The director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Mike Burgess, appeared Monday for the first time before the special royal commission established after the massacre at Bondi Beach in Sydney in December 2025.

In dramatic testimony to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, the highest form of inquiry in Australia,  Burgess admitted that Australian security authorities allowed anti-Jewish hatred to spiral unchecked after the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023.

His testimony, described by Australian media as a “stunning self-indictment” of both political leaders and law enforcement authorities, included an unprecedented admission of failure in protecting the country’s Jewish community.

In his testimony, Burgess stated unequivocally that antisemitism in Australia remained “without any supervision, restraint, or institutional response” immediately after the outbreak of the Middle East war on October 7, 2023. According to him, this atmosphere fueled and legitimized escalating violence against Jews.

“There is no doubt that the war in the Middle East invoked a range of emotions in Australia,” Burgess told the commission. “Some of those violent aspects… and those behaviors, including antisemitism that, in our view, were left unchecked, were therefore normalized and gave more permission for violence… and Jewish Australians were on the receiving end.”

Burgess revealed alarming intelligence findings showing that from late 2024 onward, there was a dramatic escalation in the severity of incidents — ranging from intimidation, threats, and harassment in streets and universities to “direct targeting of Jewish people, businesses, schools, and places of worship.”

In another explosive revelation, Burgess said ASIO investigators possess conclusive evidence that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were directly behind two major antisemitic attacks: the arson attack on the Adass Israel shul in Melbourne and an attack on a kosher restaurant in Sydney — incidents that led to the expulsion of Iran’s ambassador in August.

Iran was probably involved in more attacks, Burgess said. “They use their network of proxies and agents to do their bidding, and that is to bring harm to Jewish people wherever they are in the world.”

Burgess warned that Australia’s permissive public atmosphere enabled the terrorists responsible for the Bondi massacre to “operate under the radar” and ultimately carry out what is now considered the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s modern history. “These behaviors became normalized and gave legitimacy to violence,” he stressed.

Further damning testimony was heard on Monday from Richard Lancaster, who leads a team of lawyers in his role as the Senior Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission, who said that police designated the Chanukah event at Bondi Beach as having the lowest security priority on a three-tier scale, despite the surge in antisemitic attacks since October 7, 2023.

Lancaster said that only four police officers were at the event when the terrorists opened fire on a crowd of around 1,000 people.

Within 29 seconds of the start of the shooting, 10 people had been fatally shot, and an 11th had been wounded.

Within five minutes, 11 police officers were at the scene. Three of those officers were wounded, Lancaster said.

A Jewish security organization, the Community Security Group, had warned the New South Wales Police Force to post officers at the beachfront park for the duration of the Chanukah event, Lancaster said.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)