State oppositions have launched a scathing attack on the New South Wales and Victorian Governments over the failure of police to prosecute perpetrators of antisemitic attacks.
As investigations into separate assaults on Orthodox Jewish students continue in both states, Jewish leaders said there was growing community concern over the spate of unresolved crime which had been “swept under the carpet”.
Aside from the jailing last year of two white supremacists who vandalised the Perth Hebrew Congregation in 2004, senior Jewish officials cannot recall a single prosecution over an anti-Israel or antisemitic attack in Australia since 1991.
“We are reaching a point where one really has to question the competence of our police authorities given their poor record of dealing with a number of criminal attacks against Jewish targets,” said one senior Jewish official, who declined to be named.
The criticism came as Melbourne detectives continued their probe into an alleged attack on two ultra-Orthodox teenagers assaulted outside Melbourne’s Jam Factory last week.
Sydney police are also investigating an incident that resulted in an Israeli-born Yeshiva Centre student being hospitalised with a brain hemorrhage last week.
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One Response
The police don’t ignore crime in a vacuum. There are signals from higher up political leaders to the police chief, which then filters down to the street level.
There are politicians who for some reason don’t want to put the anti-Semites in jail, and it is a worrying matter indeed.