The tim­ing of the Aus­tralian government’s announce­ment con­firm­ing the Iran­ian regime’s involve­ment in at least two anti­se­mit­ic attacks in Mel­bourne and Syd­ney was unex­pect­ed, but the rev­e­la­tions them­selves are not sur­pris­ing.

In Decem­ber 2022, the Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry warned a par­lia­men­tary inquiry into events in Iran about reg­u­lar reports from Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty insti­tu­tions in Aus­tralia of sus­pi­cious sur­veil­lance behav­iour. We not­ed that some indi­vid­u­als seek­ing entry pro­duced ID doc­u­ments indi­cat­ing that they were of Iran­ian back­ground.

Togeth­er with our friends in the Iran­ian com­mu­ni­ty and many oth­ers, we called on the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment to pro­scribe the Islam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tion. The report of the par­lia­men­tary inquiry adopt­ed this rec­om­men­da­tion, but the gov­ern­ment did not act on it.

Then came Octo­ber 7, fol­lowed by a mas­sive upsurge in anti­se­mit­ic inci­dents in Aus­tralia and oth­er West­ern coun­tries.

On 20 Octo­ber 2024, arson­ists set fire to a well-known del­i­catessen in Syd­ney owned by a Jew­ish fam­i­ly, and on Decem­ber 6 the Adass Israel Syn­a­gogue in Mel­bourne was fire­bombed and burned to the ground. From the begin­ning, the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Police made oblique ref­er­ences to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of off­shore actors being involved.

Arrests of some alleged per­pe­tra­tors took place dur­ing 2025.

Now the head of the Aus­tralian Secu­ri­ty and Intel­li­gence Organ­i­sa­tion Mike Burgess has con­firmed that the Iran­ian regime was ulti­mate­ly behind both attacks, and was “like­ly” behind oth­er attacks as well. Those arrest­ed were just low-lev­el local crim­i­nals paid to pro­vide crime as a ser­vice. He described “a lay­er cake of cut-outs between IRGC and the per­son or the alleged per­pe­tra­tors con­duct­ing crimes,” indi­cat­ing a web of local and off-shore crim­i­nal inter­me­di­aries.

Australia’s Prime Min­is­ter Antho­ny Albanese made the announce­ment him­self, along­side For­eign Min­is­ter Pen­ny Wong, Home Affairs Min­is­ter Tony Burke, the head of the Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Police and Mike Burgess – a pha­lanx of Australia’s top nation­al secu­ri­ty actors. Each of them cas­ti­gat­ed the Iran­ian regime for vio­lat­ing Australia’s sov­er­eign­ty and nation­al secu­ri­ty, endan­ger­ing its cit­i­zens, attack­ing a place of wor­ship, caus­ing severe loss and dam­age to prop­er­ty and under­min­ing social cohe­sion by tar­get­ing Australia’s Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.

The fall­out has been dra­mat­ic. All Aus­tralian embassy staff have been evac­u­at­ed from Iran. The Iran­ian ambas­sador in Aus­tralia and all embassy staff have been declared per­sona non gra­ta and ordered to leave the coun­try, the first expul­sion of an ambas­sador by Aus­tralia since 1942.

Now, a year and a half after the par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee’s rec­om­men­da­tion, the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment has decid­ed to amend the Crim­i­nal Code to pro­scribe the IRGC as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion.

The nefar­i­ous oper­a­tions of the Islam­ic Repub­lic all over the world have become noto­ri­ous: From attempt­ed mur­der and kid­nap­ping, to bomb­ing and cyber­at­tacks, Aus­tralia joins a long list of coun­tries not only in the Mid­dle East, but in coun­tries as far afield as Argenti­na and the U.S. where Iran has suc­cess­ful­ly or unsuc­cess­ful­ly waged its uncon­ven­tion­al war­fare. Much of this activ­i­ty has been con­duct­ed through the IRGC and its sub­sidiary orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Quds Force, Hezbol­lah, Hamas, Islam­ic Jihad, the Houthis and Al-Qae­da.

The IRGC is not, and does not see itself as, a nation­al instru­ment of the Iran­ian state, but rather as a supra­na­tion­al instru­ment of the “Islam­ic rev­o­lu­tion,” seek­ing to entrench theo­crat­ic rule in Iran and export the Islam­ic rev­o­lu­tion glob­al­ly.

So, as wel­come as the new mea­sures tak­en by the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment are, they also height­en rather than alle­vi­ate the anx­i­eties of many Aus­tralian Jews. We know that we have been tar­get­ed by state ter­ror­ism, and yet many of our ques­tions remain unan­swered.

For exam­ple, are any IRGC agents or their inter­me­di­aries still in a posi­tion to cause us fur­ther harm? Has the dan­ger to our com­mu­ni­ty from the Iran­ian regime passed?

Has the IRGC pen­e­trat­ed Aus­tralian protests against the war in Gaza and groups which engage in hate pro­pa­gan­da against both Israel and Israel’s Jew­ish sup­port­ers?

Jews and many oth­ers have expressed con­cern about the large pho­to of Iran’s Supreme Leader Aya­tol­lah Ali Khamenei held aloft at the fore­front of a march protest­ing the Gaza war across the Syd­ney Har­bour Bridge on August 3. Oth­er pro­test­ers have car­ried Hamas, al-Qae­da and Islam­ic State flags. They are con­sis­tent­ly present at such protests.

Above all, why did the Iran­ian regime tar­get Jews in Aus­tralia? Was it con­scious­ly seek­ing to under­mine a sta­ble West­ern democ­ra­cy by stok­ing anti­semitism and fear? If so, why?

Here is one pos­si­ble answer. The Islam­ic Repub­lic is nowhere more despised than among the Iran­ian peo­ple who yearn for their free­dom in repeat­ed anti-gov­ern­ment protests. React­ing in fear, Iran’s dic­ta­tor­ship seeks to intim­i­date by demon­strat­ing that its reach can extend to all parts of the world.

With this in mind, the threat to the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in Aus­tralia is ongo­ing. Yet in the longer term we can also take heart, know­ing that the regime’s crim­i­nal attempts to project pow­er are a sign of its weak­ness, not strength.