Australian law enforcement is investigating if foreign actors are funding local criminals to commit the wave of antisemitic arson and vandalism attacks in the country, according to Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The police commissioner said in a Tuesday statement on escalating antisemitic incidents in Australia that his force was “looking into whether overseas actors or individuals have paid local criminals in Australia to carry out some of these crimes in our suburbs.”
At a Wednesday press briefing, the prime minister said the AFP had informed him that it would appear that some of the antisemitic attacks were being committed by perpetrators that lacked ideological motivation but may be “paid actors.”
“It is important that people understand where some of these attacks are coming from,” said Albanese.
It is unclear where these payments are coming from, he added. Kershaw said on Tuesday that the AFP is exploring if agents were being funded through cryptocurrency, which he noted could take longer to identify.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported Wednesday that court documents revealed that co-conspirators in the October 17 arson of the Curly Lewis Brewing Co in Bondi discussed payment from a man code-named “James Bond.”
“Use (sic) f***ed the whole thing… couldn’t do it from the start. Got a message from James – reckons there is no damage,” one message read according to ABC. “I’m starting to think he sent us to the wrong place.”
The nearby kosher cafe, Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, was set on fire three days later. According to New South Wales Police, four people have been arrested in connection with the suspicious Bondi fires, two of them last Tuesday.
Following the Monday arson and vandalization of a Sydney area kindergarten with antisemitic graffiti, NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Peter Thurtell said that law enforcement was investigating if the spate of antisemitic incidents in the state were connected.
Australia was cooperating with intelligence agencies from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand to explore the possibility of foreign hands influencing the attacks, said Kershaw and Albanese.
Australian law enforcement was also examining the role that online radicalism may have had in influencing younger perpetrators of antisemitic crimes.
The AFP commissioner emphasized, however, that “Intelligence is not the same as evidence.”
OPPOSITION LEADER Peter Dutton, at a Wednesday press briefing, demanded to know why this foreign factor had never been mentioned before by Albanese and at what point the prime minister became aware of the issue.
“It just shines a spotlight on the fact that the Commonwealth Government should have deployed resources much earlier to what is a rolling series of terrorist incidents in our country and to [not] treat them as just a willful damage attack on a car or as a graffiti event,” said Dutton.
“It’s an attack on people because of their religious belief, because of their heritage, and I think the prime minister should provide what information he can publicly.”
The opposition head reiterated his previous calls to recognize incidents like the Monday night arson of the Only About Children Maroubra child care center and last Saturday’s attempted arson of the Newtown synagogue as terrorism.
The Liberal Party leader stood by his Monday platform to introduce a mandatory six-year prison term for terrorism and to introduce legislation creating harsher sentencing for threats of violence against houses of worship.
Australian Jewish Association CEO Robert Gregory also called for the prime minister to release more information about overseas actors and their involvement in the spate of antisemitic incidents, which the previous week saw Sydney’s Southern Synagogue vandalized the day before the Newtown synagogue was attacked.
Gregory suggested in his Wednesday statement that the Iranian Islamic regime may be responsible for the attacks, contending that “Many of the attacks in Australia bear the hallmarks of similar incidents that have been exposed internationally to have involved the intelligence services of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Dutton criticized the ruling Labor government for the rise in antisemitism, saying Albanese had 15 months to address the escalation in Jew-hatred, including a “700% increase in the incidences of online doxxing [and] of attacks on people of Jewish faith.”
The prime minister had rejected calls to convene a national cabinet meeting on the antisemitism crisis only a day before he held one on Tuesday, the opposition leader added.
Escalation of antisemitism in country
Albanese dismissed criticism, arguing that his government had been acting against antisemitic incidents since they began. He noted that on Tuesday, they had announced a national antisemitism database, outlawed Nazi and hate symbols, and provided millions of dollars in funding to increase synagogue security.
Kershaw said on Tuesday that the AFP was investigating 15 serious antisemitism allegations.
“There is no doubt there is an escalation of antisemitism in Australia. We know this is changing the movements and behavior of a community that is in fear,” he said. “Antisemitism is a disease in our community, and it needs to be aggressively attacked because history shows what happens when action is not taken against those who fuel fear and terrorize others.”