Arson attacks in Sydney and Melbourne last year have now been attributed by Australian intelligence services to Iran. The targets were a synagogue and a Jewish-owned cafe. Australia’s agencies also found evidence that Iran was likely to be behind other anti-Semitic incidents in Australia, including attacks on Jewish schools, homes and vehicles.
Mike Burgess, head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) said that after a painstaking, months-long investigation his teams had uncovered links “between the alleged crimes and the commanders in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC”.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the Iranians were directing an anti-Semitic campaign intended to sow discord and undermine social cohesion and his government has responded with commendable decisiveness. The Iranian ambassador and three other officials have been ordered to leave the country, Australia has withdrawn its diplomats from Tehran and has proscribed the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.
Contrast this with the pusillanimous response of the UK authorities to similarly malign Iranian activities. While there have been arrests of people allegedly associated with an Iranian-directed terror plot, dissidents living in Britain have been repeatedly targeted for kidnapping or assassination.
These activities are known to have been organised by the IRGC and yet the Government continues to resist calls to add it to the list of proscribed organisations. Why is this? The time has come for the Government to show that it is treating the Iranian threat with due seriousness, just as Australia has done.