In the wake of the shocking terror attack in Sydney, South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein has issued a warning to governments across the world: the West is under attack from a global jihadist movement it refuses to name:
“The mass-murder terror attack in Sydney, Australia, was not simply an antisemitic incident that got out of control. It was a professional military operation only possible in an environment created by the Australian government that has been conducive to the development of radical Islamist infrastructure.”
The Chief Rabbi accused the Australian authorities of creating the conditions for terror by tolerating, and even validating, hate speech and jihadist ideology in public discourse.
“This is what happens when you allow people to chant ‘Gas the Jews’ on the Sydney Bridge. When you tolerate the genocidal slogan ‘From the river to the sea,’ which is a call for the extermination of Israeli Jews.”
He framed the attack as the manifestation of a broader ideology, one that has been steadily gaining ground in Western capitals:
“It is what ‘Globalize the Intifada’ looks like in action - a Jihad against the Jews. It’s what happened in Manchester. In Amsterdam. And it can happen anywhere, to any Jewish community in the world.”
Rabbi Goldstein warns that the threat extends beyond Jews - that the global Jihadist movement views Israel as the first battleground in a much wider ideological war that ultimately targets all non-Muslims and seeks the dismantling of Western democratic societies.
“The Jews are only the first target. The Jihadists take aim at all infidels. Their slogan says it all: ‘First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.’”
He said that this slogan - invoked by Islamist preachers and terror groups worldwide - reflects a deeply entrenched theological worldview in which both Jews and Christians are seen as obstacles to the establishment of a global Caliphate governed by Sharia law.
The warning signs, he says, are already visible. Across Africa, Islamist militias from Boko Haram in Nigeria to Al-Shabaab in Somalia and ISIS offshoots in the Sahel are slaughtering Christians with impunity. In Europe, entire neighborhoods in cities like Paris, Berlin, and Malmö have become de facto “no-go” zones, where fundamentalist rule is enforced and local authorities tread carefully.
Framing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a smokescreen, Rabbi Goldstein made clear that the West’s refusal to recognize these patterns - and its tendency to treat each terror attack as an isolated event - is both intellectually dishonest and existentially dangerous.
“Like the original intifadas launched against the Jews of Israel, the global version has nothing to do with a Palestinian state. It never has. The war from Iran to Gaza to Lebanon and Yemen is not about a Palestinian state. It’s about Jihad - the violent spread of a global Islamist movement whose purpose is the destruction of the Jewish state first - and then the West and the rest of the world.”
Rabbi Goldstein criticized Western leaders for emboldening the Jihadi movement.
“When leaders like this Australian Prime Minister and his counterparts in Europe respond to the Gaza war by recognizing a Palestinian state, they endanger themselves and make a lethal mistake - lethal to the survival of the free world.”
He says the attack in Sydney was a test - one the Australian government failed by refusing to even name the threat.
“Until Prime Minister Albanese calls the attack on Bondi what it is - a Jihad on the Jews - his countrymen and the free world will not be safe.”
“You are on notice”
The Chief Rabbi also reserved harsh words for his own government, warning that the same infrastructure of hate and terror is taking root in South Africa, aided by its government’s open ties with Hamas and Iran.
Recalling coordinated attacks on Jewish community centres in Cape Town and Melbourne in December 2023, Rabbi Goldstein highlighted findings that Iran had been behind at least one of those incidents, and pointed to early indications suggesting Tehran’s involvement in the Bondi massacre as well. Addressing the ANC government directly, he said: “Iran is active in South Africa. You have close ties to them. Jihadi groups are active across the continent. You have been warned. If any terror attack, God forbid, happens in South Africa, we will hold you responsible. Because protecting your citizens is your first and most sacred duty.”
A fight for the soul of the West
The Chief Rabbi also took aim at what he called the “academic, political and media elite of the woke left,” accusing them of becoming “the useful idiots of the Islamists.”
“Those who chant ‘Globalize the Intifada’ in the West have aligned themselves with the enemies of civilization and are united by a common enemy: the foundational values of Western liberal democracy.”
He traced those values - freedom, human dignity, the sanctity of life - to their origins in the Hebrew Bible, and warned that abandoning the Jews would be tantamount to abandoning the very soul of the West.
“A place that is unsafe for Jews is unsafe for all decent people, and unsafe for civilized values.”
Rabbi Goldstein closed on a note of defiance. With the Bondi attack taking place on the first night of Chanukah, Rabbi Goldstein invoked the story of the Maccabees and their stand against tyranny.
“Each candle we light is a declaration: we will not be intimidated. We will not surrender. And we will keep our Divine values burning bright in the face of darkness.”