“Coffee on Little Collins Street”: the unbearable insult of the ISIS returnees

by Elliot Vesely

There is a particular kind of cognitive dissonance that occurs when you read that a woman, recently repatriated from a Syrian hellscape where she spent a decade enabling a genocidal death cult, says the thing she “missed most” was a coffee on Melbourne’s Little Collins Street.

As of yesterday, May 7, 2026, three more women from the infamous Roj and Al-Hol camps touched down on Australian soil. They didn’t arrive as refugees. They didn’t arrive as victims of a natural disaster. They arrived as citizens of a nation they once publicly reviled, now clutching the very passports they would have gleefully burned ten years ago.

While the headlines focus on the logistics of their “return”, the Australian Jewish community, and indeed any Australian with a pulse for national dignity, must ask: when did our citizenship become a concierge service for repentant terrorists?

The saga of the “ISIS brides” is not a story of wayward travellers who took a wrong turn at the Turkish border. It is a story of calculated betrayal, crimes against humanity and a staggering insult to the real victims of ISIS who now call Australia home.

Who are we bringing home?

To understand the “disgrace” of this repatriation, one must look past the grainy photos of women in hijabs and look at the men they chose to follow. These were not “arranged marriages” or cases of grooming. These were partnerships in a global enterprise of slaughter.

Take, for instance, Mariam Raad, who was repatriated in late 2022 and subsequently charged with entering a “declared area” in Raqqa. Raad didn’t just wander into Syria. She followed her husband, Muhammad Zahab, a high-ranking ISIS recruiter who facilitated the travel of dozens of Australians to the caliphate. Zahab wasn’t a foot soldier. He was effectively the HR manager for a global terrorist organisation.

Then there are the more recent arrivals. Among the women arrested this week in Melbourne and Sydney are individuals now facing charges that should turn the stomach of every Australian: slavery and slave trading.

For years, the narrative pushed by advocates was that these women were “clueless brides” or “domestic prisoners”. The evidence would overwhelmingly suggest otherwise. The Australian Federal Police are now investigating allegations that these women were active participants in the enslavement of Yazidi women, human beings who were bought, sold and brutalised while their “Australian” captors enjoyed the perks of the caliphate.

One 53-year-old woman is currently facing counts of crimes against humanity. This isn’t a “terrible life choice”. It is the highest category of international crime.

Sickening synergy: Bondi, the flag and the Commission

The timing of this “humanitarian” repatriation is not just tone-deaf. It is a moral obscenity.

Less than five months ago, on December 14, 2025, the Australian Jewish community suffered its darkest day in history and Australia’s worst-ever terrorist attack. At a Chanukah celebration at Archer Park in Bondi Beach, a place synonymous with Australian freedom, two ISIS-inspired gunmen slaughtered 15 people. Fourteen of those victims were members of the Jewish community, including a Holocaust survivor, two rabbis and a ten-year-old girl.

The attackers didn’t hide their affiliation. They arrived with the black flag of ISIS draped across their windscreen, the same flag these “brides” lived under, cooked under and raised their children under for a decade. ISIS later officially claimed responsibility for the massacre, gloating over the “Zionist blood” spilled on Australian sand.

To bring these women back now, mere months after Bondi, is a slap in the face to every mourner. It is happening even as the Royal Commission into Antisemitism is in full swing, tasked with examining why the Jewish community no longer feels safe.

The absurdity is stark. On one floor of a government building, officials are debating how to protect Jews from ISIS-inspired hate, while at the airport, other officials are welcoming back the very people who helped build the ideological foundation for that hate.

How can we speak of “social cohesion” at the Royal Commission when the government is actively importing individuals who prioritised a death cult over the lives of their fellow citizens? It is an insult to the memory of the Bondi fifteen.

Life in the caliphate: not housewives, but enablers

The term “ISIS bride” is a linguistic sleight of hand. It suggests a passive role. In reality, these women were part of the infrastructure of the Islamic State. They were recruiters, morality police and domestic managers of a system that thrived on the public beheading of “unbelievers”.

While ISIS fighters were in the field executing prisoners, their wives maintained the “home front”. For many, this allegedly included:

• The morality police: monitoring other women and enforcing “Sharia compliance” through violence.
• Online recruitment: using social media to lure more young Westerners into the trap.
• The slave trade: managing the “property” of the caliphate, including Yazidi, Christian and Shia women treated as spoils of war.

One of the women arrested this week is facing charges specifically for possessing and using a slave. Let that sink in. These women were not merely victims of ISIS. Prosecutors allege they were participants in it.

An insult to the real refugees

Perhaps the most egregious aspect of this repatriation is the relative silence regarding the people who actually fled ISIS to find safety in Australia.

In suburbs across Sydney and Melbourne, there are thousands of Yazidi refugees. These are people who saw their fathers and brothers shot into mass graves and their sisters sold in markets. They came to Australia because it was meant to be a sanctuary, a place where the black flag of ISIS could never reach. Bondi shattered that sense of security.

Now, they are being told that women accused of helping sustain that regime are moving into the suburb next door.

Hayam Bakkir, a Yazidi refugee now living in Australia, has spoken movingly about the trauma of seeing “ISIS widows” repatriated. She remembers being beaten by the wives of ISIS fighters for refusing to convert. For Hayam and others like her, seeing these women return is a second wave of trauma.

By prioritising the “rights” of the alleged perpetrators, the Australian government risks sending victims the message that their suffering is secondary to the administrative convenience of a blue passport.

The soldiers we forgot

Then there is the Australian Defence Force.

Between 2014 and 2024, thousands of Australian men and women served in Operation Okra. They fought in Iraq and Syria to dismantle the very caliphate these women allegedly helped sustain. They saw comrades wounded or killed. They witnessed the horrors of the mass graves firsthand.

What does it say to an ADF veteran to see the government use taxpayer funds to fly alleged ISIS supporters home?

These soldiers did not fight to bring ISIS back to Melbourne. They fought to destroy it. To frame these women solely as “vulnerable Australians” risks insulting every person who wore the Australian uniform.

Australia’s security agencies are now being asked to monitor people they once regarded as aligned with the enemy. That circular logic risks devaluing the sacrifices made by military personnel.

The citizenship fallacy: rights vs responsibilities

The most common argument for repatriation is a legalistic one: “they are Australian citizens, they have a right to return”.

Citizenship, however, is not merely a collection of rights. It is also a social contract. It is an agreement that citizens will uphold the laws and values of the nation that protects them. When someone leaves Australia to join an organisation at war with Australia and its allies, many Australians would argue that contract has been fundamentally breached.

Supporters of repatriation argue Australia has legal and moral obligations to its citizens. Critics counter that the government also has obligations to public safety and national cohesion.

Arguments raised by critics include:

1. Sovereign discretion: some countries, including the United Kingdom, have stripped citizenship from people accused of joining terrorist organisations.
2. The “choice” principle: these women were not kidnapped or trafficked into Syria. They made deliberate decisions over a period of years.
3. Duty of care: the government’s primary duty is to the millions of Australians who did not join ISIS.

Critics argue that bringing back indoctrinated adults, and children raised in extremist camps, carries long-term security and social risks.

The “vetted” illusion

The government assures Australians that these women are being “vetted” and “monitored”.

Scepticism remains understandable. Proving crimes committed in a war zone a decade ago is extraordinarily difficult. Witnesses are dead, evidence is buried under rubble and suspects have had years to shape narratives of victimhood.

If prosecutions fail due to a lack of admissible evidence, these women could eventually walk free in the Australian community. They may receive welfare support and attempt to rebuild ordinary lives, while Yazidi refugees and the families of Bondi victims continue to carry profound trauma.

A nation of dignity or a nation of doormats?

The repatriation of the ISIS brides is viewed by critics not as an act of compassion, but as an act of national weakness. They see it as a betrayal of refugees, a dishonour to soldiers and a risk to Australia’s future security.

The Australian Jewish community, currently participating in a Royal Commission examining rising antisemitism, has every right to feel anger and fear. Many see the government welcoming home the ideological allies of the men who raised an ISIS flag in Bondi and opened fire.

It is time to stop talking about “bringing them home”, critics argue. Australia belongs to the people who respect its laws, value its freedoms and never abandoned it for a genocidal terror movement.

If Australia is to remain a nation of dignity, the argument goes, it cannot afford to import people accused of helping sustain the very ideology that sought to destroy innocent lives.

---

Elliot Vesely is a Sydney-based journalist that covers topics from sport, geo-politics and diaspora affairs. He has written and worked with major sporting organisations and is published regularly on The Times Of Israel.