Australia says Iran behind antisemitic attacks, expels envoy

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said this is the first time Australia has expelled an ambassador since World War II.

By World Israel News Staff

Australia has officially severed diplomatic ties with Iran, expelling Tehran’s ambassador and shutting down its embassy in Tehran, after announcing that the Iranian regime had orchestrating at least two antisemitic arson attacks on Australian soil.

Ahead of the announcement, Australian diplomats in Iran were quietly moved to safety in a third country, according to local media reports.

Australian government officials said Iran planned and executed an arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, where a perpetrator set fire to the building while Jews were inside praying.

Iran is also believed to be behind an attack on Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, a kosher restaurant in Sydney’s Bondi neighborhood.

One person was injured in the synagogue arson, and the building was seriously damaged. The attacks have fueled antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment, leaving Australia’s Jewish community shaken.

“These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Tuesday at a press conference.

“They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community. It is totally unacceptable, and the Australian government is taking strong and decisive action in response,” he added.

Mike Burgess, director of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), said “credible intelligence” indicated that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) ordered the attacks through “a series of overseas cut-outs, facilitators, to coordinators that found their way to tasking Australians.”

Burgess confirmed that Australia will formally designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

“It goes without saying that Iran’s actions are unacceptable. They put lives at risk, they terrified the community, and they tore at our social fabric. Iran and its proxies lit the matches and fanned the flames,” he said.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong underscored the severity of the move, calling Iranian Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi “persona non grata” in the country.

Sadeghi and other diplomats at the Iranian embassy in Canberra will have seven days to leave the country, Wong said.

“This is the first time in the post-war period that Australia has expelled an ambassador, and we have made this decision because Iran’s actions are completely unacceptable,” she stressed.