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Counterterrorism Police Investigate Swastika Vandalism, Attempted Arson at Sydney Synagogue

Suspects connected to the vandalism and attempted arson attack of a synagogue in Sydney, Australia on Jan. 11, 2025. Photo: New South Wales Police
Counterterrorism police have taken over an investigation into swastika vandalism and attempted arson targeting a synagogue in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday morning, said New South Wales (NSW) Acting Premier Penny Sharpe.
The acting premier told Australia’s ABC radio on Monday that she is confident counterterrorism police will find the perpetrators behind the vandalism and arson attempt.
“They bring all of the intelligence that we have about activity that is out there,” she said. “They are able to coordinate at the local level, at the broader level, they’re able to work very closely and do things like release CCTV.”
NSW Police released CCTV images of two individuals connected to the swastika graffiti that was spray-painted on a synagogue in Sydney’s Inner West, during which police believe an arson attempt was also made. Police said early Saturday morning, two people approached the synagogue on Georgina Street in Newtown, spray-painted the antisemitic Nazi symbol on the fence and building, and also attempted to light the synagogue on fire. The pair left the scene of the crime shortly afterward. NSW Police have also provided descriptions of what the suspects were wearing during the incident.
“New South Wales should be a safe place for every person and any attack on any group is completely unacceptable,” Sharpe told Sky News Australia. “The rise of antisemitism is something everyone should be concerned about, not just the Jewish community. We’re pleased and watching closely the work that the counterterrorism and police are doing in relation to all the investigations. We’re examining laws and when Parliament returns in February, we’ll be putting in place protections so people can go to their church or their temple or synagogue without fear of harassment or threatening behavior.”
“This is a very serious matter” Sharpe added. “It’s hateful, it’s illegal, and for the community that we live in, we have to send a very strong message that it won’t go unanswered.”
Sharpe also spoke of a “community responsibility” and urged residents of NSW to come forward to police with any information regarding the vandalism and attempted arson, including knowledge about the suspects. When asked if she would support legislation that calls for mandatory prison sentences for individuals who target Jewish synagogues, she said, “we are open to all ideas … we are always open to a conversation on a national level about these issues.”
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said over the weekend that the spray-painting of a swastika on the synagogue was “very concerning, not just for the Jewish community but for the wider community.” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia’s “tolerant multicultural community” was “no place for this sort of criminal activity.”
The latest investigation came weeks after the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) published a report showing that antisemitism across the country quadrupled to record levels between 2023-2024, with Australian Jews experiencing more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024.
Anti-Jewish hate crimes surged across Australia following the Palestinian terror group Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. Such incidents included a terrorist arson attack on a synagogue in the Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea.
Just last week, several swastikas were spray-painted on the Allawah synagogue in southern Sydney, as well as the antisemitic message “Hitler on top Allah” and the phrase “Free Palestine.” The vandalism last week took place mere days after a car was spray-painted with the message “F—k the Jews” in Sydney’s south-east suburb Queens Park.
In May 2024, the words “Jew die” were spray-painted on the entrance of Mount Scopus Memorial College, Melbourne’s largest Jewish school. In December 2024, a car was set on fire in the eastern Sydney suburb of Woollahra that is home to Australia’s largest Jewish community, and the words “Kill Israiel [sic]” were graffitied on a wall nearby.
“Kill Jews … Jew [sic] lives here” was painted on a wall that contained mailboxes in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton in November 2023, and graffiti was also spray-painted a wall in the inner west suburb of Sydneham that read “gas the Jews.”
The post Counterterrorism Police Investigate Swastika Vandalism, Attempted Arson at Sydney Synagogue first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Fine Scholar’: UC Berkeley Chancellor Praises Professor Who Expressed Solidarity With Oct. 7 Attacks

University of California, Berkeley chancellor Dr. Rich Lyons, testifies at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on July 15, 2025. Photo: Allison Bailey via Reuters Connect.
The chancellor of University of California, Berkeley described a professor who cheered the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre across southern Israel a “fine scholar” during a congressional hearing held at Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Richard K. Lyons, who assumed the chancellorship in July 2024 issued the unmitigated praise while being questioned by members of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce, which summoned him and the chief administrators of two other major universities to interrogate their handling of the campus antisemitism crisis.
Lyons stumbled into the statement while being questioned by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), who asked Lyons to describe the extent of his relationship and correspondence with Professor Ussama Makdisi, who tweeted in Feb. 2024 that he “could have been one of those who broke through the siege on October 7.”
“What do you think the professor meant,” McClain asked Lyons, to which the chancellor responded, “I believe it was a celebration of the terrorist attack on October 7.” McClain proceeded to ask if Lyons discussed the tweet with Makdisi or personally reprimanded him, prompting an exchange of remarks which concluded with Lyons’s saying, “He is a fine scholar.”
Lyon’s comment came after nearly three hours in which the group of university leaders — which included Dr. Robert Groves, president of Georgetown University, and Dr. Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY) — offered gaffe-free, deliberately worded answers to the members’ questions to avoid eliciting the kind of public relations ordeal which prematurely ended the tenures of two Ivy League presidents in 2024 following an education committee held in Dec. 2023.
Rep. McClain later criticized Lyons on social media, calling his comment “totally disgraceful.” She added, “Faculty must be held accountable and Jewish students deserve better.”
CUNY chancellor Rodriguez also triggered a rebuke from the committee members in which he was also described as a “disgrace.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUNY campuses have been lambasted by critics as some of the most antisemitic institutions of higher education in the United States. Last year, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) resolved half a dozen investigations of antisemitism on CUNY campuses, one of which involved Jewish students who were pressured into saying that Jews are White people who should be excluded from discussions about social justice.
During Tuesday’s hearing Rodriguez acknowledged that antisemitic incidents continue to disrupt Jewish academic life, disclosing that 84 complaints of antisemitism have been formally reported to CUNY administrators since 2024. 15 were filed in 2025 alone, but CUNY, he said, has published only 18 students for antisemitic conduct. Rodriguez went on to denounce efforts to pressure CUNY into adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, saying, “I have repudiated BDS and I have said there’s no place for BDS at the City University of New York.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) remarked, however, that Rodriguez has allegedly done little to address antisemitism in the CUNY faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which has passed several resolutions endorsing BDS and whose members, according to 2021 ruling rendered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), discriminated against Professor Jeffrey Lax by holding meetings on Shabbat to prevent him and other Jews from attending them.
“The PSC does not speak for the City University of New York,” Rodriquez protested. “We’ve been clear on our commitment against antisemitism and against BDS.”
Later, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), whose grilling of higher education officials who appear before the committee has created several viral moments, rejected Rodriguez’s responses as disingenuous.
“It’s all words, no action. You have failed the people of New York,” she told the chancellor. “You have failed Jewish students in New York State, and it is a disgrace.”
Following the hearing, The Lawfare Project, legal nonprofit which provides legal services free of charge to Jewish victims of civil rights violations, applauded the education committee for publicizing antisemitism at CUNY.
“I am thankful for the many members of Congress who worked with us to ensure that the deeply disturbing facts about antisemitism at CUNY were brought forward in this hearing,” Lawfare Project litigation director Zipora Reich said in a press release. “While it is deeply frustrating to hear more platitudes and vague promises from CUNY’s leadership, we are encouraged to see federal lawmakers demanding accountability.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Fine Scholar’: UC Berkeley Chancellor Praises Professor Who Expressed Solidarity With Oct. 7 Attacks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Huckabee Calls for Israeli Investigation Into ‘Criminal and Terrorist’ Killing of Palestinian-American in West Bank
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Scandal-Plagued UN Commission Disbands Amid Increasing US Pressure Against Anti-Israel International Organizations

Miloon Kothari, member of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, briefs reporters on the first report of the Commission. UN Photo/Jean Marc Ferré
The Commission of Inquiry (COI), a controversial United Nations commission investigating Israel for nearly five years, has collapsed after all three of its members abruptly resigned days after the United States sanctioned a senior UN official over antisemitism.
Commission chair Navi Pillay resigned on July 8, citing health concerns and scheduling conflicts. Her fellow commissioners, Chris Sidoti and Miloon Kothari, followed suit days later. While none of the commissioners directly linked their resignations to the U.S. sanctions, the timing suggests mounting American pressure played a decisive role.
The resignations came just one day before the Trump administration announced sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories. Albanese was sanctioned over what the State Department called a “pattern of antisemitic and inflammatory rhetoric.” She had previously claimed that the U.S. was controlled by a “Jewish lobby” and questioned Israel’s right to self-defense. The sanctions bar her from entering the U.S. and freeze any assets under American jurisdiction.
The resignations mark a major victory for critics who have long viewed the inquiry as biased and politically motivated.
Watchdog groups, including Geneva-based UN Watch, celebrated the swift collapse of the Commission of Inquiry (COI), which they say had long operated with an open mandate to target Israel. “This is a watershed moment of accountability,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. “The COI was built on bias and sustained by hatred. Its fall is a victory for human rights, not a defeat.”
The COI had faced heavy criticism since its formation in 2021. In July 2022, Commissioner Miloon Kothari, made comments about the undue influence of a so-called “Jewish lobby” on the media, said the COI would “have to look at issues of settler colonialism.”
“Apartheid itself is a very useful paradigm, so we have a slightly different approach, but we will definitely get to it,” he added.
The Commission was established in 2021 year following the 11-day war between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas group in May. COI is the first UN commission to ever be granted an indefinite period of investigation, which has drawn criticism from the US State Department, members of US Congress, and Jewish leaders across the world.
Following the resignations, Council President Jürg Lauber invited member states to nominate replacements by August 31. However, it is unclear whether the commission will be reconstituted or quietly shelved. UN Watch and other groups have urged the council to disband the COI entirely, calling it irreparably biased.
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