RSS
Antisemitism Rises to Shocking Levels in Australia — But the Media Doesn’t Care
Arsonists heavily damaged the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, Australia, on Dec. 6, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
The phrase gets repeated often — especially as antisemitism surges in the wake of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terror attacks: The Jews are the proverbial “canary in the coal mine.”
The Jewish people have long been a bellwether for rising extremism and broader threats to society. When antisemitism takes root, other forms of hatred and bigotry inevitably follow, leaving other minorities just as vulnerable.
Australia, however, appears determined to ignore this history lesson.
Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, the country has seen an unprecedented wave of antisemitism. More than 2,000 incidents were reported between October 2023 and September 2024 — a staggering fourfold increase from the previous year. And that number only reflects official reports; the uncounted cases of harassment, intimidation, and online vitriol push the real figure far higher.
If Australia is the mine, then its canaries are screeching. But instead of taking action, the country’s institutions, from government to law enforcement, seem more interested in pretending the problem isn’t real.
Take Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. This month, he held a press briefing to announce the findings of a national task force — formed in December 2024, more than a year after antisemitic violence had already spiraled out of control — to establish a database tracking such incidents.
The task force received more than 160 reports in just a few weeks, yet despite this flood of evidence, Albanese had a rather curious take on what was behind the rise of violent attacks on Jews.
According to the prime minister, some of these antisemitic crimes are being carried out by “people who don’t have a particular issue, aren’t motivated by an ideology, but are paid actors.”
Who’s paying them? Unclear. Where’s the evidence? Also unclear.
So, by Albanese’s logic, Jews in Australia aren’t facing a surge in homegrown antisemitism — they’re being targeted by mysterious, foreign-paid operatives. The cars set ablaze outside a building owned by a Jewish community leader on January 17? The work of a hired outsider, apparently. The Sydney synagogue defaced with swastikas on January 10? No particular ideology at play there, and certainly not Jew-hatred.
It’s a convenient way to sidestep responsibility. Because acknowledging the reality of antisemitism in Australia would mean confronting some uncomfortable truths — namely, just how widespread and deeply embedded the problem has become.
And at the heart of this denialism sits the Australian media.
There’s an unspoken arrangement at play: the media doesn’t press too hard, allowing officials to feign concern without actually doing much, while the government, in turn, enjoys the luxury of unchallenged complacency. The result?
A climate where even violent, explicitly antisemitic attacks are treated as vague disturbances rather than the ideological threats they so clearly are.
Gaslighting Australian Jews
Over the past year, the Australian media’s hostility toward Israel, and its indifference — if not outright contempt– for Jewish concerns over rising antisemitism have become impossible to ignore. Several incidents since October 2023 have drawn international condemnation, forcing an uncomfortable spotlight onto the problem.
Mass Doxxing Attack
In January 2024, more than 600 Jewish academics, artists, and writers in Australia were subjected to a mass doxxing attack. Their personal details were leaked online after a private WhatsApp chat was downloaded and shared.
The leak originated from New York Times reporter Natasha Frost, who admitted to downloading and sharing 900 pages of messages from the closed group, which had been formed after October 7 to provide support amid rising antisemitism.
The Times later claimed it had taken “appropriate action” against Frost — without elaborating.
Frost insists she only shared the chat with one person — the subject of a story she was working on. That story was thought to be a January 23 New York Times piece about journalist Antoinette Lattouf, whose ABC Radio Sydney contract was terminated over anti-Israel social media postings. Lattouf is now suing ABC for unfair dismissal.
Not long before the piece was published, Frost left the WhatsApp group — and soon after, details from the chat began leaking online. The 900-page transcript was accompanied by the “Zio600” list, a spreadsheet meticulously crafted to isolate and target “Zionists.”
Is this what it takes for @nytimes to discover that unprofessional reporting on Israel leads to real life consequences for Jews all over the world? https://t.co/YBLTqFboDe
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 18, 2024
The harassment campaign was swift and vicious. Gift shop owner Joshua Moshe reported receiving anonymous calls branding him and his wife as baby killers and genocidal maniacs.
Frost and The New York Times insist that she never intended for the chat’s contents to spread. Yet, the outcome is undeniable: a journalist at one of the world’s most influential newspapers facilitated a data leak targeting Jews, who were then subjected to threats.
To this day, The New York Times remains tight-lipped about what “appropriate action” against Frost actually entailed, while she continues to be employed at the outlet.
“Where’s the Jews?”
In February 2024, the Australian media extensively covered a police review of an October 2023 incident that had previously made global headlines. Just days after Hamas’ October 7 attacks, a pro-Palestinian mob gathered outside the Sydney Opera House, lighting flares and chanting slogans reported as antisemitic, all while the Australian police stood by, seemingly indifferent.
One video appeared to capture them chanting “Gas the Jews.”
Four months later, Australian media outlets eagerly covered a police review — in seemingly more detail than the original incident itself. News.com.au reported that a police forensic analysis of video and audio from the protest found “no evidence a potentially criminal antisemitic phrase was used.”
ABC News ran with a headline that practically framed the mob as vindicated: “Protesters welcome police finding on ‘gas the Jews’ chant at Opera House rally.”
Except the police “forensic” investigation ignored witness statements and instead determined that what had actually been chanted was “Where’s the Jews?” along with other antisemitic phrases.
In short, rather than explicitly calling for Jewish extermination, the mob was actually implicitly shouting a call to hunt Jews down, which is clearly no better than the other chant.
And yet the Australian media’s framing of the police findings was almost triumphant, with headlines misleadingly suggesting no antisemitic chants had been heard at all.
Publicly-Funded Broadcaster Cleared
In October 2024, the ABC news outlet’s Ombudsman’s Office — tasked with upholding the taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s supposed standards of accuracy and impartiality — released its findings on a May 2024 article that described a Hamas rocket attack on Tel Aviv as a “show of resilience.”
The Ombudsman concluded that this phrasing did not breach the corporation’s guidelines, stating, “We do not believe the use of resilience represents lauding, glamorizing or celebrating Hamas’ actions.”
In a ruling that reads like satire, the Ombudsman elaborated: “By definition, resilience means the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties. After a sustained offensive from Israel over months, in firing this latest barrage of rockets, Hamas had demonstrated its continued capacity to launch rocket attacks against Israel.”
So, according to the ABC, when a proscribed terrorist organization fires rockets at civilian populations, it’s simply demonstrating its ability to “recover quickly from difficulties.” One wonders if the Ombudsman would extend the same generous definition to other acts of indiscriminate violence.
Calling Out Australian Media Bias
In the eight months following Hamas’ October 7 massacre in Israel, five of Australia’s major news outlets — The Age, News.com.au, The Australian, ABC News, and The Sydney Morning Herald — published thousands of reports on the war. A data analysis by HonestReporting found that these outlets referenced Gaza an average of nearly 20 times per day in their news coverage.
And these are just the national publications. Australia’s media landscape is vast, with countless smaller news outlets and local publications also shaping public discourse.
HonestReporting has taken an active role in holding the Australian media to account. Since the war began, we have secured numerous corrections from major outlets, including ABC News, News.com.au, and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Australia’s public broadcaster, @abcnews has issued the following editor’s note and corrected a serious error after we contacted them.
If only ABC took as much time doing due diligence when writing its articles as it appears to have done fact-checking our complaint. https://t.co/OEvoYoDQts pic.twitter.com/JaVH7e6qmF
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 1, 2025
However, monitoring Australia’s media is a mammoth task. While HonestReporting is using the latest tools to track bias, we continue to rely on our readers to flag instances of misinformation and unfair reporting.
Australia’s media helped fuel this crisis—and now, instead of confronting it, it’s making excuses. Enough is enough.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Antisemitism Rises to Shocking Levels in Australia — But the Media Doesn’t Care first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
ADL Research: 24% of Americans Believe Recent Violence Against Jews Is ‘Understandable’
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim who were shot and killed as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, pose for a picture at an unknown location, in this handout image released by Embassy of Israel to the US on May 22, 2025. Photo: Embassy of Israel to the USA via X/Handout via REUTERS
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a report on Friday revealing American attitudes about antisemitic violence following the targeted attacks earlier this year against Jews in Boulder, Colo., Harrisburg, Pa., and Washington, D.C. The watchdog group found a sizable minority (24 percent) found the attacks “understandable” while 13 percent regarded them as “justified.”
The ADL surveyed a representative sample of 1000 Americans on Thursday, ensuring the group matched accurate proportions of the country’s demography. The findings showed disparate views across age groups and partisan affiliations while also a clear, majority consensus on many questions.
The survey showed that 87 percent of respondents believed the three recent antisemitic attacks to be unjustifiable while 85 percent called them morally wrong and 77 percent assessed them as antisemitic. Eighty-six percent regarded the violence against Jews as hate crimes. However, nearly a quarter of respondents said the attacks were “understandable.”
More Republicans (15 percent) than Democrats (11 percent) regarded the attacks as justified, while more Republicans (79 percent) than Democrats (77 percent) saw the attacks as antisemitic. Partisan differences also manifested in support for increased government action against antisemitism with 74 percent of Republicans in favor compared to 81 percent of Democrats.
In presenting their research findings, the ADL emphasized the broad agreement in American opposition to antisemitic violence and conspiracist tropes before noting the presence of a distinct minority of “millions of people who excuse or endorse violence against Jews—an alarming sign of how anti-Jewish narratives are spreading.” For example, 67 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of Republicans agree that antisemitism is a serious problem.
Smaller numbers among the Democrats (25 percent) and Republicans (23 percent) will acknowledge antisemitism as a concern in their own party. The ADL poll suggests the legitimacy of such suspicions, finding that “28 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of Democrats agreed with tropes such as Jews have too much influence in politics and media.”
Partisan affiliations correlated with where respondents saw the most significant antisemitic threats. Republicans expressed a 3.6 times greater likelihood of worries about left-wing antisemitism compared to Democrats who were 4.4 times as likely to focus on right-wing antisemitism.
The pollsters found that attitudes toward the severity of the antisemitic threat differed according to age.
While 80 percent of silent generation respondents saw antisemitism as a serious problem, that number fell to 65 percent for baby boomers and members of Generation X. The rates dropped again for millennials (52 percent) and Gen-Zers (55 percent).
Perceptions of antisemitism in local communities also differed by generation. While 19 percent of Americans overall report having witnessed antisemitism in their communities, that figure jumps to 33 percent for Gen-Zers and 20 percent for millennials. Among the boomers it drops to 10 percent and for Silent Generation respondents it reaches 17 percent.
Large numbers saw the threat of popular protest slogans “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea” with 68 percent seeing the phrases as potentially fueling violence, a view held even among 54 percent of those who favor protests against Israel.
Researchers also observed a correlation between Israel support and perceiving the seriousness of antisemitism in America. While 74 percent of those favorable to Israel saw domestic antisemitism as significant, only 57 percent of those with negative views of the Jewish state agreed.
Nearly a quarter of those polled—24 percent—expressed the conspiratorial view that some group had staged the attacks to provoke sympathy for Israel. A second report also released by the ADL on Friday showed the rise in discussions of “false flag” attacks on the Reddit website in response to the antisemitic violence.
The ADL warned that “these beliefs are especially dangerous because they justify holding Jewish Americans responsible for the actions of the State of Israel, effectively viewing them as collectively responsible for international politics—making them greater targets.”
The post ADL Research: 24% of Americans Believe Recent Violence Against Jews Is ‘Understandable’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Sen. Bernie Sanders Calls on Democrats to Stop Accepting Money From AIPAC
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks to the media following a meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, US, July 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), took to X/Twitter on Monday to call on all Democrats to stop accepting political donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the influential pro‑Israel lobbying entity.
In his tweet, Sanders wrote that AIPAC has aided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in waging an “illegal and immoral war being waged against the Palestinian people.” Sanders continued, claiming that “NO Democrat should accept money from AIPAC” while asserting that the organization helped “deliver the presidency to Donald Trump.”
Sanders’s post came in response to comments by former Obama administration foreign policy advisor Ben Rhodes, in which Rhodes urged Democrats to reject all future donations from AIPAC. Rhodes argued that AIPAC has influenced Democrats to take immoral stances on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“AIPAC is part of the constellation of forces that has delivered this country into the hands of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, and you cannot give them a carve out,” Rhodes said on an episode of the podcast Pod Save the World. “We need to have this fight as a party, because these are the wrong people to have under your tent.”
Tommy Vietor, another former Obama administration official and podcast co-host, agreed, accusing AIPAC of “funneling money to front organizations that primary progressive Democrats.”
AIPAC, the foremost pro-Israel lobbying firm in the US, has historically backed pro-Israel candidates from both parties. The organization does not specifically lobby against progressive candidates. AIPAC has aided the campaigns of pro-Israel progressives such as Ritchie Torres.
Sanders has long held an acrimonious relationship with AIPAC. In November 2023, he repudiated the group for supposedly having”supported dozens of GOP extremists who are undermining our democracy,” and urged his fellow Democrats to stand together in the fight for a world of peace, economic and social justice and climate sanity.”
Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser under President Obama, has emerged as a vocal critic of Israeli policy, particularly under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His skepticism is rooted in years of diplomatic frustration during the Obama administration, especially surrounding failed peace negotiations and Israel’s settlement expansions in the West Bank. Rhodes has often framed Israel’s hardline stance as a major obstacle to a two-state solution, and he has been critical of what he sees as unconditional U.S. support that enables right-wing Israeli policies. His stance reflects a broader shift among some American progressives who advocate for a more balanced U.S. approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sanders has long been a staunch critic of the Jewish state. Sanders has repeatedly accused Israel of committing “collective punishment” and “apartheid” against the Palestinian people. Although the senator initially condemned the Oct. 7 slaughters of roughly 1200 people throughout southern Israel by Hamas, he subsequently pushed for a “ceasefire” between the Jewish state and the terrorist group. Sanders also spearheaded an unsuccessful campaign to implement a partial arms embargo on Israel in 2024.
In the 20 months following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, relations between the Democratic party and the Jewish state have deteriorated. Democratic lawmakers have grown more vocally critical of Israel’s military conduct in Gaza, sometimes arguing that the Jewish state has recklessly endangered lives of Palestinian civilians. Moreover, polls indicate that Democratic voters have largely turned against Israel, intensifying pressure on liberal lawmakers to shift their tone regarding the war in Gaza.
The post Sen. Bernie Sanders Calls on Democrats to Stop Accepting Money From AIPAC first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iranian National Charged in Plot to Subvert US Sanctions Against Islamic Republic
Iranians participating in a memorial ceremony for IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists in downtown Tehran, Iran, on July 2, 2025. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl via Reuters Connect.
Federal law enforcement officials have arrested an Iranian national after uncovering his alleged conspiracy to export US technology to Tehran in violation of a slew of economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, the US Department of Justice announced on Friday.
For May 2018 to July 2025, Bahram Mohammad Ostovari, 66, allegedly amassed “railway signaling and telecommunications systems” for transport to the Iranian government by using “two front companies” located in the United Arab Emirates. After filing fake orders for them with US vendors at Ostovari’s direction, the companies shipped the materials — which included “sophisticated computer processors” — to Tehran, having duped the US businesses into believing that they “were the end users.”
The Justice Department continued, “After he became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in May 2020, Ostovari continued to export, sell, and supply electronics and electrical components to [his company] in Iran,” noting that the technology became components of infrastructure projects commissioned by the Islamic Republic.
Ostovari has been charged with four criminal counts for allegedly violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), under which conducting business with Iran is proscribed due to the country’s human rights abuses, material support for terrorism, and efforts to build a larger-scale nuclear program in violation of international non-proliferation obligations. Each count carries a 20-year maximum sentence in federal prison.
Ostovari is one of several Iranian nationals to become the subject of criminal proceedings involving crimes against the US this year.
In April, a resident of Great Falls, Virginia — Abouzar Rahmati, 42 — pleaded guilty to collecting intelligence on US infrastructure and providing it to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“From at least December 2017 through June 2024, Rahmati worked with Iranian government officials and intelligence operatives to act on their behalf in the United States, including by meeting with Iranian intelligence officers and government officials using a cover story to hide his conduct,” the Justice Department said at the time, noting that Rahmati even infiltrated a contractor for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that possesses “sensitive non-public information about the US aviation sector.”
Throughout the duration of his cover, Rahmati amassed “open-source and non-public materials about the US solar energy industry,” which he delivered to “Iranian intelligence officers.”
The government found that the operation began in August 2017, after Rahmati “offered his services” to a high-ranking Iranian government official who had once been employed by the country’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, according to the Justice Department. Months later, he traveled to Iran, where Iranian agents assigned to him the espionage activity to which he pleaded guilty to perpetrating.
“Rahmati sent additional material relating to solar energy, solar panels, the FAA, US airports, and US air traffic control towers to his brother, who lived in Iran, so that he would provide those files to Iranian intelligence on Rahmati’s behalf,” the Justice Department continued. Rahmati also, it said, delivered 172 gigabytes worth of information related to the National Aerospace System (NAS) — which monitors US airspace, ensuring its safety for aircraft — and NAS Airport Surveillance to Iran during a trip he took there.
Rahmati faces up to 10 years in prison. He will be sentenced in August.
In November, three Iranian intelligence assets were charged with contriving a conspiracy to assassinate critics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as then US President-elect Donald Trump.
According to the Justice Department, Farhad Shakeri, 51; Carlisle Rivera, 49; and Jonathan Loadholt, 36, acted at the direction of and with help from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization, to plot to murder a US citizen of Iranian origin in New York. Shakeri, who remains at large and is believed to reside in Iran, was allegedly the principal agent who managed the two other men, both residents of New York City who appeared in court.
Their broader purpose, prosecutors said, was to target nationals of the United States and its allies for attacks, including “assaults, kidnapping, and murder, both to repress and silence critical dissidents” and to exact revenge for the 2020 killing of then-IRGC Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Iraq. Trump was president of the US at the time of the operation.
All three men are now charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy, and money laundering. Shakeri faces additional charges, including violating sanctions against Iran, providing support to a terrorist organization, and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Powers Act, offenses for which he could serve up to six decades in federal prison.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Iranian National Charged in Plot to Subvert US Sanctions Against Islamic Republic first appeared on Algemeiner.com.