Aussie Spy Chief: Antisemitism Was Normalized by October 7
Australia’s spy chief told a public inquiry that antisemitism was left unchecked after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, allowing anti-Jewish hostility to become normalized and helping fuel later violence.
Australia’s spy chief told a public inquiry that antisemitism was left unchecked after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, allowing anti-Jewish hostility to become normalized and helping fuel later violence.
Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, gave the assessment during hearings of a Royal Commission into the December 2025 Bondi Beach terror attack, in which 15 people were killed at a Hanukkah celebration targeting the Jewish community.
Burgess said the rise in antisemitic incidents after October 7 contributed to ASIO’s decision to raise Australia’s national terrorism threat level to “probable” in August 2024.
“There is no doubt that the war in the Middle East invoked a range of emotions in Australia,” Burgess said.
He said some violent conduct and antisemitic behavior “were left unchecked,” became normalized and created greater permission for violence.
“Jewish Australians were on the receiving end,” he said.
Burgess said antisemitism escalated in severity from late 2024, moving from threatening and intimidating behavior to direct targeting of people, businesses and places of worship.
Those incidents included vandalism and arson attacks on homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in the months before the Bondi attack.
Burgess also said ASIO concluded that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was behind two antisemitic attacks: one targeting a kosher restaurant in Sydney and another at Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue. That finding led Australia to expel Iran’s ambassador in August.
He said Iran was probably involved in additional attacks, but ASIO could not definitively attribute responsibility in every case.
“They use their network of proxies and agents to do their bidding, and that is to bring harm to Jewish people wherever they are in the world,” Burgess said.
The commission’s first block of hearings focused on the nature and prevalence of antisemitism in Australia, including testimony from members of the Jewish community.