A Jewish MP has been targeted by far-left terrorists who firebombed his Melbourne office, smashed windows and defaced it with political slogans, but police are yet to arrest the extremists responsible.
The office of Josh Burns in St Kilda was attacked at 3.20am on Wednesday, and footage of the attack shows six left-wing thugs lighting a fire beneath Mr Burns’ portrait before fleeing the scene.
Firefighters were called to the scene and found telecommunications pits in front of the office ablaze, and the slogan “Zionism is fascism” painted in red on the window. Devil’s horns were also painted on his head.
Footage shows a group running down Barkly Street in St Kilda after lighting two fires outside the office of Labor MP Josh Burns. pic.twitter.com/lt04uOvAnh
— Madelaine Burke (@Madelaine_Burke) June 18, 2024
As of Thursday night no arrests have been made, and Victoria Police said there have been 197 incidents relating to the conflict in Gaza since October 2023.
They have included 88 related to anti-Semitic attacks, 16 related to “Islamophobia”, 87 linked to “Israel’s Gaza policy” and six that were “against pro-Palestine views”.
18 involved direct physical violence, and a total of 60 people have been arrested.
Mr Burns said on Wednesday: “It was a very reckless and dangerous vandalism of my office.
“It was clearly politically motivated by having the graffiti on the outside of the office.
“This was really ugly behaviour and it was dangerous. It put residents and lives and livelihoods at risk and the police are investigating.”
Sky News host Steve Price asked why the attack had not been officially designated a terrorist incident.
“The MP Josh Burns is Jewish – his electorate office is in Melbourne’s St Kilda which is home to a large Jewish population, I went and had a look at that site this morning, crawling … make no mistake this was a dangerous potentially deadly attack with residents living above the office,” Mr Price said on Wednesday.
“Why is this not as I think it should be – being labelled an act of terror, a terrorist attack?
“If firebombing the office of a Federal Jewish MP in a suburban neighbourhood in the middle of the night isn’t terrorism what is?”
There have been similar acts of far-left vandalism across Australia in recent months, including attacks on Captain Cook statues, a statue of King George V, the office of Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus (who is also Jewish), on other Labor MPs’ offices, and on US consulates.
The Australian Senate this week held a public hearing as part of an inquiry into right-wing extremist movements, but no equivalent inquiry into left-wing groups exists, despite the recent wave of attacks.
Former Liberal MP Moira Deeming said in a response to an adverse comment made in a previous submission to the inquiry that she had serious misgivings about the inquiry.
“I believe that whether for the ‘far left’ or the ‘far right’, political gains via illegitimate means, especially extreme means such as violence, threats of violence, harassment, smear campaigns and corruption, are immoral, a threat to democracy and should be condemned,” she wrote.
“Therefore, I hold deep concerns about the wisdom of holding an Inquiry into ‘far right-wing’ extremism alone. I hope it is not an attempt to delegitimise ordinary ‘right wing’ political concerns, goals and groups by semantically associating them with vile characteristics like hatred, racism, sexism, exploitation and violence.”
The firebombing comes just months after left-wing terrorists torched the car of nationalist activist Tim Lutze outside his Melbourne home.
Victoria Police are yet to make any arrests in relation to that arson attack.
