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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.”
The post Arrest Made as Spree of Antisemitic Crimes Continues Across Australia first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Colombia Appoints First Ambassador to ‘State of Palestine’ Amid Deepening Rift With Israel
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro speaks during the inauguration of the International Book Fair (FilBo) in Bogota, Colombia, April 17, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez
Colombia has appointed its first ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, marking a significant diplomatic shift a year after severing ties with Israel and pledging to open an embassy in Ramallah.
On Monday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro officially appointed Jorge Iván Ospina — former mayor of Cali, Colombia’s third most populous city — as the country’s first ambassador to the “State of Palestine.”
A close ally of Petro, Ospina is well known for his outspoken hostility toward Israel following the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
He has previously sparked controversy by comparing the Israel Defense Forces’ campaign in Gaza against the Palestinian terrorist group to the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime during World War II.
In a post on X, Ospina publicly confirmed his appointment, expressing solidarity with the “heroic Palestinian people.” He also pledged to “denounce the ongoing genocide that the Palestinian people are suffering today” and to dedicate himself to advancing their freedom and dignity.
Infinita gratitud al Sr Pdte de la República @petrogustavo y a la Sra Canciller @laurisarabia por designarme como Embajador de nuestra Nación ante el heroico pueblo Palestino, la solidaridad, la denuncia al genocidio que hoy sufren, la libertad de quienes hoy no están, los retos pic.twitter.com/5u3JuyYkcx
— Jorge Ivan Ospina (@JorgeIvanOspina) May 26, 2025
The Colombian diplomat indicated that it is still uncertain whether he will carry out his duties from Ramallah in the West Bank or operate from a neighboring country.
“We will need to discuss with Israel and determine the necessary steps to enable the establishment of the Colombian embassy in Ramallah,” Ospina told AFP. “We recognize that the Palestinian state and the State of Israel must coexist.”
This latest move builds on Colombia’s 2018 official recognition of “Palestine.” According to Ospina, the new embassy will prioritize securing the release of Colombian-Israeli citizen Elkana Bohbot, supporting humanitarian aid for Palestinians, and advancing the recognition of a two-state solution.
Despite decades of close diplomatic and military ties — with Jerusalem supplying Colombia with warplanes, surveillance technology, and assault rifles since the 1990s — Petro severed relations with the Jewish state last year.
On Monday, the Colombian president called on the United States to help stop what he described as “the genocide in Gaza,” while condemning Israel’s defensive campaign in the enclave.
“In the fight for their lives, there are girls trying to survive the bombing of a school by Netanyahu, the genocidal man,” Petro said in a post on X, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “There is a decisive complicity in producing this horror in the US and the EU. What we see is produced by Nazis.”
En la lucha por la vida. Niñas tratando de sobrevivir el bombardeo hecho por Netanyahu, el genocida, a una escuela. Hay una complicidad determinante para producir este horror en EEUU y la Unión Europea.
Lo que vemos lo producen Nazis pic.twitter.com/gTr8dYbMLR— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) May 26, 2025
Colombia has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s actions, with Petro backing the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Israel adamantly rejects the allegations.
The Latin American country has also joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the Jewish state of committing “state-led genocide” in its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli leaders have condemned the case as an “obscene exploitation” of the Genocide Convention, noting that the Jewish state is targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields in its military campaign.
Last year, the ICJ ruled there was “plausibility” to South Africa’s claims that Palestinians had a right to be protected from genocide. However, the top UN court did not make a determination on the merits of South Africa’s allegations, nor did it call for Israel to halt its military campaign.
Instead, the ICJ issued a more general directive that Israel must make sure it prevents acts of genocide. The ruling also called for the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the terrorist group’s invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
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Jewish Children Attacked in London, Harassed in New York Amid Rising Antisemitism
A Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) car. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The growing wave of antisemitism across the globe continued to crash down on Jewish teens and children with incidents Monday in the United Kingdom and Friday in New York.
A Jewish teen required hospitalization after a group of approximately seven men used a knife to attack him and two other Jewish boys at northwest London’s Hampstead Underground Station on Monday evening. Police have opened an investigation into the assault and robbery as racially motivated. Hampstead is one of the country’s largest Jewish communities, with a 2021 Jewish population of 8,851.
Jewish security agency Shomrim stated on X that it was “appealing for any witnesses to the incident which took place or anyone with information to come forward … Shomrim is supporting the victims, and we encourage anyone who has been affected or who has experienced any form of antisemitism to get in touch. Shomrim specializes in reporting and supporting victims of antisemitic crime.”
Shomrim NW London responded yesterday, 26th May at 8:30pm, to reports of a #racially motivated assault and threats with a #knife on three #Jewish boys at #Hampstead Underground Station.
Suspects are believed to be a group of 6-7 males. One of the victims was admitted to hospital… pic.twitter.com/EORK4Sumdl
— Shomrim North West London (@shomrimlondon) May 27, 2025
London saw a previous antisemitic attack against adolescents in London on Nov. 25, 2024, when a man threw glass bottles from a high-rise balcony, targeting Jewish girls, one of whom required hospitalization from a head injury.
In February, the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, said that 2024 included 3,528 recorded antisemitic incidents across the UK, the second worst year in the country’s history, following 2023. This included 260 cases at schools, 223 at synagogues or with congregants as victims, and 1,240 taking place on the internet.
Mark Gardner, the CST’s chief executive, praised “the defiance and pride that our community has shown, despite everything it has been through” and described how “those who are complicit in this antisemitism range from social media giants to the Islamist and far left extremists who celebrated the Hamas terror attacks.”
Students in Brooklyn also experienced antisemitism, when they reported their charter school’s bus driver pulled the vehicle over to the side of the road in order to evangelize his religious beliefs, including the claim of collective Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This resulted in one Jewish pupil crying and the students arriving 30 minutes late to class at Brooklyn Prospect International Elementary Charter School, the New York Post reported.
The driver reportedly said, “The only one who can deliver you isn’t religion, it’s Jesus.”
In response to a student’s question about Jesus and Judaism, the driver said, “Yes, he was a Jew and basically Jews — his own kind — killed him.” He added, “They basically killed him because he said he was the son of God … These were religious leaders who killed him.” Some students texted their parents in real time during the driver’s antisemitic sermonizing. At one point he distributed white hats with black crosses and asked students to pray with him.
One parent told the New York Post that the driver “definitely held the kids captive.”
The school has since suspended the as-yet unnamed driver, sent a note to parents informing them of the incident, filed a complaint with the service who provided him, and requested a new person to fill the role.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) 2024 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents recorded 860 incidents (9 percent of the total nationwide) in K-12 schools in the US, a decrease of 26 percent from 2023. The most prominent of these antisemitic acts was swastika vandalism.
The Brooklyn school bus incident took place just two days before a protest outside the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn, which resulted in police officers removing the demonstrators. The activists seemed intent on disrupting members of the global Hasidic movement within Orthodox Judaism as they were conducting a Torah ceremony.
According to the ADL’s audit, New York — the state with the largest Jewish population in the US — led the country in antisemitic incidents, with 15 percent of the total. The incidents included 912 cases of harassment (second highest nationally), 443 acts of vandalism (highest nationally), and 82 assaults (highest nationally). Comparable to the country as a whole, 58 percent of the state’s incidents included anti-Israel sentiment. New York’s colleges also experienced more incidents than those of any other state.
Sixty-eight percent of incidents occurred in New York City. The ADL reported that “the targeting of Orthodox Jews has become particularly concerning, with Brooklyn alone — home to numerous Orthodox Jewish communities — accounting for 39 percent of all assaults in the state. This reflects a dangerous pattern of escalating violence against visibly Jewish individuals.”
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‘Pod Save America’ Hosts Accuse Israel of ‘Genocide’
Pod Save America hosts on tour. Photo: Screenshot
On a recent episode of Pod Save America, hosts Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor, alumni of the former Obama administration, slammed Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza as a “genocide” and accused the Jewish state of killing at least 100,000 people in the enclave — a number that even exceeds the figures put out by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
“[The Palestinians] are — this is a population that lives in a place that has been entirely destroyed, right. Like almost every structure destroyed or damaged,” said Rhodes, an adviser and speechwriter in former US President Barack Obama’s White House. “I talked about in the interview, but like the death toll is much higher than you know they can report anymore. It’s probably like somewhere over 100,000 people. They’ve not let any food into the Gaza Strip.”
Rhodes dismissed Israel’s new plan to control aid distribution in Gaza, arguing that the Jewish state has only allowed a “dribble” of food to be delivered to civilians. He falsely accused Israel of “entirely killing civilians at this point,” not mentioning the military campaign is aimed at targeting Hamas.
“That’s a genocide,” Rhodes said. “And people don’t like to hear that term, but I don’t really know what other what the military rationale is to starve children and bomb innocent people in tents.”
After a two-month pause, Israel has allowed aid trucks to resume entering the Gaza Strip. According to Israel, around 170 trucks entered Gaza on Monday. Since allowing aid deliveries to restart last week, over 600 aid trucks have been allowed into the war-torn enclave. Israel says that it ceased aid deliveries to pressure Hamas, the terrorist group which rules Gaza and regularly steals aid for its own purposes, to release the remaining hostages it kidnapped from southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Vietor, who also served as a speechwriter for Obama, then cited Drop Site, a new pro-Palestinian news outlet, as a “great” publication that, according to him, has done valuable work in hiring journalists to document the ongoing war in Gaza. However, critics have accused Drop Site of being apoloigists for Hamas. The outlet’s lead reporter, Jeremy Scahill, has described Hamas as a “resistance,” echoing the terminology used by supporters of the internationally designated terrorist group.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza, the Pod Save America podcast, known for its sharp Democratic analysis and former Obama staffer hosts, has struggled to address the ongoing war in Gaza with the same clarity and confidence that characterizes much of its political commentary. While the hosts have tackled other contentious issues, their discussions on Gaza have been sporadic, cautious, and often notably brief, drawing criticism from some longtime listeners.
The show, which typically provides liberal commentary on American politics, has appeared hesitant to engage deeply with the complex dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Initial episodes after Oct. 7 expressed horror at the violence but largely emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense. As civilian casualties mounted and global criticism of Israel’s military actions grew, the podcast’s treatment of the topic remained limited — often sidelined in favor of domestic political issues such as the 2024 US presidential election.
The reticence to engage in discussions centered around the Israel-Hamas war has sparked disappointment among parts of the show’s progressive audience, particularly younger listeners who have pushed for a more critical stance on US foreign policy and military aid to Israel.
Additionally, the show has also been under pressure from progressive staffers, who have urged the show’s hosts to adopt a more critical stance against Israel. According to reports, many of the show’s staffers wear keffiyehs — a traditional Arab headdress that has been repurposed after Oct. 7 to indicate support for the Palestinian cause.
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