Lapid: We refuse to surrender to hatred, we will not give in to despair

By Sam Sokol 15 December 2025, 1:41 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid at a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem on December 15, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says that the Jewish people “refuse to surrender to hatred” following yesterday’s mass shooting at a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.

Addressing Jews “from Sydney to California, from Amsterdam to Manchester, from Pittsburgh to Berlin” during a press conference ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, Lapid says that the attack presents the Jewish people “with a choice.”

“Shall we put out the candles and hide, or shall we light them and say: ‘We are here, we refuse to submit to hatred, we believe in the power of the Jewish people?'”

He goes on: “There is one thing that the holiday of Hanukkah symbolizes… We are here. The empires that tried to destroy us are gone, the antisemites who thought to destroy us are gone.” He says he told an Australian Jewish leader that his community needs to hear from him that “hatred will not defeat them.”

“These are difficult days, but we will not give in to despair. We send you strength and love from here. Our door is always open to you. This country, the State of Israel, is also yours and always will be. We are once again and forever — choosing life.”