SYDNEY — A car was set alight and two properties spray painted with anti-Israel messages in Sydney just days after an arson attack at a synagogue in Melbourne which is being investigated as terrorism, Australian authorities said on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the latest attack, the second targeting the Jewish community in the Sydney suburb in three weeks, was an “outrage” and he would be briefed on it soon by a new antisemitism task force.
“This is an attack on people because they happen to be Jewish,” Albanese told ABC Radio.
“The idea that we take a conflict overseas and bring it here is something that is quite contrary to what Australia was built on … this is a hate crime, it’s as simple as that.”
Police said they were seeking two males believed to be in their late teens who were “disguised” and seen running from the scene in in the eastern suburb of Woollahra, an area with a large Jewish population.
The offenders burned the car they had been driving in the early hours, and spread graffiti over the burned car, another vehicle, two buildings and a footpath, New South Wales state police said.
Images on local media showed the misspelled phrase “Kill Israiel” sprayed in black on a white wall.
A contractor painted over the graffiti soon afterwards.
Woollahra this morning. pic.twitter.com/p2SgiKtTve
— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) December 10, 2024
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said the incident would be treated as “a wanton act of vandalism,” with offenders facing up to 10 years in jail.
“I don’t think there is any point in sugar coating it or trying to downplay it. This isn’t just a random act of destruction, this was specifically designed to incite hate,” Minns said at a media briefing.
Australia has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents since the Hamas terror group’s deadly onslaught in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
More than 2,000 anti-Jewish incidents were reported by volunteer community groups and Jewish organizations between October 1, 2023 and September 30, 2024, versus some 500 incidents in the same period a year ago, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said in a report published this month.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (C) and members of the local Jewish community visiting the torched Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 10, 2024. (DEPARTMENT OF PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET / AFP)
The Australian Jewish Association said on Wednesday it had warned the government several times of possible violent attacks, which it chose to ignore.
“If the Albanese government cannot protect Australians, they must seriously consider stepping down and allow someone else to do so,” the Australian Jewish Association said in a post on X.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also criticized the Australian government, saying the attack on the synagogue could not be separated from the “anti-Israel spirit” of some of its policies, including support of a recent UN motion backing a Palestinian state.
The Australian government has defended its record on responding to antisemitism.
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