The Australian government’s support for a UN resolution calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of Gaza is to blame for widely condemned Melbourne synagogue arson attack, the Jewish state’s prime minister said.
It is impossible to separate the reprehensible arson from the federal government’s “extreme anti-Israel stance,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on social media early Saturday.
“Including the scandalous decision to support a UN resolution calling on Israel to ‘end its illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as quickly as possible’ and preventing a former Israeli minister from entering the country,” he wrote on X .
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“The burning of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne is a despicable act of anti-Semitism,” he said.
The Adass Israel Synagogue in Rippon Lea in Melbourne’s south-east has two of its three buildings gutted after suspected masked intruders broke into the building and set it on fire in the early hours of Friday.
Inside were two congregants preparing for morning prayer. They were evacuated, one with minor injuries.
Police are not ruling out terrorism as a motive, believing the attack to be targeted.
The suspects poured accelerant on the floor of the synagogue and set it on fire before fleeing when they were disturbed by a congregant, police said.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said he strongly condemned the horrific arson amid an intolerable wave of attacks on Jewish communities when he spoke with Prime Minister Antoni Albanese on Friday evening.
“I noted to the Prime Minister that this rise and increasingly serious anti-Semitic attacks on the Jewish community require firm and decisive action and that this is a message that must be heard clearly by Australia’s leaders,” he said.
“I thanked him for his continued efforts to combat anti-Semitism and expressed my confidence that local law enforcement will do everything in their power to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Political and religious leaders widely condemned the attack on the synagogue built by Holocaust survivors.
Albanese said he has zero tolerance for anti-Semitism.
“This deliberate, unlawful attack goes against everything we are as Australians and everything we have worked so hard to build as a nation,” he said in a statement.
The Australian Federal Police would provide any requested resources to Victorian authorities, he said.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen said police patrols would be increased and pledged $100,000 to rebuild the synagogue.
