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Arrest Made as Spree of Antisemitic Crimes Continues Across Australia
Illustrative: Southern Sydney Synagogue in the suburb of Allawah, Australia, was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti on Jan. 10, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
The recent wave of hate crimes targeting Jews in Australia has shown no sign of abating, with more incidents over the weekend as political leaders and law enforcement stepped up efforts to counter an alarming surge in anti-Jewish incidents.
The New South Wales (NSW) Police announced on Monday they had charged an unnamed 21-year-old man with stalking and intimidation intended to cause fear or physical harm after a woman reported an incident of alleged antisemitic abuse in Bondi on Saturday. Law enforcement also charged the unnamed man with an unrelated Jan. 15 incident of destroying or damaging property and breach of bail.
Separately, Jewish women said that three young men threw eggs at them from a car, also in Bondi over the weekend, in a crime that Detective Superintendent Darren Newman believed to be motivated by their appearance. Law enforcement later found an abandoned car with egg cartons and a gas can. Reports said that three men fled the scene of the crime.
On Saturday, the NSW police announced plans to double the officers assigned to Strike Force Pearl, a division created to counter the wave of antisemitic crimes. NSW Police Force Commissioner Karen Webb said that the “extra investigators under Strike Force Pearl means those who commit antisemitic acts will be caught and brought before the courts. I want to reassure the Jewish community that we will do everything we can to find the perpetrators of these hateful crimes.”
On Sunday, the NSW Jewish Board said that in three weeks they had seen 10 publicly reported antisemitic incidents which included vandalism and arson. The group said that number “doesn’t include the graffiti appearing in our streets on a daily basis or the abuse and harassment that goes unreported.”
Other regions of Australia also experienced antisemitic vandalism in recent days. Someone graffitied a house in Melbourne on Friday. Police say they believe the suspect also spat on a man passing by the scene. Port Phillip Mayor Louise Crawford said in a statement that “while, thankfully, this incident did not involve physical injuries, it is still a cowardly attack targeting Port Phillip’s Jewish community.” She added that Port Phillip “celebrates and values its diverse community. An attack on any group is an attack on our city’s long-standing value of inclusion for all.”
In Perth, a home, a “for sale” sign, and a traffic sign each received antisemitic vandalism. Western Australia Premier Roger Cook said that “the graffiti we have seen in parts of Perth overnight is absolutely vile” and that he stood “with Western Australia’s Jewish community and offer my full support to all those affected by these cowardly actions.”
Cook went on to express confidence in law enforcement finding those responsible: “We know that the police intelligence unit are on top of this — they have a number of leads that they are pursuing and they will stop at nothing until these thugs are apprehended.”
On Saturday night, individuals spay painted homes and multiple vehicles in Sydney suburbs. Also in Sydney, on Wednesday someone vandalized Mount Sinai College, a Jewish day school, and a shopping center. The black message read, “Jews are real terrorists.” The school is located near a child care center which someone graffitied with “F—k the Jews” and set on fire the previous week.
On Friday, police arrested a 37-year-old man in Kingsford for allegedly vandalizing a wall with “a number of drawings and writings, including a Nazi symbol and a swastika.”
NSW police say that they have charged 12 people so far through the investigations of Strike Force Pearl. These crimes include fires at two businesses in Bondi in October 2024, damage of 10 vehicles and buildings in Woollahra in November 2024, and property damage in Woollahra in December 2024.
NSW premier Chris Minns said on Saturday morning that he wanted to make clear that “whether it is malicious damage, vandalism, graffiti, or whether it is a potential mass casualty event, terrorism in our streets, we regard all of it as appalling and will do everything we possibly can to combat it.” He added, “I am of the strong belief that violent acts don’t begin with violent acts; they begin with hateful words at some point earlier in the process.”
Member of Parliament Allegra Spender announced plans to introduce a measure on Tuesday to criminalize the promotion of hate based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, nationality, ethnic origin, or political opinion. Spender said that “this law doesn’t constrain people’s opinions, but it does restrain people from promoting hatred because we’ve seen that promotion of hatred leads to real-world violence.”
Calling herself “a very big advocate for free speech,” Spender argued that “if you are trying to vilify groups to drive hatred, I think Australians want to see a line drawn on that. I think we need to have laws against extreme expressions of words that can really create an environment where hatred and violence can flourish.”
Executive Council of Australia Jewry co-CEO Peter Wertheim said the legislation “is not a radical departure from what we’ve seen elsewhere, for instance in Western Australia.” He said that “the provisions in Western Australia have been in place for more than a generation and they have been tested in front of juries, which have convicted and imposed stiff sentences. And they have broad public support.”
In a letter sent on Thursday, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli wrote to Australian Jews that “we are following closely the alarming rise in antisemitism across Australia. On behalf of the government and citizens of Israel, we send you our love, support, and unwavering solidarity.”
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Syria’s President Visits Saudi Arabia in First Foreign Trip Since Assad’s Fall
Syria’s newly appointed president for a transitional phase Ahmed al-Sharaa meets Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salam, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 2, 2025. Photo: Bandar Algaloud Saudi Royal Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS
Syria’s transitional president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, visited Saudi Arabia on Sunday in his first foreign trip as Syrian leader, signaling a shift in regional alliances and a move away from Iran as the country’s main ally in the Middle East.
After meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Sharaa said in a statement that they discussed strengthening bilateral ties, regional developments, and cooperation in humanitarian and economic matters, along with “extensive future plans in energy, technology, education, and health.”
Last week, Sharaa became Damascus’s transitional president after leading a rebel campaign that ousted long-time Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, whose Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war.
According to an announcement by the military command that led the offensive against Assad, Sharaa was given the authority to form a temporary legislative council for the transitional period and to suspend the country’s constitution.
The collapse of al-Assad’s regime was the result of an offensive spearheaded by Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.
Al Sharaa is in Saudi Arabia, his first ever official visit since the ouster of Assad pic.twitter.com/e5qUUsPv7C
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) February 2, 2025
During the “Conference for Announcing the Victory of the Syrian Revolution,” Sharaa said that the first priority was to fill the government vacuum “in a legitimate and legal way.”
Since Assad’s fall, the new Syrian government has sought to strengthen ties with Arab and Western leaders.
In these efforts, Saudi Arabia has played a key role, hosting Damascus’s new foreign and defense ministers in early January and later organizing a meeting with Syrian, Arab, and Western officials.
Last week, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani became the first head of state to visit Damascus after the collapse of Assad’s regime.
Syria’s new diplomatic relationships reflect a distancing from its previous allies, Iran and Russia. Iran, for example, has not reopened its embassy in Damascus, which was a central part of its self-described “Axis of Resistance” against US-backed Israel, including Assad’s Syria and a network of terrorist proxies — primarily Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Russia seeks to preserve access to its air and sea bases in Syria, but Moscow took in Assad when he fled the country in December. Syria’s new government has requested Assad’s extradition.
The Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on opposition protests in 2011 sparked the Syrian civil war, during which Syria was suspended from the Arab League for more than a decade.
The new Syrian government appears focused on reassuring the West and working to get sanctions lifted, which date back to 1979 when the US labeled Syria a state sponsor of terrorism and were significantly increased following Assad’s violent response to the anti-government protests.
However, Damascus still faces significant instability and challenges, including threats from the Islamic State terrorist group and other militants in the country. On Monday, a car bomb exploded in Manbij in northern Syria, killing at least 19 people, mostly women, and leaving over a dozen wounded.
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Trump Hints at Openness to West Bank Annexation, Touts Israel’s Success Despite Being ‘Very Small Piece of Land’
US President Donald Trump (R) in the Oval of the White House in January 2025. Photo: Fortune via Reuters Connect
US President Donald Trump on Monday did not bat down the prospect of Israel annexing parts of the West Bank, noting that the Jewish state is a “very small piece of land” and praising Israelis for their “amazing” accomplishments despite their country’s size.
While speaking to reporters from the Oval Office, Trump was asked whether he supports Israel potentially annexing the West Bank. Though Trump refused to answer the question directly, he seemed to indicate dissatisfaction with the size of Israel’s territorial boundaries.
“Well, I’m not going to talk about that,” Trump said regarding West Bank annexation. “It [Israel] certainly is a small country in terms of land.”
Trump then picked up a stationery pen and juxtaposed it to his presidential desk, comparing the size of Israel to its Middle Eastern neighbors.
“That’s not good, you know? It’s a pretty big difference,” Trump said, regarding the size of Israel.
“I use that as analogy. It’s pretty accurate, actually,” Trump said. “It’s a pretty small piece of land, and it’s amazing that they’ve been able to do, what they’ve been able to do when you think about it. There’s a lot of good, smart brainpower. But it is a very small piece of land, no question about it.”
Trump has previously indicated a potential belief that Israel should expand its territorial boundaries. In August 2024, while still campaigning for president, Trump called Israel “tiny” and questioned if the country could expand.
“When you look at the map, a map of the Middle East, Israel is a tiny little spot compared to these giant landmasses. It’s really a tiny spot. I actually said, ‘Is there any way of getting more?’” Trump said
Observers have pondered whether Trump would support a formal annexation of parts of the West Bank in his second term. Although Trump has yet to indicate support for such measures, Jewish billionaire Miriam Adelson, one of the president’s most generous campaign donors, allegedly requested support for West Bank annexation in exchange for financial assistance. However, a spokesperson for Adelson denied that she made such a request.
The first Trump administration handled the West Bank in a different fashion than its predecessors, suggesting that the White House might be open to upending traditional policy regarding the territory. In 2019, the Trump administration reversed the US policy that declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal. Explaining the policy shift, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace.”
Proponents of annexation argue that establishing Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank would protect the Jewish state from future terrorist attacks by groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, while also providing residents a better quality of life.
However, opponents of West Bank annexation argue that such an action would deprive Palestinians of the ability to have their own state and trigger an onslaught of backlash from Israel’s Western allies and international institutions such as the UN.
The Trump administration has issued an executive order rescinding sanctions imposed during the Biden administration against Israelis living in the West Ban. The sanctions accused them of behaving violently against Palestinians in the West Bank. Mike Huckabee, the nominee for US ambassador to Israel, has publicly declared that he will refer to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria,” adopting terminology preferred by Israel.
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US Justice Department Forms Antisemitism Task Force Following Trump Executive Order
A woman walks past the US Department of Justice Building, in Washington, DC, Dec. 15, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Al Drago
The US Department of Justice announced on Monday that it is has created a “multi-agency” Task Force to Combat Antisemitism to fulfill an executive order issued last week by President Donald Trump.
“The Task Force’s first priority will be to root out antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses,” the department said in a press release, which noted that the group will be housed inside the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and include representatives from the departments of education and health and human services.
“Antisemitism in any environment is repugnant to this nation’s ideals,” said Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights who has been appointed to lead the initiative, said in a statement. “The department takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred wherever it is found. The Task Force to Combat Antisemitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump’s renewed commitment to ending antisemitism in our schools.”
The announcement came less than a week after Trump directed federal agencies to combat campus antisemitism and hold pro-terror extremists accountable for the harassment of Jewish students, fulfilling a promise he made while campaigning for a second term in office. Continuing work started started during his first administration — when Trump issued Executive Order 13899 to ensure that civil rights law apply equally Jews — the new executive order, titled, “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.”
Additionally, the order initiates a full review of the explosion of campus antisemitism on US colleges across the country after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a convulsive moment in American history to which the previous administration struggled to respond during the final year and a half of its tenure.
Jewish activists and civil rights groups praised Monday’s announcement for being responsive to the Jewish community’s concerns about rising hatred and a perceived refusal to condemn discrimination when its perpetrators are left-wing progressives.
“ADL long advocated for the creation of an interagency task force to combat antisemitism,” the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said in a statement posted on X/Twitter. “We welcome this important step by [the president] and the Justice Department and look forward to working together to tackle antisemitism on college campuses and beyond.”
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard University graduate student who is currently suing the school for allegedly neglecting to punish antisemites, said, “American Jewish students: help is on the way,” while Eyal Yakoby, a University of Pennsylvania alumnus who sounded the alarm that antisemitism at the institution had reached crisis levels following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, proclaimed, “Promises made, promises kept.”
Campus antisemitism was the subject of a major recent report by several committees of the US House of Representatives that accused college officials of choosing to protect their brands over fighting anti-Jewish hatred.
“The committee found that so-called university leaders deliberately chose to withhold support from Jewish communities on campus, demonstrating a refusal to address the hostile environments at their institutions,” the report said. “Jewish students, faculty, and staff often felt abandoned by administrators’ passive and muted responses to the explosion of antisemitic hate on campus. The committee’s investigation found that these failures to act were not mere oversights but intentional decisions.”
The report added that some schools, such as the University of Pennsylvania, pantomimed corrective action to disruptive behavior, assuring the public that it took rules violations, including the commandeering of campus property with “Gaza Solidarity Encampments,” seriously — but it punished very few students for misconduct and those it did were given slaps on the wrist, according to critics.
Egregious conduct which prompted civil litigation evaded disciplinary action, it continued, explaining that nearly 100 students who participated in an encampment which barred Jewish students from accessing sections of campus at the University of California, Los Angeles “signed resolution agreements allowing them to escape disciplinary consequences” and “none were disciplined.”
In last week’s executive order, Trump denounced his predecessor, former president Joe Biden, for refusing to handle the problem.
“This failure is unacceptable and ends today,” he said. “It shall be the policy of the United States to combat antisemitism vigorously, using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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