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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.
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Germany’s Scholz Rebukes Vance, Defends Europe’s Stance on Hate Speech and Far Right

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks to the media after he met former prisoners following the largest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West in decades, at the military area of Cologne Bonn Airport in Cologne, Germany, August 1, 2024. Photo: Christoph Reichwein/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz delivered a strong rebuke on Saturday to US Vice President JD Vance’s attack on Europe’s stance toward hate speech and the far right, saying it was not right for others to tell Germany and Europe what to do.
Vance lambasted European leaders on Friday, the first day of the Munich Security Conference, accusing them of censoring free speech and criticizing German mainstream parties’ “firewall” against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
“That is not appropriate, especially not among friends and allies. We firmly reject that,” Scholz told the conference on Saturday, adding there were “good reasons” not to work with the AfD.
The anti-immigration party, currently polling at around 20% ahead of Germany’s February 23 national election, has pariah status among other major German parties in a country with a taboo about ultranationalist politics because of its Nazi past.
“Never again fascism, never again racism, never again aggressive war. That is why an overwhelming majority in our country opposes anyone who glorifies or justifies criminal National Socialism,” Scholz said, referring to the ideology of Adolf Hitler’s 1933-45 Nazi regime.
Vance met on Friday with the leader of AfD, after endorsing the party as a political partner — a stance Berlin dismissed as unwelcome election interference.
Referring more broadly to Vance’s criticism of Europe’s curtailing of hate speech, which he has likened to censorship, Scholz said: “Today’s democracies in Germany and Europe are founded on the historic awareness and realization that democracies can be destroyed by radical anti-democrats.
“And this is why we’ve created institutions that ensure that our democracies can defend themselves against their enemies, and rules that do not restrict or limit our freedom but protect it.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot added his voice to the defense of Europe’s stance on hate speech.
“No one is required to adopt our model but no one can impose theirs on us,” Barrot said on X from Munich. “Freedom of speech is guaranteed in Europe.”
UKRAINE
The prospect of talks to end the Ukraine-Russia war had been expected to dominate the annual Munich conference after a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin this week, but Vance barely mentioned Russia or Ukraine in his speech to the gathering on Friday.
Instead, he said the threat to Europe that worried him most was not Russia or China but what he called a retreat from fundamental values of protecting free speech – as well as immigration, which he said was “out of control” in Europe.
Many conference delegates watched Vance’s speech in stunned silence. There was little applause as he delivered his remarks.
Asked by the panel moderator if he thought there was anything in Vance’s speech worth reflecting on, Scholz drew laughter and applause in the crowd when he responded, in a deadpan manner: “You mean all these very relevant discussions about Ukraine and security in Europe?”
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Trump Team to Start Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks in Saudi Arabia in Coming Days, Politico Reports

US Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) speaks on Day 1 of the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, July 15, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
Senior officials from US President Donald Trump’s administration will start peace talks with Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Saudi Arabia in the coming days, Politico reported on Saturday, citing sources familiar with the plan.
US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Saudi Arabia, the report said. Special envoy for Ukraine-Russia talks, Keith Kellogg, will not be in attendance, according to the report.
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UN Peacekeeping Mission Deputy Commander Injured After Convoy Attacked in Beirut

FILE PHOTO: A UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) vehicle is seen next to piled up debris at Beirut’s port, Lebanon October 23, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
The outgoing deputy force commander of the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) in Lebanon was injured on Friday after a convoy taking peacekeepers to Beirut airport was “violently attacked,” UNIFIL said.
The mission demanded a full and immediate investigation by Lebanese authorities and for all perpetrators to be brought to justice, it said in a statement.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun condemned the attack on Saturday, saying that security forces would not tolerate anyone who tries to destabilize the country, according to a statement from his office.
The French government also condemned the attack.
“France calls on the Lebanese security forces to guarantee the security of blue-helmet peacekeeping forces, and calls on Lebanon’s judicial authorities to shed all light on this unacceptable attack and to go after those responsible,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
Lebanon’s Interior Minister Ahmad al-Hajjar called for an emergency meeting before noon on Saturday to discuss the security situation, Lebanese state news agency NNA reported.
“He affirmed the Lebanese government’s rejection of this assault that is considered a crime against UNIFIL forces,” NNA reported, citing the minister.
He also gave instructions to work on identifying the perpetrators and referring them to the relevant judicial authorities.
The minister told reporters on Saturday that more than 25 people had been detained for investigation over the attack.
The United States earlier condemned the attack. A State Department statement said the attack was carried out “reportedly by a group of Hezbollah supporters”, referring to the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon.
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