Synagogue firebombing probed as terrorist incident

Standing with Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw, federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and ASIO director-general Mike Burgess, Anthony Albanese announced the arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue at Ripponlea in Melbourne, one of the nation’s busiest synagogues, would be investigated as a terrorist incident. Had the Prime Minister and the government shown greater urgency last Friday after the attack occurred early in the morning, the announcement could have been made then. It is worth wondering if the incident would have been treated as terrorism had Josh Frydenberg not pushed the point so strongly on behalf of his people.

The AFP had established a special taskforce, Operation Avalite, to investigate incidents of anti-Semitism, Mr Albanese said. Such a body was also called for by Mr Frydenberg and other Jewish leaders. Its creation follows the synagogue firebombing, the attack on Macnamara MP Josh Burns’ office and a car being set on fire in Sydney. It is the right action, a sign that anti-Semitism is being taken seriously at last, as it must. The taskforce will be assisted by ASIO and work with state and territory police. Victoria Police Chief commissioner Shane Patton revealed on Monday that three arsonists were believed to be involved in the attack.

State police need to lift their game. In Sydney, it beggars belief that a man waving an Israeli flag was given an infringement notice at a pro-Palestine protest outside the Great Synagogue last week. It was almost a carbon copy of what happened before the Sydney Opera House protest in 2023.

Better late than never, Mr Albanese will visit the Adass Israel Synagogue this week. To his embarrassment, a photograph has surfaced of him playing tennis in Perth on Saturday afternoon when he was on the wrong side of the country during a trip to the west to open a new train line. Persisting with the trip was a bad error of judgment by Mr Albanese, who promised before the 2022 election that he would “always turn up when the going gets tough”. His visit to Perth came after widespread criticism, including from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for changing Australia’s voting pattern at the UN to support a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas and premature moves towards a Palestinian state and allowing anti-Semitism to run largely unchecked since October 7, 2023.

That impression was compounded on Monday by Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who said on ABC radio that it was “wrong for anybody to say anti-Semitism has no role to play in Australia and Islamophobia has no role to play in Australia”. One of the problems of authorities’ approach during the past 14 months has been drawing false equivalence between anti-Semitism, which has grown alarmingly, and Islamophobia, which has rarely shown its head. “I’m saying that they both exist and they both can be called out without diminishing one or the other,” Mr Bowen said. “The Prime Minister has brought leadership to this matter, he’s tried to provide a moment of national unity. Peter Dutton brought politics, pointscoring and a disgusting low-rent approach to this matter.” The latter is patently unfair.

The Opposition Leader, who also had promised to establish a national anti-Semitism taskforce led by the AFP, ASIO and other law enforcement and intelligence bodies, visited the Adass Israel Synagogue on Monday. It is encouraging that the government and the opposition are now largely in agreement on handling the issue, although the Coalition also would ensure that immigrant visa-holders involved in acts of anti-Semitism would face “immediate cancellation and deportation”. As Mr Dutton said at Ripponlea: “How do you explain to a seven or eight-year-old Jewish child that the place of worship is ­attacked in this way? How do you explain to them that there are armed guards at their school protecting them from a similar attack?” Joining forces to fight evil matters.