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Australia moves toward banning Nazi symbols in wake of neo-Nazi incidents
(JTA) — In the wake of a series of neo-Nazi incidents, Australia’s government is moving toward passing legislation to ban the use of Nazi symbols on clothing, flags and websites and in other domains.
Trading in Nazi memorabilia will also be banned, but religious, academic and other exemptions will be allowed. Before the Third Reich, the swastika was known first and foremost as a religious symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
“There is no place in Australia for symbols that glorify the horrors of the Holocaust,” Australia’s Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said on Thursday. “And we will no longer allow people to profit from the display and sale of items which celebrate the Nazis and their evil ideology.”
The Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee recommended a ban last month in a move that was applauded by Jewish leaders. Dreyfus, who is Jewish, said that the law will penalize offenders with up to a year in prison.
Peter Wertheim, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “there has been a proliferation of the public display of Nazi symbols in different parts of Australia” since the end of 2016.
The Victoria state’s strict COVID-19 restrictions led to a far-right anti-lockdown movement which, according to Andre Oboler, CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute, “allowed a normalization with some people being ambivalent about open Nazism.” Community outrage brewed after a couple flew a swastika flag above their Melbourne home in 2020. Victoria eventually banned the public display of Nazi symbols in 2021.
In March, The Age published an investigation of active soldiers’ neo-Nazi links, following a 2021 SBS report on men’s fitness centers used by white supremacist networks that employ Nazi symbols.
Then on March 18, a group of 30 people from a neo-Nazi group called the National Socialist Network showed up to a rally headed by British anti-transgender activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull in Melbourne. The neo-Nazi rally-goers, all dressed in black with their faces covered, marched onto the steps of the city’s parliament house, where police allowed them to stand in a line facing the crowd and repeatedly perform a Nazi salute.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews tweeted: “Nazis aren’t welcome. Not on Parliament’s steps. Not anywhere.”
“Transgender people, the targets of the neo-Nazis at the recent anti-trans rally in Melbourne, Jews, or other oft-demonized communities should not have to face situations where this evil is allowed to happen with police having no legal avenue to stop it,” said Michael Barnett, the co-convenor of Aleph, a Melbourne-based advocacy group for LGBTQ+ Jews, after the March rally.
In May, a Victorian council canceled a family-friendly drag queen-led story reading hosted at a library and other LGBTQ+ events following a series of threats from far-right groups. Later in the month, neo-Nazis performed a Heil Hitler salute while attending an anti-immigration rally at Melbourne’s parliament building to oppose “ethnic replacement.”
“This was not an isolated incident,” Oboler said in reference to the March rally. “There is a rise of the use of Nazi salutes, other Nazi symbols, and open neo-Nazism not just in Australia but internationally.”
Barnett said bans will send a message of consequences for “expressions of Nazi ideology designed to instill fear.”
Australia is home to the largest per-capita Holocaust survivor population outside Israel.
Wertheim said that bans “would only scratch the surface” in Australia, and new legislation “would not obviate the need for a more systematic, whole-of-government approach to address the problem of extremism.”
“We have argued the need to move beyond banning specific symbolism and to instead directly tackle Nazism and neo-Nazism,” Barnett said. “We have been warning about this, monitoring the threat, and taking action, but there is far more to be done.”
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The post Australia moves toward banning Nazi symbols in wake of neo-Nazi incidents appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Lindsey Graham urges Israel not to strike Iranian oil depots even as he says he helped make war happen
(JTA) — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has called on Israel to rein in its attacks on Iranian oil infrastructure, marking a rare note of caution from a Republican lawmaker who has said he helped push the United States to join Israel in waging war against Iran.
In a post on X on Sunday, Graham praised Israel for its role in the war before adding that “there will be a day soon that the Iranian people will be in charge of their own fate, not the murderous ayatollah’s regime.”
“In that regard, please be cautious about what targets you select,” continued Graham. “Our goal is to liberate the Iranian people in a fashion that does not cripple their chance to start a new and better life when this regime collapses. The oil economy of Iran will be essential to that endeavor.”
Graham’s post linked to an Axios article that reported that the United States was alarmed by Israeli strikes over the weekend that targeted 30 Iranian fuel depots. On Monday, U.S. gas prices rose to their highest levels since 2024.
The warning from Graham, an ally of President Donald Trump and staunch supporter of Israel, comes days after the Republican hawk told the Wall Street Journal that he had played a key role in urging Trump to strike Iran.
Prior to the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, Graham made several trips to Israel where he met with members of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whom he said he coached on how to lobby Trump to strike Iran.
“They’ll tell me things our own government won’t tell me,” Graham told the newspaper.
On Monday, Graham also directed his criticism at Saudi Arabia’s decision to stay on the sidelines of the campaign against Iran.
“It is my understanding the Kingdom refuses to use their capable military as a part of an effort to end the barbaric and terrorist Iranian regime who has terrorized the region and killed 7 Americans,” wrote Graham in a post on X Monday. “Question – why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?”
The post Lindsey Graham urges Israel not to strike Iranian oil depots even as he says he helped make war happen appeared first on The Forward.
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Belgian officials investigating synagogue explosion as possible act of terrorism
(JTA) — Belgian officials are investigating an explosion in front of a synagogue in Liège early Monday as a possible act of terrorism.
The explosion, which took place at 4 a.m., damaged the door of the historic neo-Romanesque synagogue and blew out the windows of multiple buildings across the street. No injuries were reported.
A range of Belgian politicians, including the prime minister and the mayor of Liège, characterized the explosion as act of antisemitism.
“Antisemitism is an attack on our values and our society, and we must fight it unequivocally,” Prime Minister Bart de Wever said in a statement. “We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community in Liege and across the country.”
The explosion comes amid a surge of concern about possible attacks by agents associated with the Iranian regime, against which the United States and Israel launched a war last week. Iran has a long record of supporting attacks on Jewish targets abroad, including two bombings in the 1990s in Argentina that killed more than 100 people at the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center. Now, with Iran being pummeled at home, watchdogs are warning that it might lash out through its Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, responsible for attacks abroad.
Azerbaijan said Friday that it had foiled multiple terror attacks planned by Iranian agents on Jewish sites. In London, four men were arrested last week for allegedly spying on the Jewish community for Iran, with the intent of planning attacks against the community. And a string of shootings at synagogues in Toronto has ignited concern in Canada, too.
Iranian agents have taken aim at non-Jewish targets, too. On Friday, a Pakistani man who prosecutors said had been directed by Iran’s IRGC was convicted of plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump.
The attack in Liège, in the primarily French-speaking Wallonia province, comes amid a range of recent developments that have unsettled Belgian Jews, who number approximately 30,000. They include antisemitic carnival caricatures in the city of Aalst; a ban on ritual slaughter preventing the local production of kosher meat; and an ongoing row between U.S. and Belgian officials over Jewish circumcision practices. The attack also follows a 2014 shooting in which a gunman associated with the Islamic State, a rival to Iran’s Islamic Republic, shot four people to death at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.
A spokesperson for the Liège police described the effects to the area as “only material damage” to the 1899 building. Rabbi Joshua Nejman told local media that he was hoping that security footage would reveal the perpetrator.
“I’m going to try to calm my heart, because it is beating faster and faster this morning,” said Nejman, who said he had been at the synagogue for 25 years.
“Liege is home to a very small but vibrant Jewish community where I personally grew up,” Eitan Bergman, vice president of the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organisations in Belgium, told Reuters. “Today, the feelings among our community members are a mixture of sadness, worry and profound shock.”
Liege’s mayor, Willy Demeyer, praised the synagogue community to RBTF, Belgium’s French-language national broadcaster. He added, “We cannot allow foreign conflicts to be imported into our city.”
The post Belgian officials investigating synagogue explosion as possible act of terrorism appeared first on The Forward.
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The Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life, 2025
In honor of The Algemeiner‘s 12th annual gala, we are proud to present our “J100” list — 100 individuals who have positively influenced Jewish life over the past year.