or breakaway churches,” and including many burgeoning internet Christian sites and services. Among the recommendations were

            * The Church of England (Continuing), a group of Anglican congregations outside the Church of England;
            * The Society of Saint Pius X;
            * The website; Irreverend – Faith and Current Affairs, run by scripturally orthodox lockdown sceptics and Anglican vicars Thomas Pelham, Jamie Franklin and Daniel French. 
            * And, not least, the website Issachar People! (Read more here)

• New film, ‘Universe Designed’ makes case for God. A former atheist-turned-Christian filmmaker has just released a new documentary for Christmas, arguing that science doesn’t point away from God — it points toward Him. Universe Designed explores how science, philosophy, and faith come together, making the case that the universe shows clear signs of intentional design. The director said he wanted a film where atheists feel they are being reasoned with, not preached at — thoughtful, calm, and aimed at sceptics. After years of research, he said, discoveries like the universe’s beginning, fine-tuning, and DNA complexity have become impossible to ignore. “The evidence points to a mind behind the universe,” he said. The film will hopefully spark honest conversations about God, truth, and purpose.

Broken Britain

• As evidence abounds of an increasingly crumbling society, we include a snapshot of recent news stories that strongly point to something being far wrong:

           * The family of an ISIS leader is living in the UK at taxpayers’ expense.
           * Foreign criminals and illegal migrants are to receive “gold star” NHS dental services, despite three quarters of UK adults not having access to similar treatment.
           * Migrants who are brought to the UK to live with their partner cost the British economy £5.6 billion over a lifetime, with half remaining unemployed.
           * A Catholic pro-life campaigner has become the first person in Britain to be charged with the new offence of silently praying outside an abortion clinic buffer zone in Birmingham.
           * A teacher was banned from working with children after telling a Muslim child that “Britain is still a Christian state”, as laws intended to keep children safe from harm from adults are being deployed to crack down on ‘right-wing views.’
 

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