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By: Fern Sidman
In a move described by political observers as both historic and unprecedented in its severity, Australia on Tuesday expelled the Iranian ambassador and three additional embassy staffers, citing evidence that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) orchestrated antisemitic attacks against Jewish institutions in Melbourne and Sydney. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, flanked by his most senior national security and foreign policy officials, labeled the alleged IRGC operations “extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil.”
As The Jewish Insider reported on Tuesday, the expulsion of Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi marks the first time since World War II that Australia has taken the step of ejecting a foreign ambassador. In tandem with the expulsions, Canberra also withdrew its own diplomatic staff from Tehran and issued an advisory urging Australian citizens to leave Iran. The dramatic escalation in bilateral tensions reflects both the gravity of the plots attributed to Iran’s elite military apparatus and the growing anxieties over a global surge in antisemitism since the Hamas-led atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023.
According to Australian intelligence, the IRGC’s plots against the Jewish community in Australia were not isolated but part of a broader campaign of covert influence and intimidation. Albanese’s remarks were corroborated by Mike Burgess, Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), who described the attacks as the product of a “layer cake” of operatives and middlemen.
“These plots were carried out through a series of overseas cut-out facilitators to coordinators that found their way to tasking Australians,” Burgess explained, according to the report at The Jewish Insider. The chain of command, he said, traced directly back to the IRGC, Iran’s most powerful paramilitary and intelligence institution, long accused by Western governments of orchestrating terrorist attacks and targeting Jewish communities abroad.
The announcement followed months of quiet investigation into a string of violent antisemitic incidents across Australia, which intelligence officials now attribute to Tehran’s sponsorship.
In December 2024, a synagogue in Melbourne was firebombed while nearly two dozen worshippers were inside. Although no lives were lost, the attack rattled the Jewish community and sent shockwaves across the nation. Two individuals were later arrested in connection with the plot, and investigators ultimately linked the operation to IRGC-directed intermediaries working through a global web of handlers.
Earlier, in October 2024, arsonists targeted Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, a kosher restaurant in Sydney, causing an estimated $1 million in damages. The attack, carried out under the direction of middleman Sayed Moosawi, was allegedly commissioned for a modest payment of $12,000.
Court documents released this month reveal a stunning level of ineptitude on the part of the perpetrators: before striking Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, the arsonists mistakenly torched a brewery with a similar name. The embarrassing misfire, however, did little to diminish the gravity of the scheme. As the report at The Jewish Insider noted, investigators viewed the attack as evidence of Iran’s willingness to exploit local actors, regardless of their competence, to carry out acts of intimidation and terror against Jewish targets abroad.
Prime Minister Albanese, joined by Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, announced the expulsions in Canberra. “Australia will never tolerate foreign-directed violence against our citizens or residents, and we will not allow our Jewish community to live under threat from a hostile power,” Albanese said.
By ejecting the Iranian ambassador, Australia has taken a step unprecedented in the modern era of its foreign policy. As The Jewish Insider report highlighted, the last time Canberra expelled an ambassador was during the upheavals of World War II, underscoring the seriousness with which it views Iran’s alleged actions.
The expulsion also comes amid what officials described as an explosion of antisemitic incidents in Australia following the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre. According to figures cited by Albanese and reported in The Jewish Insider, antisemitic incidents rose by 316% year-over-year in the twelve months following the attacks in Israel.
Australia’s Jewish community, centered in Melbourne and Sydney, has long been one of the most vibrant outside Israel and the United States. But since Oct. 7, synagogues, Jewish schools, and kosher businesses have faced escalating threats, vandalism, and violent rhetoric. The IRGC’s alleged orchestration of direct attacks has now compounded these fears, transforming what had been understood as a domestic security challenge into a full-fledged foreign policy crisis.
The incidents in Australia fit into a broader pattern of Iranian activity. Western intelligence agencies have long accused the IRGC of planning or sponsoring attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets worldwide, from Europe to South America.
The Jewish Insider report pointed out that Iran has increasingly sought to project power through asymmetric means, including cyberattacks, assassinations, and the cultivation of proxies and middlemen. By operating through intermediaries like Moosawi, the IRGC can obscure its direct involvement while still instilling fear among Jewish communities abroad.
For Australia, however, the revelation that its own citizens were recruited to carry out IRGC plots represents an alarming escalation. It suggests that Tehran is willing not only to direct foreign operations but to penetrate local communities in ways that destabilize democracies far from the Middle East.
Leaders of Australia’s Jewish community welcomed the expulsions but expressed concern about the long-term implications. “This is a wake-up call,” one Melbourne rabbi told Jewish Insider, “that what we once considered isolated acts of antisemitic hate may in fact be coordinated from abroad by a hostile power.”
In Sydney, where Lewis’ Continental Kitchen was nearly destroyed, the mood was somber. The restaurant, long a cultural hub for the Jewish community, remains under repair. “To know that this was not just the work of local bigots but part of an orchestrated foreign campaign—it’s chilling,” a local Jewish leader said.
Australia’s decision to withdraw its diplomats from Iran and urge citizens to leave marks a dramatic hardening of policy toward Tehran. Analysts cited by The Jewish Insider noted that Albanese’s government, typically cautious in its foreign policy, has adopted an unusually aggressive stance—likely reflecting both the scale of the threat and the political imperative to protect Australia’s Jewish population.
The expulsion may also have ripple effects in the broader Western alliance. By setting a precedent for punitive measures against Tehran in response to antisemitic attacks abroad, Canberra could embolden other governments to take similar steps. For Israel, the move represents a significant diplomatic victory, reinforcing its argument that Iran poses not just a regional but a global threat.
Australia’s decision to expel the Iranian ambassador marks a profound shift in its foreign and domestic policy, linking the protection of its Jewish citizens with a broader global effort to curb Iranian aggression. As the report at The Jewish Insider emphasized, the IRGC’s orchestration of synagogue and restaurant attacks on Australian soil graphically depicts the transnational nature of modern antisemitism and the willingness of state actors to exploit it as a weapon of influence.
With antisemitic incidents skyrocketing and Jewish communities feeling increasingly vulnerable, the Albanese government’s response signals a new era in which indifference is no longer an option. For Australia, the stakes are existential: safeguarding democratic integrity, upholding civil rights, and ensuring that Jews can live free of fear in a country that has long prided itself on pluralism and tolerance.
But the implications extend beyond Australia. If Iran is indeed orchestrating antisemitic violence through proxies in far-flung democracies, then the battle against antisemitism can no longer be seen as a purely domestic challenge. It is a geopolitical struggle—and one in which nations like Australia are now firmly on the front lines.