‘Designed to create fear’: PM calls national cabinet after spate of antisemitic attacks
“We are having rolling terrorist attacks in our community, and the prime minister is being dragged kicking and screaming to hold a meeting of our nation’s leaders.”
Leading Jewish groups, including the Executive Council of the Australian Jewry and the Zionist Federation of Australia, before the national cabinet meeting called for anti-vilification laws, which the federal government and opposition have shunned due to free speech concerns, a tougher definition of antisemitism, permit and no-mask rules for protests, and clearer directions for police to prosecute violent hate speech.
There have been at least nine major antisemitic incidents in Sydney since the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks. Three – one in Dover Heights on Friday and two incidents in Woollahra – have involved cars being doused in flammable liquid before being set alight. An accelerant was also used in an attack on a Newtown synagogue. In October, two buildings at Bondi Beach, including a kosher restaurant, were set alight.
In Melbourne last year, the office of Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns had a fire set inside, and another fire mostly destroyed the Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea.
Albanese stopped short of describing the latest attack as domestic terrorism, arguing it was up to police to make that declaration.
“The police will speak for themselves, of course, but there is no question that what this is aimed at is creating fear in the community,” he told Seven on Tuesday afternoon.
“This was done at one in the morning when there was no one, obviously, at the childcare centre at that time. And it’s designed to create that fear and that social division.”
Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson criticised Albanese’s refusal to put a label on the attack.
“It’s disappointing the prime minister can’t see this crisis for what it is: a campaign of domestic terrorism targeting the Jewish community,” he said in a statement.
“If he can’t call it out, there’s no hope he’ll take the action necessary to stop it. Weak leadership has got us into the mess we are in and only strong leadership can take us out of it.”
Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns visited the childcare centre on Tuesday morning. Albanese said he “utterly condemned this evil hate crime”.
“Childcare centres are places of joy and harmony … what we saw overnight, in the middle of the night, with this attack, is the latest in a series of antisemitic hate crimes,” Albanese said.
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Minns said antisemitic attacks in Sydney were becoming more sophisticated.
“I don’t believe antisemitism, antisemitic attacks, begin and end with a firebombing or a graffiti attack. I think it begins with language,” he said. “It is completely disgusting, and these bastards will be rounded up by NSW Police.
