Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Monday that his government is cutting diplomatic ties with Iran after intelligence officials linked Tehran to two antisemitic attacks on Australian soil.
Albanese said the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) uncovered evidence that Iran directed assaults in 2024 on a Sydney kosher restaurant and a Melbourne synagogue. Days earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Albanese of having “betrayed” and “abandoned” Israel and the Australian Jewish community.
“Enough credible intelligence has now been gathered to reach the deeply disturbing conclusion that the Iranian Government has directed at least two of these attacks,” Albanese said in a statement. “These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil. This is an attack on our society, aimed at creating fear, stoking internal divisions and eroding social cohesion.”
ASIO found the Iranian government had directed arson attacks on the Lewis Continental Kitchen, a kosher food company, in Sydney last October and on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December, Albanese said.
As part of the response, Australia is expelling Iran’s ambassador and relocating its own diplomats stationed in Tehran to a third country, Albanese said. The government also plans to formally designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.
Iranian officials denied the allegations, dismissing the move as “compensation” for strained relations between Australia and Israel over the war in Gaza, CBS News reported.
“It looks like the action, which is against Iran, diplomacy and the relations between the two nations, is a compensation for the criticism that the Australians had against the Zionist regime,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei, according to the outlet.
Neither the Iranian embassy in Australia nor Albanese’s office responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Relations between Australia and Israel have progressively deteriorated in recent months. Albanese, who leads the Labor Party, announced in August that Australia would join countries such as France, Canada and the U.K. to recognize a Palestinian state.
“I think his record is forever tarnished by the weakness that he showed in the face of these Hamas terrorist monsters,” Netanyahu said about Albanese on Aug. 21.
While only two attacks have been directly tied to Iran, Australia has seen a rise in crimes against its Jewish population since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. Meanwhile, an estimated 350,000 people attended pro-Palestinian rallies across the country on Sunday, demanding an end to what organizers called a “genocide” in Gaza.
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