Gangrenous

This has been a difficult article to write. These are dire and deteriorating times. In an earlier career, I served as an Australian soldier, deploying to East Timor, Bougainville, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and rising to the rank of Colonel. From July 2019 to September 2021, I served in a senior leadership role as an unarmed United Nations peacekeeper, operating across Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.

I am now the non-Jewish founder of a charity dedicated to combating antisemitism through lived personal experience. In that work, I have grown close to the Australian and global Jewish communities. I have come to understand that an assault on them is an assault on me. It is also an assault on Australia itself, and it must not be left unchecked.

I no longer operate as a participant in an organ of the state or government. But I have spent much of my adult life working at the seam between the lawful, ethical, and moral application of lethal force—consistent with the expectations of a democracy—and the responsibilities of domestic policing and public safety. I do not profess to have all the answers. I seek only to play a small part in beginning the difficult conversations that this country I love—Australia—is failing to have, and in challenging a trajectory that no longer meets my reasonable expectations of it.

The Medical Metaphor

Several years ago, someone I was once close to shared with me an account that has never left me. She was a medical doctor. She described a patient who lost his leg to what should have been a preventable condition: a septic infection originating in the lower limb. When the wound was still modest, the patient sought treatment not from a clinician, but from a herbalist. Honey was applied. The infection progressed—predictably and relentlessly. By the time he finally presented to the emergency department of an Australian hospital—within the last fifteen years and in the penicillin age—what should have been muscle tissue was instead litres of pus. The leg was amputated to save the rest of him.

It is extraordinary that this could occur in modern Australia. But as we are reminded time and again, common sense is anything but common.

Bondi Beach: The Infection Revealed

That vignette returned to me forcefully in December 2025, three days after the massacre of Jews at Bondi Beach. A pogrom. In Australia. In 2025. Friends of mine were murdered. Many more—also friends—were present and are now traumatised. They are managing their own shock while parenting children who are equally traumatised. The full psychological toll will take years to surface.

Beyond the Gun Control Reflex

Much of the public discussion since has focused on gun control.
In my judgment, this is barking up the wrong tree.

In between deployments and command roles earlier in my career, I served in the Directorate of Army Research and Analysis, where the discipline was horizon scanning and meta-trend analysis: looking over the horizon, around corners, and beyond the comfort of short-term assumptions to analyse the future of war. That experience informs my prima facie view that Australia needs a more sophisticated and honest public conversation—one not driven by the imperatives of the next election cycle, nor by the reflex to reach for familiar but insufficient answers.

What I am attempting here is not to prescribe immediate policy, but to grapple with difficult questions that we may choose—or, if we do not, will be forced—to confront over the coming decade to 2035, as our strategic, social, and security environment continues to harden.

The only thing worse than having difficult conversations about difficult topics is the alternative: the continued murder of innocent Australians by Islamic terrorists. That must be stopped.

Australia already has very strict firearms laws by international standards. The problem at Bondi was not a lack of regulation; it was the presence of violent intent, ideological radicalisation, and prolonged state failure to confront it. I would argue that the opposite course deserves serious consideration: licensing the right people, with appropriate training, vetting, and demonstrated need, to carry.

I was recently at a restaurant in Tel Aviv. My companion, a former Sayeret Matkal commander—Israel’s equivalent of our SASR—long retired, carried a pistol on his hip. I found that reassuring, not alarming. Israel understands something we appear determined to forget: deterrence matters, and capability in responsible hands saves lives.

Australia has tens of thousands of retired military personnel and police officers—individuals already trained, disciplined, and accustomed to the lawful use of force. I would feel significantly safer knowing that such professional people were permitted to carry firearms under a tightly controlled licensing regime. At present, we disarm precisely those most capable of responding while hoping violence politely waits for first responders.

In the same vein, the Jewish Community Security Group should be properly empowered and equipped, consistent with law, training standards, and oversight. I attend many Jewish events. Volunteers already shoulder extraordinary responsibility while threats escalate. Expecting unarmed civilians to deter ideologically motivated violence is not realism; it is wishful thinking.

Policing, Force, and Reality

Policing doctrine also requires candour. When confronted with active terror, police must be trained, resourced, and authorised to stop the threat immediately—put simply, through the lawful application of lethal force. This is not about brutality; it is about saving lives. Hesitation costs lives. This is precisely the kind of serious legislative and legal discussion that a law-abiding Australian community is entitled to expect from its leaders.

National Service and Social Cohesion

We should also speak plainly about national service. I sense a growing appetite—and a growing need—for structure, purpose, and contribution among young Australians leaving school. Again, the Israeli model is instructive not because it is militaristic, but because it is civic. Service includes the military, yes—but also ambulance services, emergency response, aged care, and cultural institutions.

Imagine young Australians serving as guides in the National Museum of Australia or the Australian War Memorial, learning and transmitting the story of the nation they are inheriting. This occurs today in Israel through civil national service pathways.

Borders, Vetting, and Domestic Radicalisation

On deportation and visa cancellation, we have seen how rapidly the state can act when it chooses. The recent case of Matthew Gruter, a South African national whose visa was cancelled and who was removed from Australia after publicly associating with neo-Nazi ideology, demonstrated that decisive action is possible when the will exists. That capability must be matched by consistency: those who advocate violence, glorify terror, or pledge allegiance to hostile causes should not be indulged with endless procedural delay while the public carries the risk.

This inconsistency becomes more concerning when viewed alongside admissions from extremist or terror-governed environments. A small number of Australian women and children who lived under Islamic State control are understood to have returned to Australia, and civilians departing Gaza do so from territory governed by Hamas. Explicitly, Hamas determines who leaves Gaza. To treat admissions from such environments as routine humanitarian cases—without full transparency about vetting, coercion, and ideological exposure—is not compassion. It is not the careful application of medicine. It is closer to introducing a virulent pathogen into an already compromised patient and hoping the immune system copes.

But borders are only one part of the problem. Radicalisation does not occur solely overseas; it can and does occur at home. Muslim reformers and Arab liberals have warned Western governments for years that Islamist extremism is often incubated in plain sight—sometimes within religious institutions shielded from scrutiny by a misplaced fear of offence. Amjad Taha, a UAE-based analyst and advocate for Muslim reform, has cautioned that Western societies have been dangerously naive in allowing radical ideologies to be preached under the cover of religious freedom, warning that the greatest threat is often not foreign fighters, but domestic radicalisation ignored until it erupts.

To acknowledge this is not to impugn Islam, nor to stigmatise the many peaceful and law-abiding Muslims who are themselves victims of Islamist extremism. It is to recognise an observable pattern: when radical preaching is tolerated, when grievance is sanctified, and when authorities look away for fear of controversy, the result is not harmony—it is escalation. Ignoring home-grown radicalisation is not tolerance. It is neglect.

Institutions, Media, and Education

We cannot afford to monitor thousands of individuals with hate in their hearts indefinitely. Singapore offers a hard but instructive lesson: the needs of the many outweigh the indulgence of the few. Social cohesion is not preserved by endless tolerance of those who reject it.

We must also confront the role of our national broadcasters. The ABC and SBS have been manifestly negligent—and in some respects culpable—in shaping the informational environment that has allowed this infection to spread. For more than two years, footage of so-called “intifada” marches has been visible to anyone willing to look: calls for violence, open celebration of terror, and the normalisation of genocidal slogans. Yet this has too often been sanitised, contextualised away, or presented as legitimate “protest”.
A national broadcaster funded by taxpayers carries obligations, not indulgences. When it persistently fails to meet those obligations—when it amplifies grievance while minimising threat—it forfeits its moral claim on public money. Defunding the ABC and SBS, if they cannot be fundamentally reformed, should now be on the table—not as retribution, but as institutional triage.

Equally confronting is the sight of extremist marches featuring banners and placards from organisations such as the NSW Teachers Federation. Those entrusted with educating children carry a heightened duty of care. Individuals who openly align themselves with movements that excuse or celebrate political violence should not be shaping young minds. This is not about suppressing dissent; it is about safeguarding children from ideological poisoning. Where lines have been crossed, professional consequences must follow.

History, Leadership, and the Absence of Illusion

Our nation has changed. The infection is systemic. Penicillin will not work—because we waited too long. The diagnosis was clear. The prognosis was obvious. Honey was applied anyway.

History offers uncomfortable guidance. During the Second World War, between 1939 and 1945, Australia—like other Western democracies—interned nationals of enemy states, including Japanese, German, and Italian residents. These measures were blunt, imperfect, and in some cases unjust. But they were taken in the context of an existential threat, when governments understood that liberal democracy must not be suicidal.
No one argues for crude replication of past policies. But the refusal even to discuss decisive measures today is itself a failure of leadership. Democracies that cannot defend themselves do not remain democracies for long.

Instead, we have witnessed evasion and denial at the highest levels of government. The holders of the offices of Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Home Affairs Minister have each, in different ways, applied honey to a spreading infection—soft language in the face of hard realities; process in place of judgement; hollow reassurance where resolve was required; and decisions, as well as indecision, that will be judged poorly by history. Our nation does not need herbalists. It needs leaders. The prevailing mood of the nation towards its elected officials is one of profound disappointment.

Tough or Terminal

There is also a dangerous assumption taking hold: that we have somehow reached rock bottom. History suggests the opposite. I struggle to find a single precedent in the human record where problems admired, minimised, or ignored have resolved themselves. The pattern, more often than not, is the reverse.

Much of what I have written here sits uneasily with views I have held for most of my adult life—particularly deep reservations about conscription shaped by Australia’s experience of Vietnam. But as the boxer Mike Tyson observed, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” And as John Maynard Keynes reminded us, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

The patient in the opening vignette survived, but only because a tough decision was made in time. By the end, the choice was no longer whether to act, but whether the outcome would be grievous—or fatal. In the end, the limb was lost.

That is where Australia now stands.

Delay and drift have eliminated all good options; Jewish Australians were murdered, among them a ten-year-old girl. What remains is the responsibility to choose between what is tough—and what is terminal.

As John Stuart Mill warned: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

A light still burns—but only if we are prepared to act before it is snuffed out.

Michael Scott CSC is the founder of the 2023 Foundation, a charity dedicated to combating antisemitism. He is the author of A Light Still Burns: Israel and the Values Worth Defending. The views expressed here are his own.