This may be jumping at shadows, but it needs to be asked. Is the AFL frightened?

The league would never admit it, but some around football argue privately it has turned its back when Australia most needs it because it’s nervous about a vitriolic public reaction.

First responders of the Bondi terror attack and Ahmed Al Ahmed, the hero who wrestled a gun from one of the shooters, are acknowledged during the 2026 AFL Opening Round match between the Sydney Swans and the Carlton Blues at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Thursday.Credit: Getty Images

And the cause being effectively ignored comes readily under the league’s catchcry: it’s about decency and fairness. It is antisemitism and the fracturing of social cohesion.

Over the two years those cracks have widened, the AFL has been unusually quiet, with the exception of one brief statement after the Bondi killings. Why?

Has it not dawned on the league, so often the community’s moral guardian, that it has a role to play here?

It seems unlikely, but is it plausible that it is spooked by the danger of a negative reaction from those so angry about Gaza they can’t have empathy for Jews who have nothing to do with it?

Neither prospect is flattering. But the question is reasonable: why has the AFL not done more to encourage social cohesion?

It’s not too late. Antisemitism has worsened in Australia since the October 2023 massacre of almost 1500 innocent Jews and the kidnapping of 251 men, women and children that led to the war in Gaza.

It is again emerging around the war with Iran.

© The Sydney Morning Herald