This notes the reported goings on from a day or so ago in Melbourne:
Netanyahu demands action over ‘antisemitic hate crimes’ in Melbourne
Ronald Mizen Political correspondent
Jul 6, 2025 – 1.08pm
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has labelled a spate of attacks in Melbourne over the weekend antisemitic hate crimes and urged authorities to pursue those responsible to the fullest extent of the law.
After an arson attack on an East Melbourne synagogue and protests inside an Israeli restaurant on Friday night, and vandalism of the offices of a military-linked engineering firm early on Saturday morning, Netanyahu took to social media to demand action.
“The reprehensible antisemitic attacks, with calls of ‘death to the IDF’ and an attempt to attack a place of worship, are severe hate crimes that must be uprooted,” he said in a statement posted to social media.
Writing in The Australian Financial Review on Sunday, Jewish community spokesman Paul Rubenstein said such attacks were no longer shocking Australians and were “increasingly seen as part of the landscape – tragic, yes, but somehow expected”.
The NSW chairman of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council said that “should terrify us all”.
“By failing to grasp the seriousness of what is unfolding, Australia’s political and civic leaders have left the Jewish community standing alone. This abdication of responsibility has sown deep moral confusion. It has set us on a perilous path – one history warns us never ends well,” Rubenstein said.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke declined to be drawn into a political spat, instead calling for unity. He echoed Rubenstein’s sentiment that what starts with words, “rarely ends with words”.
Burke labelled the arson attack on the synagogue in Melbourne’s east an “attack on all Australians” and sent a clear message to Australia’s Jewish community.
“You belong in Australia, you are welcome in Australia, and the Australian government has come here immediately to stand in solidarity with you,” he said after a visit to the synagogue on Sunday morning.
The Coalition demanded Prime Minister Anthony Albanese convene a meeting of the national cabinet to address the issue “with urgency”.
“There’s a number of things the government could be doing, yet we’re sitting here today discussing a horrible attack,” Coalition frontbencher Melissa McIntosh told the ABCs Insiders program.
Firefighters swiftly responded to the arson attack in which the door of the building was set alight while worshippers were inside. A NSW man has been charged following the incident.
Detectives from Victoria Police allege the 34-year-old man was seen walking through Parliament Gardens before entering the grounds of the synagogue on Albert Street at about 8pm.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene on foot in a westerly direction along Albert Street,” police said.
“There were approximately 20 people inside the synagogue at the time of the incident, taking part in Shabbat.”
Police confirmed everyone evacuated from the rear of the building and no one was injured. The man from Toongabbie, in western Sydney, was arrested in the Melbourne CBD on Saturday at about 8.15pm.
“He was interviewed by detectives and charged with reckless conduct endanger life, reckless conduct endanger serious injury, criminal damage by fire, and possess a controlled weapon,” police said.
He was due to appear in the bail and remand court on Sunday.
Under pressure to guarantee such attacks never occur again, Burke said part of the reason for the swift arrest was because of investments in CCTV under funding grants from the Albanese government.
“In terms of additional security measures, that was largely led by Mark Dreyfus [in the last parliament and] has been part of the story of this offender being captured so quickly,” he told reporters.
“People should be safe wherever they go in Australia, and the Australian dream, of this country, is [that] no matter where you come from in the world, no matter what your heritage is, we stand together, we welcome each other, and we do not import hatred and violence from overseas to life in Australia.”
Also on Friday night, police responded to a group of about 20 people, some masked and wearing Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, entering the CBD Israeli restaurant Miznon. Video footage from the Miznon incident shows diners screaming in fear inside the Hardware Lane restaurant.
Here is the link:
There is commentary here also:
Opinion
Tragic shift on antisemitism should terrify us all
If we cannot defend the safety and dignity of Jews in Australia today, we will not be able to defend the idea of a tolerant, inclusive, multicultural Australia tomorrow.
Paul Rubenstein Community leader
Jul 6, 2025 – 11.20am
When a synagogue is set on fire in East Melbourne, when diners at an Israeli-owned restaurant are violently assaulted by antisemitic thugs, the response should be national outrage. These are the kinds of attacks that ought to shake a country to its core.
But they don’t. Not any more.
Because these attacks are no longer treated as aberrations. They are increasingly seen as part of the landscape – tragic, yes, but somehow expected. And that shift should terrify us all.
The scorched door of the East Melbourne Synagogue after an anti-Israel protester set it alight on Friday evening. Christopher Hopkins
Since October 7, 2023, Australia’s Jewish community has felt the ground shift beneath it. What once felt solid – our place in a tolerant, multicultural democracy – has been profoundly undermined. We hear the standard declarations that antisemitism has “no place” in Australia. But in practice, it has found one. It is growing stronger, louder, and more brazen by the day.
This is no longer just a campaign of intimidation against Jews. It is part of a broader assault on tolerance itself. The public space has become fertile ground for dangerous and false narratives: that Israel is colonialist, racist and genocidal. These are not simply criticisms of a nation-state – they form a grand, dehumanising accusation: that Israel, and by extension Jews, are inherently evil.
This rhetoric is not abstract. When protesters chant “Globalise the intifada”, they are not calling for peaceful reform – they are calling for violent revolution.
When crowds shout “Death to the IDF”, they are not voicing foreign policy concerns. They are issuing a threat: that Jews have no right to self-defence and should face mass slaughter at the hands of those who proudly call for it.
This is not free speech. It is incitement. And it is being tolerated.
By failing to grasp the seriousness of what is unfolding, Australia’s political and civic leaders have left the Jewish community standing alone. This abdication of responsibility has sown deep moral confusion. It has set us on a perilous path – one that history warns us never ends well.
The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers. It began with lies. With distortions. With the portrayal of Jews as uniquely evil. That same dynamic is playing out now.
The collective “Jew”, now equated with Israel, has become a scapegoat for all the world’s ills. The thing that stands between those ills and utopia. And that idea has taken hold here – in our streets, our institutions, even our schools.
This kind of hatred never stays contained. The history is clear: every society that has allowed itself to follow this path has ended up ashamed of where it arrived and inevitably in abject failure.
So we must ask, urgently and clearly: is this really the road we want Australia to go down?
This is not a fringe issue. It is not a moment that can be smoothed over with vague condemnations of “all hate”. It requires leadership. It requires moral clarity. And it requires action now.
Because if we cannot defend the safety and dignity of Jews in Australia today, we will not be able to defend the idea of a tolerant, inclusive, multicultural Australia tomorrow.
Here is the link:
https://www.afr.com/politics/tragic-shift-on-antisemitism-should-terrify-us-all-20250706-p5mctr
All I can add is that we can all do without these ructions disturbing the peace anywhere in Aus!
My view is deportation / goal is ideal for these troublemakers. Confinement for a few years and then deportation seems ideal to me, in that order, for these troublemakers!
David.
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