With homes vandalized, synagogues on fire and residents on edge, Australia is grappling with a surge in antisemitic attacks that has prompted dozens of arrests across the country in what its leaders say is a “national crisis.”
Australian lawmakers and experts say there has been a rise in both antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023.
Between the start of the war and September 2024, there were more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents in Australia, three times the figure for the same period a year earlier, according to a report in December by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Australian affiliate of the World Jewish Congress.
Over the past 16 months, Jewish Australians have faced “an unprecedented rise in antisemitism across the country,” according to a parliamentary inquiry report tabled Wednesday.
Homes, cars and schools have been set on fire or spray-painted with anti-Israel messages, and there have been arson attacks against a synagogue in Melbourne and a child care center in Sydney. Last month, police said they had disrupted a potential antisemitic attack after they discovered a caravan containing explosives in a Sydney suburb.
This week, two nurses in a Sydney hospital were suspended for saying they would kill Jewish patients or refuse to treat them in a video chat with a TikTok user who told them he was from Israel.
The Australian government’s response to the antisemitic incidents has been criticized by Jewish groups as well as Israel.
“The epidemic of antisemitism is spreading in Australia almost unchecked,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on the social media platform X last month. “We expect the Australian government to do more to stop this disease!”
Last week, Australian lawmakers almost unanimously passed tough hate crime laws that include mandatory jail time for giving a Nazi salute in public.
“We want people who are engaged in antisemitic activities to be caught, to be charged and to be put in the clink,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton agreed. “This is a time of national crisis,” he said.
The laws have been welcomed by Jewish communities.
“Prison sentences and fines are called for if there is to be any hope of stamping out this hateful behavior,” the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said in a statement last week. A home formerly owned by the group’s co-chief executive was among those targeted.
The attacks have been concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s most populous cities and home to 85% of the country’s Jewish population.
Most of them have been “small-scale, low-technology attacks,” said Julian Droogan, head of the Department of Security Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney.
An exception was the trailer laden with explosives, which Droogan said “was quite remarkable and almost without precedent in recent years.”
While police have arrested dozens of Australians in connection with the arson, they have also said they are investigating whether the attacks could be part of a large-scale concerted effort by foreign actors paying criminals for hire.
“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,” Australia Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said last month.
Local police are enhancing their efforts as well. This month, police in New South Wales, the Australian state that includes Sydney, said they had doubled to 40 the number of investigators on a task force formed to investigate antisemitic crimes and patrol schools and places of worship.
“Children shouldn’t feel scared to go to school, people shouldn’t feel afraid to go to prayer or practice their religion,” Commissioner Karen Webb said in a statement.
The Israel-Hamas war and protests around it have been a sensitive issue in Australia, where some rallies have devolved into clashes between protesters and police officers.
In October, police in New South Wales cited security risks and policing costs in trying to ban a pro-Palestinian rally marking the one-year anniversary of the start of the war, which has killed about 1,200 people in Israel and more than 46,000 people in the Gaza Strip.
“We often look at Australia as geographically detached, and it is. But we forget to mention that the rest of the world is represented within Australia in microcosm,” Droogan said. “So conflicts and disputes in the world regularly manifest in the Australian community.”
The tensions have extended to Australian schools, with multiple universities urging pro-Palestinian protesters to shut down encampments similar to those set up on campuses in the United States.
There have been increased reports at universities of antisemitic graffiti, protests and chants, according to the parliamentary inquiry report, which urged universities to adjust their definition of antisemitism to more closely align with one that Palestinians and some civil rights groups say mutes criticism of Israel.
Some Jewish groups say that in an attempt to address growing antisemitism, lawmakers and university campuses have instead politicized the issue and worsened prejudice against Palestinians and other groups.
“To address antisemitism on campus, we must also address the racism faced by other racialized groups, including First Nations, Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, and Asian staff and students,” Sarah Schwartz, executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia, said in a statement Friday.
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