The article below first appeared in Informed Comment on December 16, 2025. It emphasizes important aspects of what unfolded during the murderous attack on Jews at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, and its aftermath. “Muslims belonging to a small radical cult — born in the maelstrom of the American occupation of Iraq — perpetrated the unspeakable attack,” says author Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), with which the two Bondi Beach shooters had a connection. “Yet a mainstream Muslim intervened to halt it.”