Did these protests lead to the worst terrorist attack in Australian history? MP's extraordinary claim about the Bondi massacre is condemned by PETER VAN ONSELEN

By PETER VAN ONSELEN, POLITICAL EDITOR, AUSTRALIA Published: 07:10, 14 July 2026 | Updated: 07:12, 14 July 2026 Your browser does not support iframes. Opposition education spokesman Julian Leeser has identified a genuine, serious failure within Australian higher education regarding antisemitism on campuses.  I applaud him for speaking out.  But his attempt to connect university protests directly to the Bondi massacre is destructive overreach. Certain campuses fostered a climate where antisemitic language was camouflaged as political activism, a failure that demands forensic scrutiny by the Royal Commission into Antisemitism.  But describing the mass murder we saw that day as the 'inevitable endpoint' of campus politics asserts a causal link Leeser simply can't establish. It transforms an otherwise legitimate institutional criticism into an accusation of collective complicity in mass murder. Leeser's proposed threshold for antisemitism is equally flawed. He suggests criticism of Israel is antisemitic if it applies a standard not applied to the US or Britain. This test is impossibly loose, and I say that as someone who has largely been in Israel's corner.  The state of Israel is frequently subjected to blatant double standards, often motivated by anti-Jewish hostility. But selectivity alone doesn't equal antisemitism. It can just as easily demonstrate ignorance or simple hypocrisy.  Universities should police conduct, including threats, harassment, exclusion, and support for violence, not act as tribunals assessing whether every critique of foreign policy is geopolitically consistent. Liberal MP Julian Leeser's attempt to connect university protests directly to the Bondi massacre is destructive overreach Moderate Liberal MP Julian Leeser Leeser also accuses vice-chancellors of being 'weak and spineless'. Nobody is spared - he simply condemns an entire class of institutional leaders, branding campuses the 'epicentre' of antisemitism. Beneath the hyperbole lies a valid grievance. After October 7, some administrators who ordinarily speak the fluent language of inclusion became curiously inarticulate.  Universities that instinctively enforce cultural safety for almost any other minority suddenly discovered endless complexities when Jewish students sought protection. Leeser is entitled to expose this hypocrisy, and frankly should be commended for doing so. However, he's not entitled to pretend that every VC behaved identically.  Imagine substituting other categories of society and making such sweeping generalisations. Assigning a single moral character to every member of a certain group within our community sounds uncomfortably like the very thinking Leeser rightly condemns.  For a politician campaigning against collective blame, it's a careless intellectual error. A parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism in Australian universities, chaired by Labor MP Josh Burns, recorded sharply different realities across the sector. Some universities faced serious disruptions, others saw very few incidents and dealt swiftly with misconduct.  At UWA, where I'm a professor, heated arguments never metastasised into the prolonged encampments or intimidation reported at some east coast campuses. A police image of alleged Bondi shooters Naveed and Sajid Akram Calling problems out seriously means responding to local realities, not manufacturing a crisis everywhere because one exists in Sydney or Melbourne. Treating all these institutions as interchangeable is, to be completely frank, polemic and callow. The generalisation collapses entirely when you consider that several universities, including Melbourne, Monash, and Wollongong, have adopted the exact International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition for antisemitism that Leeser demands as the solution. And before the Liberal moderate calls anyone else 'weak and spineless', he might want to look closer to home. Moderates have spent years, decades even, privately deploring the direction of their party while publicly accommodating it, confusing private disapproval with public courage. If that's not weak and spineless, I don't know what is. Leeser has a partial defence from this moderate contagion: his 2023 resignation from Peter Dutton's frontbench to campaign for the Indigenous Voice showed some courage, but even then context matters.  Yes, it cost him a senior position and reflected a sincere commitment to a cause. But it wasn't a leap into the abyss. When he resigned, Newspoll had the Yes vote leading 53 per cent to 39, or 58 to 42 once undecided voters were allocated a binary choice.  The political expectation was that the referendum would pass, leaving Dutton stranded on the wrong side of history. A calculation I'm sure Leeser thought long and hard about before his courage was deployed in this narrow context. Would he have surrendered his frontbench position had polling already shown the referendum heading for a crushing defeat? His sacrifice was made in the belief that solid political ground awaited him on the other side. Antisemitism on campus is too serious to be fought with exaggeration and collective blame. Leeser has identified a genuine problem, but his overreach risks weakening the very case he is right to make.