Three years on from the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October, the images of that day remain seared into our consciousness. Families murdered in their homes. Young people hunted down at a music festival. Women subjected to sexual violence. Men, women, children and the elderly dragged into the dungeons of Gaza as hostages.
We remember those who were taken from us. We remember the hostages and their families, the survivors who returned home carrying wounds that will remain with them for a lifetime, and all those whose lives are now divided into a before and an after.
The war that followed has exacted a terrible human cost. Israelis have endured bereavement, displacement and war on multiple fronts. Innocent Palestinians have also suffered enormously.
These past three years have demanded moral clarity. There is a fundamental difference between a democratic society defending its citizens and a terrorist organisation that murders civilians, takes hostages and openly seeks Israel’s destruction.
Over these years, Australian Jews have stood with the people of Israel. We have stood with the families who lost loved ones, with the hostages and their families, with the soldiers, reservists, and their families who have borne the extraordinary burden of defending Israel through years of war.
For us, as proud Jewish Australians, Israel is not simply another country about which we hold a policy view. The State of Israel is an expression of Jewish peoplehood and central to our identity, our history and our future.
On 7 October, Israelis learned in the most brutal way that when those who threaten to destroy you tell you what they intend to do, they mean it. Hatred should not have to become violence before it is taken seriously. Australia learned that lesson at a terrible price. The antisemitism that erupted after 7 October was followed, ultimately, by the terrorist attack on a Jewish Chanukah celebration at Bondi, in which 15 innocent people were murdered.
Hamas and Islamic State are different organisations with the same ideology. We cannot ignore what connects the violence of 7 October and Bondi: extremist movements that make Jews legitimate targets and glorify violence against innocent people. That hatred threatens all Australians and is fundamentally incompatible with our democratic values.
Today we remember the people whose lives were stolen on 7 October, and the families who continue to carry their absence. We stand with the people of Israel and with all those who have borne the burden of defending the Jewish state. And we recommit ourselves to living proudly and openly as Jews in Australia. Terror and antisemitism will not define Jewish life. Nor will they weaken the bond between Australian Jewry and Israel.