‘Stop this disease’: Israel lashes government over antisemitism

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been forced to defend his government’s response to the surge of antisemitism after Israel’s foreign minister accused Australian authorities of allowing attacks on Jews to run rampant. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the discovery of a caravan packed with explosives and containing the address of a Sydney synagogue, revealed by NSW Police on Wednesday, was “intolerable”. Chris Minns says “bad people” are committing antisemitic attacks across Sydney.

Credit: NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, Rhett Wyman and Kate Geraghty “This joins a long list of antisemitic attacks in Australia, including setting fire to a childcare centre in Sydney, firebombing a synagogue in Melbourne, and many other antisemitic attacks,” he said in a post on X. “The epidemic of antisemitism is spreading in Australia almost unchecked. We expect the Australian government to do more to stop this disease!” Asked about Sa’ar’s comments, Albanese defended the response to the rise in attacks targeted at the Jewish community, saying: “People are in the clink .



.. people are being arrested.

Investigations are taking place. The police and authorities are doing their job.” Albanese told ABC Sydney: “We remain concerned about this escalation.

“We’re doing everything that we can, and the fact that people are being detained, arrested, charged, kept in the clink without bail, indicates that that’s the case.” The Joint Counter-Terrorism Team, which combines state and Commonwealth agencies, including the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, has taken over the investigation and tasked more than 100 officers to catch the perpetrators. Albanese said he agreed with suggestions that this was an act of terrorism, saying: “It’s clearly designed to harm people, but it’s also designed to create fear in the community, and that is a very [clear] definition as it comes in.

” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December accused the government of fomenting the rise of antisemitism in a fiery social media post, linking the rise of attacks on Jewish Australians to the government’s changing position on Israel at the United Nations and the decision to deny a visa to a former Israeli cabinet minister. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus this week said he believed it was “grotesque” that some politicians had sought to gain political advantage from the rise of antisemitism, saying that “we need to get politics out of this”. The Zionist Federation of Australia said the caravan discovery was “undoubtedly the most severe threat to the Jewish community in Australia to date”.

“The plot, if executed, would likely have resulted in the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil,” the federation said. “For 16 months, the Jewish community has been warning that unchecked incitement, violent rhetoric, and weak leadership have created the perfect environment for extremism and terrorism to flourish. “This foiled attack is yet another manifestation of the senseless hatred and violence that continues to target our community.

” Liberal Senator Dave Sharma, a former ambassador to Israel, said the response from Australian law enforcement authorities and political leaders to the rise of antisemitism had been “manifestly inadequate”. “The Labor government needs to address this crisis with the urgency, resources and full legal power that it requires. There can be no more soft-pedalling, equivocation or political pandering in our response.

“Otherwise Australia will soon become unrecognisable, a nation where extremist actors are allowed to threaten the life and liberty of our many communities, and no one feels safe.” Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, speaking to 2GB’s Ben Fordham from Alice Springs, described the news of the caravan discovery as devastating and shocking. “Already people were living in fear in the Jewish community.

Armed guards already patrol outside Jewish schools at the moment. This is in our country in the 21st century and it’s completely unacceptable.” Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis.

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