Australia announced on Tuesday the expulsion of Iran’s ambassador and three other diplomats after Canberra’s spy agency found that the Islamic Republic had directed at least two antisemitic attacks in the country.
According to the News.com.au website, Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi was informed of the move some 30 minutes before Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced it.
The antisemitic attacks “were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil,” said Albanese at the press conference on Tuesday. “They have sought to harm and terrorize Jewish Australians and sow hatred and division.
“Iran has sought to disguise its involvement, but ASIO assesses it was behind the attacks on the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney on October 20 last year, and the Adas Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 6 last year,” the Australian prime minister revealed. “ASIO assesses it is likely Iran directed further attacks as well.”
The move marks the first time that Canberra has expelled a diplomat with ambassador rank since World War II, according to local media reports.
Australia also suspended operations at its embassy in Tehran, advising its citizens to immediately leave the Islamic Republic if they can do so.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong told reporters that “there is no doubt that these extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil have crossed a line.
“They have tried to divide the Australian community, and they have done so with acts of aggression that not only sought to terrify Australians, but put Australian lives in danger,” she added.
ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said his agency’s “painstaking investigation” had uncovered links between the antisemitic attacks and commanders in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“The IRGC used a complex web of proxies to hide its involvement,” he charged, adding that “ASIO is still investigating possible Iranian involvement in a number of other attacks.”
Australian Jews experienced more than 2,000 anti-Jewish incidents over the past year, more than quadruple the number from the previous year, according to an Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) report.
Jewish community leaders have attributed the rise in antisemitism to inaction or even hostility on the part of Australia’s Labor government.
In a missive dated Aug. 17, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Netanyahu took Albanese to task for what the Israeli leader said was his failure to combat antisemitism.
In the letter, the longtime leader of the Jewish state expressed concern at the “alarming rise” in antisemitism in Australia and the “lack of decisive action by your government to confront it.”
Netanyahu also accused Albanese of contributing to antisemitism by signaling his readiness to recognize a Palestinian state. (Australia says it will do so at the U.N. General Assembly annual meeting in September.)
Listing several recent attacks in Australia, including a July arson attack on the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, Netanyahu wrote, “Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire.”
