A Sydney area Jewish day school, home, and shopping center were some of the targets in a wave of antisemitic graffiti over Wednesday night, coming on the heels of the foiling of a potential major anti-Jewish terrorist attack and representing the continuation of a spate of antisemitic arson and vandalism incidents in New South Wales.
Three Sydney suburbs, Maroubra, Eastgardens, and Eastlakes, were graffitied in three separate attacks, NSW Police Force Commissioner Karen Webb said Thursday in a joint press conference with NSW Premier Chris Minns and NSW Police Force Deputy Police Commissioner David Hudson.
Photographs published by the Australian Jewish Association on social media showed graffiti, including phrases such as “Jew dogs” and “Jews are the real terrorists.”The Maroubra Mount Sinai College, a Jewish day school for kindergarten to grade six students and a nearby home were vandalized with antisemitic slogans, according to social media posts by NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley and MP Matt Thistlewaite.
Minns said that the perpetrators were “appalling bastards” for attacking a school on one of the first days of school. The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies said in a Thursday statement that it was “grotesque” that “children will be forced to walk past this repellent hate speech as they make their way back to school.”Daley noted that the incident occurred in the same area where a non-Jewish childcare center near a synagogue was firebombed and graffitied last Monday.Police confirmed that there was antisemitic graffiti found in the Eastgardens area, which AJA on X/Twitter identified as being on a shopping center.Another antisemitic graffiti incident in Eastlakes is under investigation by the South Sydney Police Area Command.
Recent escalation of antisemitism
Minns said that there had been an escalation in anti-Jewish activity in the state in recent weeks, where in the Sydney area alone, there were two cars set on fire and other graffitied in Dover Heights on January 17, the attempted arson of the Newtown synagogue on January 11, and the vandalization of the Southern Sydney Synagogue on January 10.
“There are some terrible people in our community – I’m ashamed to say it, but that’s the truth,” Minns said during the Thursday briefing but emphasized that most Australians were against such actions. “The people of NSW are appalled by this behavior.”
THE NSW JEWISH Board said that the graffiti was part of a terror campaign designed to “intimidate, harass, and menace” the Jewish community, which it declared would stand strong against.AJA CEO Robert Gregory, in a Thursday statement, attacked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government as “amateurish on national security,” noting that the vandalism wave occurred within 12 hours of the revelation of an alleged major terrorist plot.On Wednesday, Australian law enforcement announced that north of Sydney, it had discovered a caravan filled with explosives and indications it was set to be used against Jewish targets.One of the photographs of the Wednesday night graffiti published on social media by AJA referenced the foiled alleged attack, asking, “You wanna buy a caravan?”According to Hudson, the registered owner of the explosive-filled caravan found last Sunday on a rural residential property during a search of the area had been arrested in early January for offenses under Strike Force Pearl, a NSW Police task force established in December to address antisemitic crimes in the greater Sydney area. The NSW police are continuing their investigation before charging the individual, according to Webb, and taking their time because the immediate threat has been averted.“The owner is out of play and in custody,” said Webb.It is unclear how many arrests have been made related to the plot, in which a note was reportedly found listing Australian Jewish targets. Hudson said in a Wednesday briefing that arrests had been made on the “periphery” of the case.Hudson expanded on his Wednesday statements, suggesting that the planned attack was connected to a spate of antisemitic arson and vandalism incidents that had afflicted the greater Sydney area in recent weeks. Arrested perpetrators in such incidents did not have identifiable ideological motivation, which lent to the investigator’s theory that the attacks were being orchestrated by some other actors.“We believe some of them are being orchestrated by others, not the individuals,” said Hudson. He noted that there were “links between certain jobs” of the perpetrators but declined to elaborate further to protect the integrity of the investigations.The Australian Federal Police and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said last week that investigators were examining if foreign actors were funding local criminals to commit antisemitic acts in the country. Hudson said Wednesday that he would not speculate about the matter.The caravan case had not been declared a terrorist event, according to Webb, because such a move would be made if law enforcement required more resources. She said it had no impact on potential terrorism charges for involved suspects.Webb said Thursday that while explosives were found in the caravan, there was no detonator. Hudson said that the Powergel explosives, which they believed to have been stolen from a mining site, were almost exclusively used in mining. Police are liaising with the manufacturers.Hudson and Webb expressed frustration with the media, saying that news reports had compromised their investigation. Webb defended the decision to conceal information for ten days after the caravan’s discovery explaining that it was necessary for investigation.“There is a time and a place that we need to inform the community when there is a risk to public safety,” said Webb. “We believe that we mitigated the public risk, but we need to get on with the investigation.”Minns backed Webb and Hudson, saying that officers had not been idle for the last ten days and had faithfully and reliably defended the public from terrorism for decades. The premier promised that the government was committed to releasing as much information as possible unless it compromised the investigation.“If the police believe that covert means are the best way of locking up people responsible for these actions, that’s what’s going to happen,” said Minns.