Keystone cops need to get real

Inaction by police at the first signs of overt anti-Semitism out the front of the Sydney Opera House in the immediate wake of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel in 2023 helped set the scene for the widespread acts of civil disobedience, arson and wilful damage that followed. Rather than learn the lesson, police and politicians now are bending over backwards to justify those offences as being unrelated to any feelings of ill-will toward the Jewish community. This is an outrageous display of muddled thinking from law enforcement officials. It is one thing to admit they do not know what is going on. It is another to say that whatever the motivation is, it is not what some political leaders do not want it to be.

Follow the thinking. An overseas-based “Mr Big” of crime engages a bikie gang leader of Middle Eastern extraction to sow terror. A potential terrorist plot to target high-profile Jewish targets with a caravan laden with explosives is supposedly a hoax designed to be used as a bargaining chip for negotiations with police. Media reports allege the man is Sayit Erhan Akca, a Sydney businessman who fled Australia by boat while on bail over an alleged 500kg drug importation. Police said the terror plot was not considered to be anti-Semitic. Pardon?

As Stephen Rice wrote on Thursday, police had offered a confused explanation for the wanton acts of violence, including actual firebombings and spray-painting swastikas on Jewish property. They were not considered to be motivated by anti-Semitism but were more like something from a Batman cartoon, a dastardly ploy to divert police attention from other criminal activities. Police now allege Mr Akca was the mastermind behind the explosives-laden caravan planted on a roadside at Dural, and 14 anti-Semitic attacks in Sydney since October. At best, if, as police said, they were directed from overseas through a bikie leader with a Middle Eastern background from a country engaged in active hostilities with Israel, why could both things not be true? A double-header of anti-Semitic revenge and criminal opportunity.

Faced with logic, NSW Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson was forced to admit on Wednesday that “the actual ideology behind the person that tasked them (criminal offences) is still under investigation”. So, maybe anti-Semitic after all? This is flawed policing that gives rise to perceptions of political motivation. The approach has allowed minor parties and federal politicians to heap scorn on those who have stood strong with Australia’s Jewish community in its time of need. Peter Dutton was criticised by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke for not properly informing himself on the caravan investigation.

Ultimately, however, regardless of motivation, the terror plots, fake or not, and actual acts of violence directed at the Jewish community are a serious issue of legitimate public concern. Whatever was in the mind of criminals, the impact on the Jewish community, and those who respect our pluralistic society and rule of law, was the same. Rejecting anti-Semitism as a possible motivation by police repeats a big mistake that sends the wrong message that already is being eagerly exploited by bad actors, including some Greens politicians.

NSW police failed in their duty to the public at the Sydney Opera House protest, presumably encouraged by their political masters. Federal and NSW police have again failed in their duty by seeking to guess the reasons behind a plethora of subsequent acts without knowing the full facts.