16^th December 2014
The Aus­trali­an Jewish community is shocked and appalled by the ter­ri­fy­ing taking of hostages at Martin Place on December 15 and ensuing events, and is deeply saddened by the news that the incident has ended with the deaths of two innocent people, Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson.
We pray for their souls and share in the sorrow, grief and revulsion caused by the heinous crime which claimed their lives. May their families be granted strength at this time of great pain and may the survivors be healed fully, both phys­ic­ally and emo­tion­ally.
We pay tribute to the New South Wales police and sup­port­ing federal agencies for their ded­ic­a­tion, pro­fes­sion­al­ism and absolute com­mit­ment to the pre­ser­va­tion of innocent life. Aus­trali­ans are fortunate to be served by people of their ded­ic­a­tion and calibre.
The per­pet­rat­or of the crime was a lone disturbed indi­vidu­al with a criminal history who cloaked his personal griev­ances in Islam and Islamist ideology. His evil actions must not be allowed to sow discord in our tolerant, mul­ti­cul­tur­al society, or to weaken the resolve of our gov­ern­ment to fight those who seek to inflict terror on innocent people at home and abroad.
On the contrary, we have every con­fid­ence that this terrible tragedy will unite Aus­trali­ans and harden our nation’s com­mit­ment to fighting violent extremism and incite­ment to ensure that this sort of tragedy is never visited upon our society again.