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Australia’s Jews are living in fear - by Terry Barnes for The Spectator - 31.01.25

Writer's picture: Michael JulienMichael Julien

Just when it seemed Australia’s anti-Semitism crisis couldn’t worsen, it has. This week, it was disclosed that a caravan loaded with plastic explosive was found in Sydney’s rural fringe. The explosives are of a type commonly used in mining operations and, along with the explosives, papers were discovered that named a Sydney synagogue – reportedly the Great Synagogue in central Sydney – presumably as an identified target.


Police estimated that, if detonated, the caravan’s deadly cargo would have created a 40-metre blast wave: if parked outside the synagogue, the explosion would have destroyed it and surrounding buildings, likely with very heavy human casualties and loss of life.


The owners of the caravan, a man and a woman, have so far not been charged. They are in custody, but in relation to other unrelated alleged offences. One of them had reportedly been charged with an anti-Semitic vandalism offence in December, but they reportedly have no history of extremist ideology.


This potential act of mass terror has further darkened Australia’s self-image as an open and tolerant nation


The outrage about the incident isn’t simply that there appears to have been preparations to unleash carnage on the streets of Sydney in the name of anti-Semitism. Its discovery was kept secret for nearly a fortnight, officially for operational reasons. It was only when a source in the investigation leaked to Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper that the danger was brought to light.


Yet in that fortnight, it has emerged that nobody in the Jewish community was alerted to the danger, reportedly not even the rabbi of the named synagogue. No Jewish community leaders or organisations were confidentially briefed about the discovery, even as they and federal and New South Wales authorities also were dealing with other anti-Semitic violence, in particular the firebombing of a Sydney childcare centre and the wave of anti-Jewish vandalism that has accelerated since Christmas.


It appears the operational need to ensure the integrity of the investigation was deemed to outweigh giving potential targets the ability to take additional precautions. As such, Jewish leaders were not included in the small circle of confidential trust.


What also has emerged with the leaking is the lack of smooth cooperation and coordination between News South Wales and federal law enforcement. It is an investigation that requires state and Australian Federal Police to work together, yet their working relationship is fractious, and turf disputes have erupted. It isn’t even clear how much political leaders were told, and when:


Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese has consistently refused to say although his New South Wales counterpart, state premier Chris Minns, was briefed on 20 January, a day after the caravan discovery was made.


Yet, as far as we know, neither leader discussed the discovery and investigation to a national hook-up of state and territory leaders on 21 January. This was despite the fact that the Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw sensationally told them that Australian police and security services were engaging with their Five Eyes intelligence counterparts – the UK, US, Canada and New Zealand – to ascertain whether is evidence of ‘foreign actors’ influencing anti-Semitic violence in Australia.


That question became still murkier when Kershaw subsequently stated he was also considering whether ‘criminals for hire’ within Australia were being used by third parties to perpetrate anti-Semitic and property vandalism. That theory could explain any involvement of the caravan-owning couple – if they were involved at all – and a third person detained under warrant but so far also not charged over the incident.


‘One thing everyone is in agreement with is the two people…would not have the money or the organisational skills on their own to acquire explosives, and pay cash for a caravan,’ an investigation source told the Sydney Daily Telegraph newspaper.


Some have suggested the purpose of the explosive-laden caravan, with its perhaps too-helpful note, was not to be detonated, but merely intended to be discovered to cow and intimidate Jewish Australians. If that proves true, it has succeeded: the very possibility of a mass casualty event has elevated the dangerous anti-Semitism on Australia’s streets to potentially deadly levels.


The episode also has undermined the trusting relationship between Australian authorities and Jewish leaders. One of them, Australian Jewish Association president David Adler, told Australia’s Sky News that ‘normally you would want to at least fully inform the affected community so that they’re aware so people can make informed decisions about security and any additional precautions that they wish to take’. 

 

But, sadly, this potential act of mass terror has further darkened Australia’s self-image as an open and tolerant nation. Just how much was eloquently summed up by Josh Frydenberg, a former Liberal party cabinet minister who is Jewish. On Thursday night, Frydenberg told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:


Anti-Semitism should not be happening in our own country and I don’t see this as just a threat to the Australian Jewish community…if these attacks were happening  to any other minority group in our country – to homosexuals and gay people, to people of Indigenous background, to people of other minority groups – we wouldn’t accept it for a minute.


We would demand stronger action and faster action from our governments. But, for some reason, with the Jewish community the target, many people have shrugged their shoulders and just dismissed it and not acted in the way they should have.


Frydenberg has every right to be saddened and angry. As the foiling of the explosive caravan plot shows, Jewish Australians have yet more cause to lament what is happening to the country they used to know.



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Written by Terry Barnes

 

Terry Barnes is a Melbourne-based contributor for The Spectator and The Spectator Australia.


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