by Geoff Vasil
Pro-Hamas activists staged coordinated terror attacks on Jews in Australia’s second city Melbourne on Friday evening, July 4.
Police and fire were called to the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation shul where around 20 members of the community were at Sabbath table under the direction of Rabbi Dovid Gutnik. A boy in the outer vestibule alerted celebrants the outer double doors were on fire. The fire was contained before it could spread beyond the doors. Fire inspectors quickly determined an accelerant had been used to light the blaze. Victoria State Police anti-terrorism officials used public surveillance cameras to track down the perpetrator, 34-year-old Angelo Lorez from western Sydney, and he was arrested that night in the Melbourne Central Business District. During the arrest police dsicovered he was armed with a banned weapon, but police didn’t report whether that was a gun or a knife. He is being held for two weeks prior to an initial hearing.
Almost simultaneously a group of around 20 people wearing hoods, masks and Palestinian scarves marched through Melborne’s core, the Central Business District or CBD, banging drums, waving signs and chanting “Death, death, death to the IDF.”
That was the phrase popularized just prior by the rap group Bob Vylan live on BBC at the Glastonbury festival in the United Kingdom. That live-stream caused offense around the world with calls for greater censorship inside the UK, but also caused consternation among Glastonbury fans past and present who felt the festival was supposed to be one of love, not hate.
In the Melbourne CBD the 20 or so masked Hamas supporters walked as a group into the narrow and small dining room of the Miznon Israeli/Mediterranean restaurant and began attacking diners physically. They overturned tables laden with food in front of diners, threw food and chairs at the large glass panes affording a view of Hardware Lane outside, scream at diners and continued to bang drums, again disrupting Sabbath meals. The diners quickly fled en masse and restaurant staff attempted to evict the Hamas detachment. They fought back and the scuffle continued inside until local police arrived and kicked them out. The restaurant suffered considerable damage to the interior, furniture, dishes and \windows.
The Melbourne CBD has been taken over by roving Hamas thugs on a weekly basis for months now according to Australian media. Recently they’ve begun spray-painting businesses with a Nazi black sun stencil instead of swastikas. Media commentators have said they did so in order to avoid fines associated with swastika graffiti, although presumably any sort of vandalism is illegal. On the Iranian Shi’ite holiday Ashura last week locals said over 10,000 people dressed from head to toe in black assembled right outside the main Catholic church in central Melbourne to hold their resistance services. The Hamas supporters continued their march on the weekend following their attack on Miznon and the East Melbourne synagogue undeterred. A counter “counter-terrorism” protest was held by Jews, Indians and Iranians at the same time.
Police also linked tentatively a series of automobile arsons in Melbourne to the terror attacks. Apparently Jewish-owned cars were firebombed again. Another synagogue in Melbourne was firebombed earlier in the year and “Jewish” cars were attacked in a Jewish neighborhood in Sydney last year as well, and there was an attampted arson at a Sydney synagogue with people inside.That fire caused massive damage. The Hamas supporters also set a kindergarten nexto to a synagogue alight last year, causing massive destruction to the day-care facility.
Just after the most recent coordinated terrorist attacks, the Australian prime minister’s special commission for battling anti-Semitism released a set of 9 recommendations. This seems to be the second iteration of that commission and recommendations since the violent upsurge in anti-Semitic violence beginning in Sydney on October 9, 2023, before Israel invaded Gaza. That’s when pro-Hamas protestors stormed the steps of the Sydney Opera House and chanted “Gas the Jews.” One man was arrested then for unfulring an Israeli flag in counter-protest.
Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese greeted the publication of the latest commission’s latest recommendations non-commitally, saying some were good, some needed more time, others were problems. Albanese has consistently refused to take a stand against the acceleration of anti-Semitism in Australia since October 7. When he does talk about it, he says things sych as “Anti-Semitism has no place in Australia,” and qualifies that by cautioning against the twin evil of “Islamophobia.”
Two schools of thought exist on Albanese’s anti-Israeli policies to date, with some overlap. He and his foreign minister Penny Wong come from the New Left of the 1980s and have a knee-jerk reaction in support of Palestinians and against the state of Israel. That’s apparent in their policies to date to recognize a Palestinian state, to offer easy visas to any Gazans who might want to come, to make visas difficult for Israeli nationals and to ban Israeli speakers from entering Australia, including a former Israeli government minister.
That’s one side of it. The other is the idea Australian Labor is courting cynically the Muslim vote in Australia. Australia has a large Lebanese population but also large groups of Muslim from other countries and now a native population of Australian Muslims.
Albanese’s foot-dragging on fighting anti-Semitism hasn’t gone completely unnoticed by the world at large. While last weeks coordinated terror attacks on Melbourne’s Jews was eclipsed by other events in the global media and only really got play in the Australian and Israeli media markets, another character spoke out against the lack of action by Australia to protest their Jewish population. (Truth to tell, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu again condemned the violence against Jews in Australia and decried the lack of action by the Albanese government.)
The somewhat controversial but undeniably active and influential rabbi of New Jersey, Rabbi Jacob “Holy Shmuley” Shmuel Boteach, went on the warpath against Anthony Albanese last week, telling Australian national media Albanese should be declared persona non grata and denied entry to the United States for failing to protest Australia’s Jews.
Both Shmuley and Netanyahu’s statements probably fell on deaf ears in the Albanese regierung which recently won another 5 years in national elections which were very suspect given public opinion polling leading up to the vote, but Shmuley might have struck a nerve.
The Albanese shutva has been absolutely desperate to open a channel of communication with US president Donald Trump since his election victory, and especially following Trump’s announcement of unilateral tariff levies against Australia, which claims America has a surplus in trade with the island continent-nation.
At the same time Albanese wants to appear as if he personally doesn’t care for Trump’s company, in typical New Left fashion.
The problem began before Trump’s reelection. Australian ambassador to the US former Labor PM Kevin Rudd issued a slew of personal insults against Trump on Rudd’s social media and at speaking engagements, including calling Trump “the village idiot” and “a traitor to the West.” Oops. Not a good look for an ambassador. But Rudd never deleted his own social media posts including these and other insults.
Since Trump won, the A;banese gang has gone to great pains to show they haven’t been locked out of the White House. They said, we were invited to the inauguration, and almost no one was. Penny Wong was invited as part of the Group of Four, Trump paying lip service the nascent defense alliance of the US, Japan, India and Australia announced earlier. At press conference Albanaese was asked why Trump hasn’t called him; Albo said Trump had, three times. Most recently still desperate to show they haven’t been declared personae non gratae by Australia’s only defense guarantor the United States, Albanese and co. leaked a “secret meeting” Rudd had with Trump just before the inauguration. Apparently Rudd got into the Trump International Golf Resort at Mar-a-Lago and accosted Trump in the dining room there, speaking for less than three minutes. Australian media were kind to characterize the “secret meeting” as actually just a brief meet-and-greet, and speculated Rudd simply introduced himself and left.
Albanese is now trying to play hard-to-get, hoping to spark America’s interest. During his current questionable term he has already visited Beijing once and now he’s planning a six-day extravaganza in the Communist Chinese capital. That will make four state visits to China in the last two Albanese administrations and zero to Washington. Apologists say Albo’s balancing a contradiction with the China trips, with China as Australia’s main military adversary but also Australia’s main trading partner.
Or maybe China simply answers the phone when Albo calls. He doesn’t have the pull to get Trump on speaker phone. It’s not like Trump’s special regard for all things British, where with a wink and a nod King Charles can get Trump to sacrifice all of his political capital in an instant in order to allow prine Andrew off the hook by burying the Jeffrey Epstein case and co-conspirators, just in time for Trump’s visit to England and Scotland announced this week. Andrew can relax his overheated sweat glands knowing he doesn’t face arrest on an FBI warrant if he travels abroad. That’s not hyperbole, the FBI sent him notice they no longer want to interrogate him, thank you very much.
Albo has nothing like that amount of influence and the current Australian policy seems to be cruise control, just let things happen and hope for the best, riding on the laurels of the past Australian-American relationship and hoping it’s still in place. Albo better hope America doesn’t take a closer look at his anti-Israeli pro-Palestine politics and total lack of understanding on the state of anti-Semitism in Australia now. And he should hope Rudd’s insults don’t get too much attention.
The problem is, it would be difficult for Albo to recall Rudd as ambassador to the US. Kevvy was a prime minister who refused to go quietly into the night. The sworn life-long enemy of Rupert Murdoch, Rudd wouldn’t stop interfering in Australian politics in retirement. They had to put him out to pasture in America just to get rid of him and protect themselves from his constant berating and belittling. Leaving Australia “Rudd-erless” is literally and figuratively the main thrust of Albo’s AU, ANZAS, AUKUS, Group of Four and Five Eyes policies. Progressives become reactionaries, the New Left cannot hold, and a new sloucher shambles towards Jerusalem, or Heaven’s Gate hid in Glastonbury Tur’s wall.
The opinions and views expressed here are solely those of the author..