The Iranian regime orchestrated at least two antisemitic attacks in Australia, the country’s government and top intelligence agency said Tuesday.
Iran’s foreign terrorist arm, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), directed an arson attack on a Kosher restaurant in Sydney in October 2024 and another on a Melbourne synagogue in December, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) disclosed.
The revelation prompted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to expel the Iranian ambassador and ban the IRGC terrorist group from operating in the country.”Iran’s ambassador to Australia has been expelled and the Australian embassy in Tehran shuttered after the stunning revelation that Iran directed at least two high-profile attacks on the Australian Jewish community,” The Sydney Morning Herald reported Tuesday.
The newspaper described the Iran-sponsored antisemitic attacks as the “most dangerous example of foreign interference in modern Australian history,” leading the “government to designate Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation.”
Iran has been propping up proxy groups to orchestrate attacks on the Jewish community in Australia. The IRGC, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, had “used a complex web of proxies to hide its involvement,” the country’s intelligence chief, Mike Burgess, said. “They’re just using cut-outs, including people who are criminals and members of organised crime gangs to do their bidding or direct their bidding,” he added.
The Australian public broadcaster ABC reported how “IRGC’s long tentacles” were taking hold in the country:
The IRGC is the group responsible for both internal security in Iran and for the international “security” operations of the regime and has long been known to have tentacles that spread wide around the globe.In Australia in recent years, it has been seen to be mostly active against the Iranian diaspora. A Senate select committee two years ago received submissions from Iranian Australians concerned for their safety and reporting intimidation and harassment.That harassment had escalated in the wake of the death in Iran in 2022 of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, allegedly at the hands of Iran’s religious police in September, which triggered mass protests across the country.Then Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil promised not to let diaspora communities become foreign interference targets, after revealing ASIO had disrupted an Iranian government operation on Australia soil, targeting an Australian-Iranian critic of the regime in Tehran.
The damning revelations come after Australian Prime Minister Albanese earlier this month promised to recognize the so-called “Palestinian state,” a move likely aimed at appeasing the country’s rapidly growing migrant Muslim population.
Since October 7, 2023, antisemitic demonstrations have been witnessed across Australia. These angry protests are accompanied by firebomings and attacks on Synagogues, Jewish residential areas, and even a childcare center.
Reuters reported “widespread” anti-Israel protests across Australia over the weekend. “Thousands of Australians joined pro-Palestinian rallies on Sunday, organisers said, amid strained relations between Israel and Australia following the centre-left government’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state,” the news agency commented Monday.
Demonstrators make no secret of their hate towards Jews and Israel. Just days after the October 7 massacre, pro-Hamas demonstrators were heard chanting ‘Gas the Jews’ outside Sydney’s Opera House. Australian university campuses have been allowing demonstrations that openly call for a worldwide ‘Intifada,’ a reference to deadly waves of Palestinian terror attacks in Israel in the early 1990s and 2000s.
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