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Premier Chris Minns and the state’s top cop have vowed authorities will find and punish perpetrators who tried to set fire to an inner Sydney synagogue as they condemned sections of the community responsible for protecting suspected offenders.
Opening up a new front in the state’s fight against antisemitism, Minns warned on Sunday there was “no place for people who knowingly protect these people from consequences” and “bastards out there who are determined to rip our community in two” should face the “full force of the law”.
Police are investigating graffiti sprayed on the Newtown Synagogue on Saturday morning.Credit
ion Georgopoulos
“There is no place for people who commit acts like the vile ones we have seen over the past week and there is no place for people who knowingly protect these people from consequences,” Minns said. “The fact is someone must recognise the people in these images.
“I cannot be clearer. What has happened is a crime and anyone who has knowledge of a crime has an absolute duty to report it to the police.”
Police from the counterterrorism unit are leading the investigation into two unidentified offenders who spray-painted swastika symbols on Newtown Synagogue before using a clear liquid to ignite a fire which burnt itself out within minutes on Saturday. On Friday, the Southern Sydney Synagogue in Allawah was vandalised with antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas and a reference to Hitler.
CCTV images of the attack in Newtown.Credit:NSW Police
Minns said the use of a fire accelerant signalled a “very concerning” step up in the severity of antisemitic crimes. He said the incidents compounded a “massive spike in antisemitic hate crime in NSW over the last 12 months, and it needs to be met with the full force of the law”.
“This escalation is very concerning, not just for the Jewish community, but for the wider community. We are, of course, appalled to see antisemitic crime on the streets of Sydney in NSW,” Minns said.
The attack comes a month after a Melbourne synagogue was firebombed, also with the use of what Victorian police described as a liquid. The blaze gutted the building, leaving charred ruins, a tangle of wiring and a collapsed roof.
Opening up a new front in the state’s fight against antisemitism, Minns warned on Sunday there was “no place for people who knowingly protect these people from consequences” and “bastards out there who are determined to rip our community in two” should face the “full force of the law”.
Police are investigating graffiti sprayed on the Newtown Synagogue on Saturday morning.Credit
ion Georgopoulos“There is no place for people who commit acts like the vile ones we have seen over the past week and there is no place for people who knowingly protect these people from consequences,” Minns said. “The fact is someone must recognise the people in these images.
“I cannot be clearer. What has happened is a crime and anyone who has knowledge of a crime has an absolute duty to report it to the police.”
Police from the counterterrorism unit are leading the investigation into two unidentified offenders who spray-painted swastika symbols on Newtown Synagogue before using a clear liquid to ignite a fire which burnt itself out within minutes on Saturday. On Friday, the Southern Sydney Synagogue in Allawah was vandalised with antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas and a reference to Hitler.
CCTV images of the attack in Newtown.Credit:NSW Police
Minns said the use of a fire accelerant signalled a “very concerning” step up in the severity of antisemitic crimes. He said the incidents compounded a “massive spike in antisemitic hate crime in NSW over the last 12 months, and it needs to be met with the full force of the law”.
“This escalation is very concerning, not just for the Jewish community, but for the wider community. We are, of course, appalled to see antisemitic crime on the streets of Sydney in NSW,” Minns said.
The attack comes a month after a Melbourne synagogue was firebombed, also with the use of what Victorian police described as a liquid. The blaze gutted the building, leaving charred ruins, a tangle of wiring and a collapsed roof.
