After the premier blamed Tehran for initiating anti-Semitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia has refuted the claim that Israeli actions led to the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to expel Iran’s ambassador to Canberra.
When asked about Israel’s claim to credit Australia’s decision to send Ahmad Sadeghi to Iran, Australian Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke responded to ABC Radio on Wednesday, saying: “Complete nonsense.”
According to Albanese, Australia “arrived to the deeply disturbing conclusion” through “credible intelligence” that discovered that the government of Iran had “directed” at least two attacks against Australia’s Jewish community.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer praised Australia for taking “threats seriously” against the Jewish community, which he claimed had resulted from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “forthright intervention.” In response to a question from the ABC, Mencer addressed the issue of Australia’s allegations against Iran.
Mencer claimed that Netanyahu had “made very directly remarks about the Australian prime minister himself,” which sparked Albanese’s response.
He made those remarks because he did not believe the Australian government’s actions had done enough to address anti-Semitism, Mencer continued.
Mencer’s remarks were included in an article on The ABC titled “The Israeli government claims credit for causing Albanese to expel Iranian diplomats.”
Albanese, who had earlier claimed Australia would formally recognize a Palestinian state in September, was accused by Netanyahu of being “a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.”
Iran asserted that the accusations against Australia had come after Australia had “limited criticism” of Israel and that it had “absolutely rejected” the accusations.
According to spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmaeil Baghaei, “It appears that this action is taken to make up for the limited criticism the Australian side has directed at the Zionist regime [Israel].”
According to Baghaei, “any inappropriate and unjustified diplomatic action will have a reaction backwards.”
In a post on social media, Ilana Lenk, the head of public diplomacy at Israel’s embassy in Canberra, shared headlines from Australian newspaper front pages like “Iran attacks us” and “Iran targets Bondi deli” with headlines.
We cautioned Iran against joining Israel or the Jewish people. She wrote, “Australia sees the West as next, and that’s not just a slogan.”
The Jewish Council of Australia expressed shock at learning about the Iranian government’s role in planning antisemitic attacks in a statement.
The council said in a statement that the use of the attacks to demonize the Palestine solidarity protest movement shows how careless it was.
Source: Aljazeera
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