Australia saw a series of anti-Semitic incidents last year, including graffiti on buildings and cars.
A Sydney synagogue has been covered in anti-Semitic graffiti, police said, a day after anti-Semitic vandalism of another synagogue in the New South Wales state capital.
Police officials say vandals spray-painted red swastikas outside the entrance to a city center synagogue early Saturday, while a house in Sydney’s affluent east was daubed with anti-Jewish insults.
The incident comes a day after an attack on the south Sydney synagogue in the suburb of Allawah in the early hours of Friday morning. A special police task force was set up to investigate the incident later on Friday.
“(There is) no place in Australia, our tolerant multicultural community, for this kind of criminal activity,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday, referring to the incident at the southern Sydney synagogue. .
“These people are determined to divide our community in two,” added state Premier Chris Minns.
“We will always call these acts for what they are: monstrous and appalling. »
Australia has seen a series of anti-Semitic incidents last year, including graffiti on buildings and cars in Sydney, as well as an arson attack at a Melbourne synagogue that police described as “terrorism.”
The December attack on the Melbourne synagogue prompted the government to create a federal task force targeting anti-Semitism.
Anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents in the country have increased since Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023 and Israel launched its war on Gaza.
Some Jewish organizations said the government had not taken enough action in response.
These incidents have also strained relations between Australia and Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Albanese’s Labor government of encouraging such attacks through “anti-Israel” policies.
“Unfortunately, this criminal act cannot be separated from the anti-Israel spirit sweeping the Labor government in Australia,” Netanyahu wrote on X in December, referring to the arson of a synagogue.
Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, who is Jewish, said Netanyahu was “absolutely wrong” to link the attack to government policy.
“Australia remains a close friend of Israel, as we have been since the Labor government recognized the State of Israel when it was established by the United Nations,” Dreyfus told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the national channel last month.
“Now that remains the case.”
