Australia has dismissed a claim that Israeli interventions prompted the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to expel Iran’s ambassador to Canberra, after the premier blamed Tehran for directing anti-Semitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.
“Complete nonsense,” Australian Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke told ABC Radio on Wednesday, when asked about Israel claiming credit for Australia’s decision to order Tehran’s ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, to leave the country.
Albanese said on Tuesday that Australia had reached “the deeply disturbing conclusion” through “credible intelligence” that found Iran’s government had “directed” at least two attacks against Australia’s Jewish community.
Responding to a question from the ABC about Australia’s allegations against Iran, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer had commended Australia for taking “threats seriously” against the Jewish community, which he said had come after a “forthright intervention” from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mencer said Netanyahu had “made very forthright comments about the [Australian] prime minister himself”, which spurred Albanese to action.
“He made those comments because he did not believe that the actions of the Australian government had gone anywhere near far enough to address the issues of anti-Semitism,” Mencer added.
The ABC included Mencer’s comments in an article titled: “Israeli government claims credit for pushing Albanese to expel Iranian diplomats.”
Netanyahu last week accused Albanese of being “a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”, days after Albanese announced Australia would move to formally recognise a Palestinian state in September.
Iran said it “absolutely rejected” Australia’s accusations regarding the attacks and noted that the claims had come after Australia had directed “limited criticism” at Israel.
“It seems that this action is taken in order to compensate for the limited criticism the Australian side has directed at the Zionist regime [Israel],” Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said.
“Any inappropriate and unjustified action on a diplomatic level will have a reciprocal reaction,” Baghaei said.
Ilana Lenk, the spokesperson and head of public diplomacy at Israel’s embassy in Canberra, shared Australian newspaper front pages with headlines including, ‘Iran attacks us’ and ‘Iran targets Bondi deli’, in a post on social media.
“We warned Iran wouldn’t stop with Israel or the Jewish people. The West is next isn’t just a slogan, and today Australia sees it,” she wrote.
In a statement, the Jewish Council of Australia said it was “shocked to learn of the Iranian government involvement in coordinating antisemitic attacks”.
“The fact that a foreign government appears to be responsible shows how irresponsible it was for the attacks to be used to demonise the Palestine solidarity protest movement ,” the council said in a statement.
“We call on politicians and the media to exercise caution and to avoid politicisation of these attacks in a way that could further harm the Jewish community,” the statement added.
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