🎥 Netanyahu Just Lied on Live Television and Called the Hero of Bondi Beach "A Courageous Jew." He is a Devout Muslim.

The Bondi Beach hero is a 43-year-old Syrian Muslim named Ahmed al Ahmed. Netanyahu looked at his courage and called him a Jew.

Right above these words you’ll see a new video clip from Israeli television. It is Benjamin Netanyahu standing at a podium, speaking to a crowd, describing what happened at Bondi Beach in Sydney. In Hebrew, he says he saw “a video of a Jew who pounces on one of the murderers, takes his weapon, and saves who knows how many lives.” That speech was broadcast nationally. There is no telling how many Israelis now honestly believe that the person who tackled the Bondi shooter was Jewish.

He wasn’t. The hero in that video is Ahmed al Ahmed, a forty-three-year-old Syrian Muslim, a local fruit shop owner, a father of two. He ran toward gunfire, wrestled a weapon away from a killer, and was shot twice in the process. Netanyahu watched that courage and changed the man’s religion in his mouth.

Before I break down why this matters so much, I want to ask you, from the heart, to become a member today. I keep this work free for the world — for readers in Gaza, in Sudan, in refugee camps, in public schools, in prisons, for families living in deep poverty who will never be able to pay for it. That only works because a smaller circle of people who canafford it choose to carry some of the cost. If that’s you, I’m asking you to click here to become a member or click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member today. Your support keeps this work free for them, and even for you when you can’t afford to pay.

Now let’s talk about Ahmed, about Bondi, and about what Netanyahu’s lie really reveals.

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What Actually Happened at Bondi

On Sunday afternoon in Australia, hundreds of people were on Bondi Beach for a Hanukkah event organized by Chabad. It was full the way Bondi always is — families, children, tourists, locals. Two gunmen, a father and son, opened fire on the crowd. Fifteen people were killed and dozens injured. The victims range in age from ten to eighty-seven. It was a targeted, evil attack on Jews at a religious celebration.

I wrote my nuanced thoughts about it here yesterday, but I had not yet heard this outrageous lie from Netanyahu.

Here is our hero…

In the middle of all of that chaos and carnage, Ahmed al Ahmed — an unarmed Syrian Muslim who owns a small, local fruit shop — made a decision most of us only imagine ourselves making. In a second video that has now circled the world, you see one of the gunmen standing behind a palm tree, firing toward the beach. You see Ahmed hiding behind a parked car. Then you watch him do something that takes your breath away. He launches himself out from behind the car, sprints straight at the shooter, tackles him to the ground, wrestles the gun away, and turns the weapon back on the attacker.

Ahmed’s family says he tried to fire at the gunman but the weapon had already run out of ammunition. In the footage you see him lower the gun and raise one hand in the air toward police, trying to show them he is not one of the attackers. In the struggle he was shot in the arm and the hand. He has already had surgery. His cousin told Australian media, “He is a hero, 100% he is a hero.”

The premier of New South Wales called him a genuine hero and said many people are alive because of his bravery. The prime minister of Australia said Australians ran toward danger to help others, and that these people are heroes. Even Donald Trump, speaking at the White House, praised the man in the video as someone whose bravery saved many lives.

That man is Ahmed. He is a Syrian Muslim who put his life on the line to save Jewish lives at a Hanukkah event.

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Netanyahu Looked at That Courage and Changed the Man’s Religion

Now remember Netanyahu’s quote. Standing at a podium, in front of cameras, he tells his audience that the hero in the video is a Jew. Not just “a man,” not “a brave Australian,” but specifically a Jew.

By the time he gave that speech, it would have taken his staff minutes to confirm who the hero was. Australian news outlets were already reporting Ahmed’s name, age, background, and injuries. Local leaders were already praising him. His family was already speaking to the press. The idea that the prime minister of Israel — who has endless access to security briefings and foreign intelligence — had no way to know who Ahmed is does not pass the laugh test.

He did not want to know.

Netanyahu could not tolerate the reality that the clearest image of heroism to come out of a massacre targeting Jews — a man running toward gunfire to save them — was a Syrian Muslim. So he simply edited that fact out. In his retelling, the hero became Jewish. The Muslim identity that makes the story so powerful, so human, so disruptive to his narrative, was erased.

This is not a small slip of the tongue. It is propaganda. It is Islamophobia. It is stolen valor.

For over two years now, during the genocide that began in Gaza in October 2023, Netanyahu has been telling the world that Palestinians are “children of darkness,” that they are all Hamas, that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza. His entire project depends on people believing that Muslims — especially Palestinian Muslims — are a threat to Jewish life as such. That is how he sells endless bombing, siege, starvation, and displacement. That is how he justifies what the International Court of Justice and countless genocide scholars have called out as an attempt to destroy a people.

So when reality hands him a story where a Muslim saves Jewish lives with his bare hands, his instinct is not to honor that truth; his instinct is to overwrite it.

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Why This Lie Matters

Some people will say this doesn’t matter. They’ll say, “He still praised the heroism; who cares if he got the religion wrong?” That kind of shrug is part of how propaganda works.

It matters because the truth matters, especially now. It matters because Ahmed’s identity is not a footnote. His being a Syrian Muslim is part of what makes his act so important. In a world where Muslims are painted as threats day and night, a Muslim man running toward bullets to protect Jews at a Hanukkah event cuts straight through the fear and the stereotypes. It is the kind of story that could soften hearts and complicate prejudices.

Netanyahu cannot allow that.

The same leader who oversees a campaign of dehumanization against Muslims in Gaza and the West Bank cannot easily stand up and say, “A Muslim saved Jewish lives.” His political survival is built on painting Muslims as the danger and himself as the shield. So the story has to be reshaped. In his version, the hero is Jewish and the bad guys are Muslims, and the world keeps turning in the direction he needs it to.

There is another bitter irony here. For years, Zionist commentators have demanded, “Where are the Muslim voices condemning antisemitism? Where are the Muslims protecting Jews?” When a Muslim man actually does it with his body, when he literally takes bullets for Jewish lives, the prime minister of Israel looks at him and calls him a Jew.

That is the game. The bar keeps moving. The evidence is never allowed to count unless it fits the script.

Ahmed did not run toward that gun because he wanted to be part of anybody’s PR narrative. He did not tackle the shooter because he expected to be thanked by presidents or prime ministers. He is not a politician or an influencer. He is a man who saw other human beings being murdered and decided to risk his life to stop it.

His act of heroism was about humanity, not hasbara. And that is exactly what Netanyahu’s lie erases.

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Ahmed’s children deserve to grow up in a world where people know that their Muslim father saved dozens of Jewish lives. They deserve to hear his name spoken truthfully, not replaced by a vague “Jewish hero” in someone else’s speech. The Jewish families who survived that night deserve to know that a Syrian Muslim stepped into the line of fire for them. That reality matters, not just as a fact, but as a crack in the wall of hatred.

Netanyahu lies about almost everything. He lies about Gaza. He lies about intent. He lies about proportionality. He lies about international law. It shouldn’t shock us that he is lying about a hero in Sydney. But it should still anger us. It should still move us to defend the reality of what happened.

A Syrian Muslim man named Ahmed al Ahmed ran toward a gunman at a Hanukkah event on Bondi Beach. He wrestled the weapon away. He was shot twice. He helped save countless lives. That is the story. That is the truth. The prime minister of Israel looked at that truth on national television and decided it needed to be changed.

We don’t owe his lie anything. We owe Ahmed the truth.

If this piece helped you see the situation more clearly — if it gave you language for conversations in your home, your mosque, your synagogue, your church, your group chat — I’m asking you to stand with me so we can keep telling the stories they are trying to bend. I want this work to stay free for the world, but that only works if some of you decide that independent, fearless journalism is worth supporting. If you’re able, please click here to become a member or click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member right now.

Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun

Don’t Stop Here

After you sit with Ahmed’s story, I want you to go back and look at what else Netanyahu and his allies are lying about. Read the breakdown of how Britain and the United States tried to bully the International Criminal Court when it moved toward issuing warrants for him. It shows you how far they will go to protect power from accountability.

Then revisit the piece about Rahaf, the infant who froze to death in a flooded tent in Gaza during a so-called “ceasefire.” Remember that the current phase of the genocide in Gaza began in October 2023 and has gone on for over two yearsnow. That is the real cost of the story Netanyahu is selling — not just lies about a hero in Sydney, but the destruction of entire families in Palestine.

If this opened your eyes, share it with a few people who only saw a blurry figure in a video. Let them know his name. Let them know who he really is.