Melbourne Synagogue Fire 'Likely' Terror Act, Police Say

[Rev.FrankSmith]

Our enemies the jews are to be silenced and exterminated, with no mercy or sympathy.

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/former-home-of-prominent-jewish-australian-vandalised-in-disgusting-antisemitic-attack/wpigovpuy

Former home of prominent Jewish Australian vandalised in 'disgusting' antisemitic attack

NSW Premier Chris Minns has condemned the incident as "disgusting and dangerous" and said that police are investigating

The prime minister and NSW premier have condemned an antisemitic attack in Sydney's east, where two cars were set on fire and a house — which formerly belonged to a prominent Jewish Australian — was splashed with red paint.

Police responded to reports of an incident at a property in Dover Heights just before 4am on Friday, where at least one of the cars had been spray-painted with an antisemitic slur.

NSW Premier Chris Minns confirmed on Friday that the house once belonged to Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

Locals told the Australian Associated Press the home's current owners were not Jewish.

NSW Police are investigating the incident and reported no injuries.

"The NSW Police Force takes hate crimes seriously," it said in a statement on Friday.
'Disgusting and dangerous'

Condemning the incident, Minns said everything is being done to catch the perpetrators.

"This is a disgusting and dangerous act of violence that is the latest example of a rising level of antisemitic attacks in our community," he said.

"Civil society stands united in condemning this flagrant racism.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said such attacks are "completely unacceptable" and were causing harm to the unity of the community.

"It's causing fear, which is what it is aimed at, and it needs to be stamped out," he told ABC Radio National.

He said the strongest possible action is needed to prevent these repeated attacks.

"If courts have the opportunity to do that, they should be taking that opportunity to send that message that this is completely unacceptable and that crimes will result in appropriate penalties."

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said the Jewish community's frustration is "understandable".

"I think there is an incredible frustration and anger within the Jewish community, and I think it's completely understandable," he told the Today show.

Extra security for Jewish institutions

David Ossip, president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, said he was "profoundly disturbed and sickened to wake up to news of yet another antisemitic attack".

"Criminal acts like these, perpetrated by masked cowards and thugs in the dead of night, are intended to menace and intimidate the Jewish community and further fragment our social cohesion," he said.

"The hate-filled criminals who are perpetrating these crimes need to know that their campaign of domestic terrorism will not succeed, the Jewish community is resilient, strong and unbowed and will continue to be so."

Last week, the NSW government promised improved security for Jewish institutions after a spate of attacks against the community.

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

A kindergarten gets torched and graffitied with "F*** THE JEWS"

If it said "GO BACK TO EUROPE" or "KILL WHITEY" we'd be told to build a bridge and get over it ... but this is anti-Semitism and so the government goes into overdrive to protect the precious Jew. 

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/nsw/2025/01/21/maroubra-childcare-antisemitic

Spraypainted: "FUCK THE JEWS"

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called an urgent national cabinet meeting after a childcare centre near a Sydney a synagogue was firebombed in an antisemitic attack.

The Only About Children centre in Maroubra in Sydney's east was set on fire shortly after midnight on Tuesday morning, and the words "F— the Jews" were sprayed in black paint on a wall.

The site is a block from Maroubra Synagogue and the attack marks the latest in a string of antisemitic arson and graffiti incidents in the city's east, which is home to a large Jewish community.

Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns, who were both at the burned childcare centre on Tuesday, pledged to throw all necessary resources at tracking down those responsible.

"What we saw overnight ... is the latest in a series of antisemitic hate crimes," Albanese said.

"This is a place for children and families, and it should never have been denigrated by this despicable and horrifying crime."

The prime minister also confirmed he had convened a national cabinet meeting for 5pm (AEDT).

Fire and Rescue NSW said it sent six fire trucks and 30 firefighters to the Storey Street blaze after receiving multiple triple-zero calls.

The ground floor of the childcare centre was well alight by the time firefighters arrived, NSW Police said.

The blaze was put out in about an hour, although the building sustained extensive damage. There were no reports of injuries and the property was empty at the time.

On Tuesday, scorch marks could be seen around the building's broken windows and the burnt smell of the overnight firebombing was still evident nearby.

Minns said more police would be added to an existing strike force investigating the spate of antisemitic attacks.

"I speak on behalf of every decent Australian when I say that these scenes of a torched-out childcare centre on the same [block] as a synagogue is completely heartbreaking," he said.

"It is completely disgusting and these bastards will be rounded up by NSW Police

The latest incident comes as the nation's Jewish community is still reeling from a vandalism and arson attack on the former home of Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief Alex Ryvchin early on Friday.

The house was defaced with slurs and red paint, and cars were set alight outside.

That attack was the latest in a spate of antisemitic arson and graffiti attempts, including targeting of synagogues in Sydney and Melbourne.

NSW Police said they had arrested 181 people since establishing a special operation to combat the attacks in October last year.

There have been 456 charges, including 36 people on antisemitic related offences. Among them are eight people charged with 59 offences:

Three men – aged 20,19 and 21 – charged after 10 vehicles and buildings were deliberately damaged in Woollahra in November 2024
Four men – aged 31, 27, 40 and 26 – charged following suspicious fires at two businesses in Bondi in October 2024
A woman – aged 34 – charged after vehicles and buildings were deliberately damaged in Woollahra in December 2024.
On Monday, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton announced plans for tougher laws to combat antisemitism if the Coalition wins government, including minimum six-year sentences for terrorism offences.

Those displaying terrorist organisation symbols, Nazi symbols or performing Nazi salutes would face at least a year behind bars.

But Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman Greg Barns said there was no evidence mandatory sentences deterred offenders, adding that minimum jail terms led to injustice.

"They force courts to impose sentences where the circumstances do not warrant it because of the nature of offending, or the background of the offender," he said.

[Stotan]

Don't look at me, I was in the U.S.A. Ha-Ha

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/crime-news/2025/01/23/synagogue-hate-crime-arrest


A second man has been arrested over an alleged attempt to set a Jewish synagogue on fire in Sydney's Newtown earlier this month.

Detectives attended a hotel on Pyrmont Street, Darling Harbour, about 1pm on Thursday and tasered and apprehended the 37-year-old

It followed the arrest of Adam Edward Moule, 33, on Tuesday over the Newtown incident.

Moule was charged with two arson and property damage-related offences, as well as possessing suspected stolen goods and cultivating a prohibited cannabis plant.

Police allegedly found five debit cards in different names, and from different financial institutions, in Moule's possession, which they believe were stolen.

Newtown Synagogue, in Sydney's inner-west, was spray-painted with red Nazi swastikas and briefly set alight early on January 11.

It was one of a series of recent cases in which Jewish facilities and communities were targeted in arson and graffiti attacks, sparking a major police investigation involving state and federal officers

Australian Federal Police are probing 15 serious incidents since December. They are investigating the possibility that overseas actors have paid local criminals to carry out some of the attacks.

Following the attack, police released images of two hooded figures they believed might have been involved, one of whom they said was riding a mountain bike and the other a motorised scooter.

The offenders ignited a clear liquid that burned out in minutes, but it could have had deadly consequences if it had taken hold, Police Commissioner Karen Webb said at the time

Strike force detectives raided two properties in Camperdown, not far from the synagogue, and seized items for further examination.

The allegations against the Moule and others charged over separate incidents carried heavy penalties, but the charges could also potentially be upgraded to include terrorism offences, Webb said.

A total of nine people, including Moule, have been charged under Strike Force Pearl.

The other eight are:

Four men – aged 31, 37, 40 and 26 – charged following fires at two businesses in Bondi in October 2024
Three men – aged 20,19 and 21 – charged after 10 vehicles and buildings were allegedly deliberately damaged in Woollahra in November 2024
A woman, 34, charged after vehicles and buildings were allegedly deliberately damaged in Woollahra in December 2024

[Br.IanVonTurpie]

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/australian-politics/2025/01/24/anthony-albanese-antisemitism

"I for one welcome our new Semitic overlords. Make way!"

Anthony Albanese points to the array of measures his government has taken to tackle the scourge of antisemitism. But he can't escape the impression of seeming perennially on the back foot and often lacking adequate empathy and sensitivity in dealing with the issue.

On the latter point, take Australia's representation to next week's commemoration in Poland marking 80 years since the last people were freed from Auschwitz.

It's a major international event, with King Charles and some national leaders, including France's President Emmanuel Macron, attending.

The Australian government is sending two cabinet ministers: Foreign Minister Penny Wong and (((Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus))).

Dreyfus, as the most senior Jewish member of the government, is a logical attendee. But Wong is a controversial choice.

Wong is regarded negatively by many in the Australian Jewish community who, to put it bluntly, see her as unsympathetic to Israel and too influential with the PM.

Wong is travelling to Poland on her way back from the Trump inauguration. That might be convenient, but surely it would have been more appropriate and astute to have chosen Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles to lead the Australian delegation to Poland.

Marles commands considerable respect in the Jewish community (and also outranks Wong).

This week, Albanese suddenly reversed his firm opposition to calling a national cabinet meeting on antisemitism, convening one immediately in the wake of the attack on a Sydney childcare centre.

The meeting was long overdue but something of a farce, held in haste and producing the underwhelming decision to set up a national database of antisemitic incidents. That just invited the question: 'Why didn't we have such a database long ago?'.

The national cabinet followed calls from, among many others, the government's own special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal – calls that should have been listened to earlier.

Albanese had argued people wanted action rather than meetings, and that he was consulting with the premiers of NSW and Victoria, where the attacks have been concentrated.

The delay in calling a national cabinet was a repeat of Albanese dragging his feet last year on setting up a special operations force led by the Australian Federal Police.

Albanese was once again put in the shade this week by NSW Premier Chris Minns when the two appeared at a news conference after the torching of the childcare centre.

Minns, who declared the perpetrators of the crime "bastards", sounded assertive; Albanese looked the minor player, feeding into the federal Opposition's general attack on him as a "weak" leader.

The government is feeling the heat on multiple fronts to get on top of the antisemitism crisis, with Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel (who once worked as a veterinary nurse in Bondi) launching fresh criticism this week, saying provocatively: "What are they waiting for? For someone to die? For someone to be murdered?"

It's not just the government that's under increasing pressure. So are the police (federal and state) and ASIO.

Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw was anxious this week to demonstrate the police were achieving some successes, and to say they anticipated more in the near future.

As much as anything, the message was a plea for the community, and especially the Jewish community, to be patient.

Kershaw revealed the AFP believes "criminals for hire" may be behind some incidents, adding: "So part of our inquiries include: who is paying those criminals, where those people are – whether they are in Australia or offshore – and what their motivation is."

Despite this tantalising piece of information, the impression is the agencies are largely in the dark about the intricacies of this wave of antisemitism.

There doesn't appear (so far) to be evidence of foreign actors – state or non-state – or domestic extremist organisations being the drivers.

For many voters, while they condemn the wave of antisemitism, it remains a niche issue. But it feeds into wider, easily triggered, concerns about crime and security, and that helps Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

The Australian Financial Review's latest Freshwater poll asked people to rank priority areas on which the government should focus.

Crime and social order ranked fifth out of 16 issues – 26 per cent of people put it in their top three. It has an eight-point lead over the issue of environment and climate change.

Dutton has promised the Coalition would legislate for mandatory minimum sentences for antisemitic crimes.

That may go down well with some voters, but despite the circumstances and the fact courts can be too lenient (Minns complained strongly this week about one NSW sentence), it would be bad policy, robbing the legal system of flexibility to take account of individual circumstances.

While the authorities and the headlines are rightly focused on the antisemitism crisis, the government's special envoy to combat Islamophobia is warning against letting the absence of dramatic attacks blind people to the presence of that menace.

Writing in The Australian, Aftab Malik said that during extensive travels around the country late last year, he found "a landscape in which Islamophobia was an ordinary daily experience for many Muslims.

"Thankfully, it wasn't that mosques were being torched or cars vandalised," but, he argues, "the ordinariness of Islamophobia is what is so disturbing, the normalcy of hate endured out of the media spotlight".

If Dutton became prime minister, we know he would be stronger on antisemitism and would move to repair relations with Israel.

With the polls now giving the Coalition a chance of victory, or at least of running the government close, we need to know more about how a Dutton government would rebuild Australia's social cohesion more broadly, including dealing with Islamophobia and managing and fostering multiculturalism.

The opposition's current approach is to downplay Islamophobia on the grounds we are not seeing dramatic incidents of the kind we are currently witnessing with antisemitism.

But a Coalition wanting to promote community harmony should not ignore or dismiss its risks, even while attention is firmly on the more dramatic and visible disease.