Chilling threat sent to Australia’s peak Jewish body: ‘We are coming for you’
The image of an IS terrorist about to behead a hostage was sent to Jewish organisations, just one example of a nationwide surge in death threats, abuse and incitement to violence against Jewish Australians.
The image of an Islamic State terrorist with a knife in his hand about to behead a hostage in Syria was sent to Australia’s peak Jewish body with the words “We are coming for you soon, from western Sydney”.
The nation’s peak Jewish body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies received the image via direct message on Instagram on October 12, less than a week after Hamas terrorists slaughtered 1200 Israeli citizens in southern Israel.
NSW Police investigated the incident and on November 1, a 33-year-old man from the southern Sydney suburb of Wolli Creek was arrested.
A NSW Police spokesperson said the man was charged with behaving in an offensive manner in a public place, using a carriage service to threaten to kill and three counts of using a carriage service to menace and offend. He was refused bail and was remanded in custody to appear in court on January 10.
The shocking incident is just one of a nationwide surge in death threats, abuse on the streets and incitement to violence against Jewish Australians that accelerated across the country over the weekend.
In the Jewish Melbourne suburb of Caulfield, where Palestinian demonstrators attacked pro-Israel supporters on Friday, two young Jewish men were assaulted by a group of men of Middle Eastern appearance just after midnight on Saturday who told the victims they had come to Caulfield because of the “protests”.
In the NSW city of Newcastle, the home of a Jewish Rabbi was defaced with graffiti urging people to “Kill the Jews this morning” while in Sydney’s Surry Hills the Shaffa restaurant was subjected to a graffiti attack with “child murder” written on its walls.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Melbourne’s CBD on Sunday, calling for Israel to stop its attacks in Gaza, but the rally also included anti-Semitic signs.
One included a depiction of a man throwing the Jewish Star of David into a bin with “Let’s clean the world from Rubbish”, while another compared Gaza with the Auschwitz concentration camp where more than a million Jews were murdered.
Another sign said: “Gaza = Gas Chamber.”
“Enough is enough,” David Ossip, president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, told The Australian.
“The Jewish community is experiencing levels of anti-Semitism we never previously thought possible. All people of goodwill need to join with the Jewish community to draw a line in the sand and say clearly and without equivocation – no more.”
In Caulfield three 22-year-old Jewish men were driving home just after midnight on Saturday when they encountered about 10 men of “Middle Eastern appearance” near the Caulfield Town Hall.
The Jewish men stopped at a house nearby to drop their friend home when their parked car was blocked by two cars carrying the group of men.
When one of the Jewish men asked what the group were doing in Caulfield, they told them they were here “for the protests” and demanded that they hand over their phones to check if they had taken photographs of them.
Two of the three Jewish men were then punched in the face by the group, before they the group jumped back into their cars and fled the scene.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this ugly and violent attack on these young Jewish individuals, and our thoughts are with the victims,” said Dvir Abramovich, Chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission, a civil rights organisation fighting anti-Semitism.
“No one should ever be targeted and singled out for violence, and if police determine that this assault, which is shocking on many levels, was driven by anti-Semitism and anti-Israel motivations, it should be treated as a hate-crime.”
“It is a sad day when Jewish people in Melbourne do not feel that they can safely drive or walk the streets of their neighbourhoods, and this incident will have an impact far beyond the victims as it will resonate throughout the community and will affect the sense of personal safety of many.”
The number of anti-Semitic incidents in Australia has reached the highest level ever recorded in the wake of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israelis and Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas in Gaza, which has also killed as many as 11,000 civilians.
On Friday in Caulfield, the Jewish heart of Melbourne, street violence erupted after Palestinian groups chose to hold a demonstration there, near a synagogue.
Tempers flared as pro-Palestinian protesters chanted anti-Israeli slogans, forcing the evacuation of the synagogue.
Several pro-Palestinians protesters broke through police lines to attack the pro-Israeli supporters, forcing police to use pepper spray on them.
One pro-Palestinian protester was arrested.
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