Whose terrorists? | Blogotariat

There has been a spate of vandalism and arson of synagogues, cars, a child-care centre, and sundry other sites in the last year or so. Politicians have labelled these attacks as antisemitic and at least some of them may be politically motivated, while the motivation of others is not so clear.

Two teenagers were charged over the alleged vandalism of a federal Labor MP, Josh Burns’ St Kilda office. Windows were smashed or covered in painted slogans including “Zionism is fascism” at the electoral office of the Josh Burns in St Kilda, in June 20241. That is clearly politically motivated in that the painted slogan is general accepted as being very close to reality, given what is happening in Gaza.

A man was charged with allegedly defacing a number of properties with antisemitic graffiti in Sydney’s southern and eastern suburbs. A Jewish primary school in Maroubra, a nearby home, a shopping centre in Eastgardens and a home in Eastlakes were all sprayed with antisemitic phrases on January 30, 2025. As part of the investigation, a 41-year-old was arrested on Thursday in Eastlakes, and was allegedly in possession of prohibited drugs. He was charged with a range of property damage, driving and drug offences at Mascot Police Station2.

A 20-year-old man was arrested in the Melbourne suburb of Williamstown in July this year, in relation to allegedly having stolen a VW Golf sedan used in the arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue of Melbourne last year. The attack took place at around 4 am on the 6th of December 2024 in the suburb of Ripponlea. CCTV footage, showed three young men wearing hoodies pull up in the VW, take an axe to the front entrance and then pour jerry cans of petrol into the building prior to setting it ablaze3.

The Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team were stumped as to who ordered the arson attack and why, as their inquiries have only led to minor suspects being identified, and who have no political affiliations nor ideological beliefs suggesting they were motivated by antisemitism. The similarities between the reported outcomes of the Adass Israel Synagogue investigation and the snippets that were disseminated around inquiries into a series of so-called antisemitic incidents that occurred across Sydney last summer are stark, as they both involved unknown architects directing criminals-for-hire to commit acts to convey rising antisemitism in the community3.

The introduction of the communal crime car into the Adass Israel synagogue arson attack tends to cast doubt on the motivation behind it, as the VW Golf was also used in a shooting incident in the northeastern Melbourne suburb of Bundoora on the same night, and it was used in the commission of an arson attack on South Yarra’s Lux nightclub around the same time3.

A childcare centre was set alight and anti-Semitic graffiti written on the walls in Sydney’s south-east in January 2025. The Storey Street building at Maroubra was set alight just before 1am on Tuesday4.

A woman has been charged over her alleged involvement in malicious damage after anti-Israel graffiti was spray-painted on properties in Woollahra, in Sydney’s east last December. Two vehicles (including one which had been set alight), the fence between two homes and a footpath had graffitied with “Kill Israiel” [sic] and other offensive slogans at the scene. Police estimated the total value of damage was about $20,000. Police arrested a 34-year-old woman at a home in Liverpool in Sydney’s south-west5. The inability to spell ‘Israel’ immediately makes me suspicious that the person concerned was not politically motivated, as that would likely entail an understanding of what was going on in Gaza, and a fair bit of reading.

A 34-year-old man from New South Wales has appeared in court, charged over allegedly entering the grounds of the East Melbourne Hebrew congregation on Albert Street at about 8pm on Friday, July 4th, pouring a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and setting it alight6.

A synagogue in southern Sydney has been vandalised with several swastikas spray-painted onto exterior walls in what NSW Police have described as “offensive” graffiti.

Police are investigating the incident at the Allawah synagogue and said it likely happened in the early hours of Friday morning. In red paint next to one of the swastikas was the bizarre, incomprehensible message “HITLER ON TOP ALLAH…”7. Again, this makes me suspicious that the motivation was not the genocide in Gaza.

The discovery in Dural, just outside Sydney, of a caravan packed with explosives earlier this year led to concerns about a possible planned terrorism attack, and a fierce political debate about the federal government’s response to antisemitism. Inside the caravan was a list of Jewish sites around Sydney8.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said the caravan was “never going to cause a mass casualty event” and was a “fake terrorism plot” and was allegedly orchestrated by organised criminals for personal gain. The AFP’s deputy commissioner, Krissy Barrett, said “Almost immediately, experienced investigators within the joint counter-terrorism team believed that the caravan was part of a fabricated terrorist plot, essentially a … con job. … This was because [of] … how easily the caravan was found and how visible the explosives were in the caravan. Also, there was no detonator”8.

Barrett said there were “several people” with different levels of involvement in the fake terrorism plot. She continued: “Put simply, the plan was the following: organise for someone to buy a caravan, place it with explosives and written material of antisemitic nature, leave it in a specific location and then, once that happened, inform law enforcement about an impending terror attack against Jewish Australians. … We believe the person pulling the strings wanted changes to their criminal status but maintained a distance from their scheme and allegedly hired locals to carry out parts of their plan”8.

The New South Wales police deputy commissioner, David Hudson, alleged the “caravan job” was conducted “by the same individual or individuals” who orchestrated other antisemitic graffiti and arson attacks across Sydney. The suggested motivation was to create plots that incarcerated criminals could use to tip off law enforcement in order to reduce their sentences. “None of those arrested to date over alleged antisemitic attacks in Sydney had displayed any antisemitic ideology” Hudson said8.

A Queensland man has been arrested for allegedly helping to smuggle a key suspect in the caravan hoax out of the country. Sayet Erhan Akca, who is in hiding in Turkey, is a high-level suspect for the explosives-laden caravan job and a spate of other antisemitic attacks across Sydney. He fled the country while awaiting trial for drug importation charges in 2023. Federal police on Thursday arrested and charged a man from Bargara, near Bundaberg, with supplying material to support a member of a criminal organisation and one count of people smuggling. It is alleged that 57-year-old Sean Eamon Ryan and another man crewed a boat that picked up Akca in a transfer at sea, off the coast of far north Queensland in September 20239.

Akca, revealed to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners, that he was involved in sourcing a caravan full of explosives, but denied he was the mastermind behind a spree of antisemitic attacks and insisted he was helping authorities get explosives off the street10.

While some of these attacks are clearly politically motivated (especially the attack on the politician’s office), the police believe that many of these attacks are being orchestrated by organised crime for their benefit. While the suggestion that the explosive-laden caravan could be a plot to help criminals gain some sort of downgrade to their prison sentences, or the charges against them, setting fire to or vandalising Jewish sites does not seem to have the same logic behind it, so it seems unlikely that criminals could benefit from it, except to increase the community fear around the caravan.

If it is not criminals benefiting, who could it be? Could it be the Zionists who want to create a perceived atmosphere of increased antisemitism? Could it be to cow the government into appointing a Zionist, Jillian Segal, as Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, and giving her further power. She provided a report which conflated anizionism with antisemitism, and suggested that the government should allow her to monitor universities, cultural organisations and the media such that all public funding agreements with cultural institutions or festivals should allow “for the efficient termination of funding where the institution or festival promotes, facilitates or does not deal effectively with hate or antisemitism”. This, of course, would be in accordance with her definition of antisemitism, which includes criticism of Israel. She also wants to oversee the provision of visas, and to have judicial inquiries into student activities11.

It was only after an outcry subsequent to Segal’s appointment, that the government realised they had been had, so they appointed a Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia12, which is much more common in the Australian population, due to the efforts of the Liberal and National parties and the Murdoch media.

It would be very interesting to see who the ultimate person pulling the strings on several of these so-called antisemitic attacks by people who have no political profile and are, in several cases, simply common garden-variety criminals. Will we ever find out? I doubt it, because so many pro-Israel lobby groups donate money to politicians, and to find out it was some crowd like Advance (in part funded by Segal’s husband) or some other pro-Israel lobby group, would be very embarrassing for the government. Remember it was organisations supporting Tim Wilson in the electorate of Goldstein who used slurs of antisemitism against Zoe Daniel’s supporters in Goldstein at the most recent federal election11.

One can only assume that the manufactured antisemitism is designed to keep the pressure on the government to accede to Jillian Segal’s demands to monitor universities, cultural organisations, and the media, to the extent of cutting their funding if anyone in them dares to speak out against the genocide being perpetrated on Palestinians by Israel.

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