What if the antisemitic tide has a bigger target: Australia’s stability?

Following the escalation of antisemitic attacks in Australia, including discovery of a van full of explosives and a note with the address of a local synagogue, there is widespread speculation around what is driving these crimes, who is involved and why.

We’ve heard assessments from government that overseas hostilities, such as the Israel-Hamas conflict, are driving radicalisation and fracturing social cohesion at home. Last year, ASIO director- general Mike Burgess warned that we were in a “climate that is more permissive of violence”, that reactions to the October 7 attacks and Israel’s military response had “fuelled grievances, promoted protest, exacerbated division, undermined social cohesion and elevated intolerance”.

More recently, the Australian Federal Police briefed that it had arrested suspects with no history of antisemitism in relation to some of these attacks and, as the prime minister noted, they were “perpetrated by people who don’t have a particular issue, aren’t motivated by an ideology”.

Randwick council cleaners remove antisemitic graffiti from homes in Kingsford on Sunday after a spate of overnight attacks on properties and cars in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.Credit: Edwina Pickles

Instead, AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw said investigators believed “criminals for hire” were behind some of the attacks. Hired by whom and for what purposes is not yet clear. Security services are understandably reluctant to say more lest they compromise their investigations.

But it begs a broader question. Should we blame this increase in antisemitism on escalating homegrown radicalisation and larger tears in our social fabric? Or is it an orchestrated campaign of sabotage against Australia by outside malign actors who are organising these antisemitic attacks, not necessarily due to religious hatred but for their own as yet unknown ends?

Either way, you could legitimately ask, what does it matter when the impact on Australia’s Jewish community remains the same? When masked arsonists firebomb a synagogue, torch a Jewish childcare centre or set fire to cars and spray graffiti in Jewish neighbourhoods, the Jewish community is victimised and under siege regardless of the motivations behind these actions.

However, getting to the bottom of where these threats and attacks are coming from is critical to directing our efforts to stop them. Regardless of whether organised crime or a foreign government or actor is involved in the recent attacks, or if they are purely domestic actors, the speculation is illustrative of a broader global problem. It is the growing intersection of what used to be two distinct challenges. Domestic violent extremism and foreign interference are becoming more intertwined.

This case in Australia wouldn’t be the first time in which domestic violent extremism in Western nations was exacerbated by external actors. In the United States and Europe, we’ve witnessed how Russia has escalated polarising narratives and conspiracies through co-ordinated online information campaigns and by supporting and sponsoring far-right extremists, even recruiting extremists to carry out attacks. Russia is believed to be behind similar instances in France where a foreign individual paid others to do antisemitic graffiti.

Russia has even given haven to leaders of designated neo-Nazi terrorist organisations, such as American Rinaldo Nazzaro, founder of The Base, who some suspect of being a Russian agent. As The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age reported in 2021, The Base recruited neo-Nazis in Australia. Russia also engages in information warfare in the US, Europe and elsewhere to stoke societal divisions to undermine democratic norms and to interfere in democratic institutions, processes and elections.

Iran too has been known to engage in this manner. Some reports suggest it has done so directly in Israel. Iranian information operations have not only sought to escalate divisions within Israel over the war but, like Russia, have sought to encourage extremism and political violence. Iran has disseminated narratives online aimed at inciting violence against Arab Israeli citizens and through accounts imitating extreme right-wing Israeli groups.

Stoking extremism, polarisation and political violence through co-ordinated disinformation campaigns frays social cohesion. Outside actors use sabotage and information warfare to exacerbate existing divisions, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to undermine the appeal of Western democracy by equating it with chaos and dysfunction.

But foreign actors can’t manufacture extremism and polarisation out of thin air. There has to be an existing spark to fan the flames. The most successful foreign-interference campaigns press on an existing wound or attempt to widen a division that already exists. The fact remains, antisemitism has increased in Australia and interfaith relations have faltered. Social cohesion has been eroded due to many factors, but among them is division over conflicts in the Middle East.

ASIO has raised the threat of terrorism and violent extremism from “possible” to “probable” due to growing online radicalisation, acceptance of use of violence, declining trust and growing grievances.

It’s a stark reminder of the increasingly transnational nature of the threats we face as a society. Nothing can be siloed any more. To protect against foreign interference, we must address our domestic challenges. Domestic difficulties are inevitable, but to ensure they are not exploited, we must remain vigilant of foreign actors seeking to interfere and undermine us from within.

Lydia Khalil is a project director at the Lowy Institute and convener of the AVERT (Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation to Terrorism) Research Network. She is the author of Rise of the Extreme Right: the new global extremism and the threat to democracy.