Albanese’s Sanctioning of Iran Cements Australia’s Alliance with Israel and US

The brief window of hope that the Palestine solidarity movement secured via its recent mass mobilisation on the Sydney Harbour Bridge was dashed on Tuesday, 26 August 2025 when the Albanese government, following its earlier decision to recognise Palestine, sanctioned Iran in the form of expelling its ambassador, which further signalled our ongoing commitment to follow the US into the coming war.

Hundreds of thousands of local supporters of Palestine rallied on Gadigal land in Sydney on 3 August to demonstrate Israel’s genociding of the Palestinians of Gaza, while last Sunday, 24 August 2025, saw thousands more mobilise in centres across the continent, calling for an end to the killing that has likely taken more than 115,000 Palestinian lives and further for sanctioning of Israel.

Two days later, however, federal Labor announced it was expelling the Iranian ambassador, and not, as demanded by great swathes of civil society, the ambassador from Israel. An d the reason why our nation has sanctioned Iran is that ASIO has come to the “deeply disturbing conclusion” that government forces in Tehran directed two antisemitic property damage crimes over here.

A series of so-called antisemitic attacks rocked both Gadigal land in Sydney and Naarm-Melbourne over the summer of 2024/25. The public was admonished by ministers because of this. And while the Australian federal police revealed the Sydney antisemitic arson and graffiti attacks were a “criminal con job” in March, ASIO has now suggested Iran is behind an attack in each city “and likely more”.

The announcement has left much of the populace dumbstruck as Iran conducting arson attacks on Jewish properties to “undermine social cohesion” in this country, doesn’t quite add up. And with Israel and the US both having committed attacks against Iran in June, PM Anthony Albanese’s turfing of its ambassador reads like he’s pledging our alliance to the US and Israel in any further battle.

Iranian cut-outs gone wild

The moral panic around antisemitism was raging long before the spate of crimes against Jewish-owned property in Greater Sydney began in October 2024. Former treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s May 2024 documentary on the antisemitism crisis aired six months prior to it actually taking place, and its anomalies like these, that led many NSW constituents to doubt the legitimacy of the spate.

Albanese outlined before the press on Tuesday that the “antisemitic” attacks on the “Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Sydney on October 20 last year, and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 6 last year” were ultimately directed by, as ASIO director general Mike Burgess has confirmed, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The two arson attacks, according to the ASIO boss, were coordinated by the IRGC via a series of cut-outs or intermediaries that eventually led to those committing the crimes on the ground, which does not dispel the AFP and NSW police explanation that the crimes in Sydney were being directed by organised crime figures overseas, as they could ultimately have been directed by Iranian agents.

But it’s interesting to note that in terms of the arson attack on Bondi’s Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, the local operators hired by the Iranian government, accidentally burnt down the nearby Curly Lewis Brewery three nights prior to hitting their correct target, while the car used in the Melbourne synagogue attack, was also used in an unrelated shooting and another arson attack on a nightclub.

The prime minister further outlined before the press on Tuesday that in response to these attacks by Iranian government operatives, the nation was expelling the “Iranian ambassador to Australia and three additional Iranian diplomats”, along with suspending operations of the Australian embassy in Tehran, and it had further decided to pass legislation to see the IRGC listed as a terrorist organisation.

The press conference and the diplomatic reprimands had something of the tone of a declaration of war about them, which is made all the more concerning as these actions are following on the back of the unfinished business suggested by the Twelve Day Israel-Iranian war in June, which included the US Trump administration’s illegal bombing of three of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites.

The fruit of prolonged assessment

Burgess told the press on Tuesday that he had warned the nation, during his February delivery of the 2025 ASIO Annual Threat Assessment, that its security environment is becoming increasingly “more dynamic, diverse and degraded” because “some nation states are using criminal proxies to undertake acts of foreign interference, espionage and politically motivated violence”.

The spy boss added that after 10 months of inquiry, his agency can now announce that the Iranian state had “directed at least two and likely more attacks on Jewish interests in Australia” over the summer of 2024/25. Burgess underscores that his agency has arrived at these conclusions via the “formal assessments” of intelligence, as it painstakingly “uncovered and unpicked the links”.

“No Iranian diplomats here in Australia were involved in this,” the ASIO director emphasised in response to a question. “It’s directed by the IRGC through a series of overseas cut-outs facilitators to coordinators that found their way to tasking Australians.” Indeed, Burgess was talking “a layer cake of cut-outs between IRGC and the person or the alleged perpetrators conducting crimes”.

So, despite the IRGC using “a complex web of proxies to hide its involvement”, ASIO analysts have been able to come to “clear” conclusions regarding “Iranian involvement”, and these ASIO agents are continuing to investigate the potential for Tehran to have directed more of these local antisemitic criminal offences.

However, the overall announcement suggesting Iran directed two antisemitic attacks and “likely” more was a bit thin on the production of any concrete evidence as to why the Iranian nation would seek to disrupt the social fabric of this country, as well as how the cut-outs link back to the IRGC.

Burgess too insisted that Iran is not responsible for all the antisemitic crimes that have taken place in this country since the outbreak of the genocide in Gaza in October 2023, which is to suggest that some of the chastising of the Australian public by certain ministers over its apparent perpetration of the ‘2024/25 summer of antisemitic incidents’ was warranted.

The coming war on Iran

Following the mass mobilisation of people in this country calling for an end to the barbarity that is unfolding in the Gaza Strip, the Labor government’s decision to recognise Palestine and Netanyahu’s outburst about the PM being a “weak” politician, there had last week appeared a glimmer of hope that Albanese might take the harder line and oppose the US-backed Israeli mass slaughter in Gaza.

For its part, Iran has denied any involvement in the local two antisemitic attacks, while Iranian foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi has insisted the claims “make zero sense” and has further labelled Albanese a “weak politician”, just like Netanyahu has.

The Iranian foreign minister also suggested that rather than legitimate, these allegations and the reprimanding actions are mere political theatre attempting to appease the murderous Israeli regime, and his nation is being punished due to Australian civil society mass mobilisations in support of the Palestinians of Gaza and against Israel’s continued commission of mass murder.

Yet, what followed Netanyahu’s reprimand of our PM was our nation’s chief spying agency coming to a conclusion, due to it having “gathered enough credible intelligence”, that this country has been under assault domestically by Israel’s enemy Iran, and therefore, rather than taking any concerted action or sanctioning against Tel Aviv, our government instead has sought to punish their chief foe.

So, it would appear, that the nation of Australia has now boldly declared that when the brief war in June that involved Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other, reconvenes, Australia is firmly cemented in its opposition to the Islamic State, alongside the genocidal nation of Israel and its gung-ho backer the United States.