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Sydney government apologizes for pro-Palestinian protest that included ‘gas the Jews’ chants
(JTA) — The premier of New South Wales, the Australian state that is home to Sydney, apologized to the Jewish community on Wednesday as they reeled from a pro-Palestinian protest that included “gas the Jews” and “f— the Jews” chants.
Chris Minns said in a statement that his local government had tried to “create a place and a space” for Jews to mourn victims of the attacks in Israel outside of Sydney’s famed opera house, which was lit up in the colors of the Israeli flag on Monday night.
But he admitted that the exterior of the opera house was “overrun with people that were spewing racial epithets and hatred.” The pro-Palestinian rally on Monday, which gathered over 1,000 people, also included the burning of an Israeli flag and the firing of several flares.
“I want to apologize to [the Jewish community] specifically on behalf of the government and myself, as the premier of New South Wales,” said Minns, a leader in the Labour Party who assumed his position earlier this year. “I really want to ensure that the Jewish community in New South Wales feel that they can have full access to this city, that they can enjoy its life, that they can be part of its culture, that they can commemorate together during solemn occasions.”
He added that a number of Australians “had family and friends that were caught up in this conflict.” One dual Australian-Israeli citizen, Galit Carbone, has been confirmed dead from the violence, while other Australians have been confirmed captured by Hamas.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also expressed concern over the way the rally was allowed to escalate and called Hamas’ actions in Israel “completely indefensible.”
A similar rally held in Melbourne on Tuesday night drew hundreds of participants but notably lacked the inflammatory chants and behavior witnessed in Sydney.
NSW police have since rejected a request by pro-Palestinian groups to hold another rally on Sunday and are investigating Monday’s incident.
“The idea that they’re going to commandeer Sydney streets is not going to happen,” Minns said.
Many Australian Jews, who in total number close to 100,000, are reeling from Monday’s rally and calling for details on how police handled the event. In a statement posted to his Instagram page, Australia’s former ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma was critical of the NSW government.
“How on earth did the New South Wales Government allow this to happen? How did they allow an important show of solidarity with the hundreds of victims of terrorism in Israel to be hijacked by extremists to applaud these very acts of terror?” he wrote.
Parliament member Allegra Spender, who represents the electrical district of Wentworth — which is near Sydney and has a high Jewish population — also demanded answers. “The scenes and chanting outside the Opera House last night are abhorrent. At a time when there should be solidarity with our Jewish community, they have been subject to appalling abuse. I am seeking an urgent explanation of how this was allowed to happen,” she wrote on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter.
Alex Ryvchin, co-chair of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry umbrella group, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Australian Jewish community was shaken but determined to move on.
“The community wants to come together at a time of immense anguish and pain,” he said. “These atrocities have shaken us all, but we are determined to emerge united and more committed to our community and our people.”
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The post Sydney government apologizes for pro-Palestinian protest that included ‘gas the Jews’ chants appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Treasure Trove explores the curious case of a stamp from an imaginary land
This 1 V. postage revenue stamp from West Refaim was postmarked in Virikoso in South Giantsland 100 years ago. Problem is—none of these places ever existed. There is a second […]
The post Treasure Trove explores the curious case of a stamp from an imaginary land appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Israel Has Told ICC It Will Contest Arrest Warrants, Netanyahu Says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: ABIR SULTAN POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Israel has informed the International Criminal Court that it will contest arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant over their conduct of the Gaza war, Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday.
The office also said that US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had updated Netanyahu “on a series of measures he is promoting in the US Congress against the International Criminal Court and against countries that would cooperate with it.”
The ICC issued arrest warrants last Thursday for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, known as Mohammed Deif, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
The move comes after the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced on May 20 that he was seeking arrest warrants for alleged crimes connected to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas and the Israeli military response in Gaza.
Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza.
“Israel today submitted a notice to the International Criminal Court of its intention to appeal to the court, along with a demand to delay the execution of the arrest warrants,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Court spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah told journalists that if requests for an appeal were submitted it would be up to the judges to decide
The court’s rules allow for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution that would pause or defer an investigation or a prosecution for a year, with the possibility of renewing that annually.
After a warrant is issued the country involved or a person named in an arrest warrant can also issue a challenge to the jurisdiction of the court or the admissibility of the case.
The post Israel Has Told ICC It Will Contest Arrest Warrants, Netanyahu Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Girls Attacked in London With Glass Bottles in Antisemitic Outrage
Shomrim officers at the scene of a hate crime in London in which Jewish girls were struck with glass bottles. Photo: Shomrim Stamford Hill/Screenshot
A group of young Jewish girls were the victims of an “abhorrent hate crime” when a man hurled glass bottles at them from a balcony as they were walking through the Stamford Hill section of London on Monday evening.
One of the girls was struck in the head and rushed to the hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries, according to local law enforcement.
A spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police said officers were called to the Woodberry Down Estate in the city’s borough of Hackney following reports of an assault on Monday evening at 7:44 pm local time.
“A group of schoolgirls had been walking through the estate when a bottle was thrown from the upper floor of a building,” the spokesperson said. “A 16-year-old girl was struck on the head and was taken to hospital. Her injuries have since been assessed as non-life changing.”
Police noted they were unable to locate the suspect and an investigation is ongoing before adding, “The incident is being treated as a potential antisemitic hate crime.”
Following the incident, Shomrim, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and serves as a neighborhood watch group, reported that the girls were en route to a rehearsal for an upcoming event. The community, the group added, was “shocked” by the attack on “innocent young Jewish girls,” calling it an “abhorrent hate crime.”
14-year-old girl rushed to Hospital with head & facial injuries following an attack in #StamfordHill.
Young Jewish girls on their way to a rehearsal were pelted with glass bottles by a male on a balcony at Woodberry Down Estate N4.
This… pic.twitter.com/MzHPHusgyX
— Shomrim (London North & East) (@Shomrim) November 26, 2024
Since then, another Jewish girl, age 14, has reported being pelted with a hard object which caused her to be “knocked unconscious, and left feeling dizzy and with a bump on her head,” according to Shomrim.
Monday’s crime was one among many which have targeted London Jews in recent years, an issue The Algemeiner has reported on extensively.
Last December, an Orthodox Jewish man was assaulted by a man riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, two attackers brutally mauled a Jewish woman, and a group of Jewish children was berated by a woman who screamed “I’ll kill all of you Jews. You are murderers!” A similar incident occurred when a man confronted a Jewish shopper and shouted, “You f—king Jew, I will kill you!”
Months prior, a perpetrator stalked and assaulted an Orthodox Jewish woman. He followed her, shouting “dirty Jew” before snatching her shopping bag and “spilling her shopping onto the pavement whilst laughing.” That incident followed a woman wielding a wooden stick approaching a Jewish woman near the Seven Sisters area and declaring “I am doing it because you are Jew,” while striking her over the head and pouring liquid on her. The next day, the same woman — described by an eyewitness as a “serial racist” — chased a mother and her baby with a wooden stick after spraying liquid on the baby. That same week, three people accosted a Jewish teenager and knocked his hat off his head while yelling “f—king Jew.”
According to an Algemeiner review of Metropolitan Police Service data, 2,383 antisemitic hate crimes occurred in London between October 2023 and October 2024, eclipsing the full-year totals of 550 in 2022 and 845 in 2021. The problem is so serious that city officials created a new bus route to help Jewish residents “feel safe” when they travel.
“Jewish Londoners have felt scared to leave their homes,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan told The Jewish Chronicle in a statement about the policy decision earlier this year. “So, this direct bus link between these two significant communities [Stamford Hill in Hackney and Golders Green in Barnet, areas with two of the biggest Jewish communities in London] means you can travel on the 310, not need to change, and be safe and feel safer. I hope that will lead to more Londoners from these communities using public transport safely.”
Khan added that the route “connects communities, connects congregations” and would reassure Jewish Londoners they would be “safe when they travel between these two communities.”
However, it doesn’t solve the problem at hand — an explosion of antisemitism unlike anything seen in the Western world since World War II. Just this week, according to a story by GB News, an unknown group scattered leaflets across the streets of London which threatened that “every Zionist needs to leave Britain or be slaughtered.”
Responding to this latest incident, the director of the Jewish civil rights group StandWithUs UK Isaaz Zarfati told GB News that the comments should be taken “seriously.”
“We are witnessing a troubling trend of red lines being repeatedly crossed,” he said. “This is not just another wave that will pass if we remain passive. We must take those threats and statement seriously because they will one day turn into actions, and decisive steps are needed to combat this alarming phenomenon.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Jewish Girls Attacked in London With Glass Bottles in Antisemitic Outrage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.