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NSW Police is investigating anti-Arab graffiti scrawled on the wall of a corner store in Sydney’s south-west.
The words “F**k Arabs” were tagged on Wiley Park’s Al Eman Supermarket, which stocks many traditional Lebanese items, above the words “Israel Palestine”.
Islam is the largest broad group religion in the suburb, according to the 2021 Census, which has a prominent Lebanese community.
NSW Police said in a statement it was investigating the incident which was reported on Friday, adding that it took hate crimes seriously.
Australian Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni told SBS News the graffiti was “disgusting”.
“Our community is grieving, and it is not just Muslim Arabs, it’s Christian Arabs and every other Australian that is sick of the double standards and silence at the rise in anti-Palestinian racism,” he said.
“It is time anti-Palestinian racism is confronted and addressed with equal vehemence.”
NSW Multicultural Minister Steve Kamper on Friday condemned the “heinous racially motivated graffiti”.
“This abhorrent, racist and Islamophobic language must be condemned in the strongest possible terms, and we must continue to reject the importation of overseas conflict into our society,” he said.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke — the MP for Watson, which includes Wiley Park — said: “To the thugs who are trying to intimidate my community: You don’t represent Australia, your bigotry is rejected and condemned.”
And David Ossip, president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, labelled the vandalism “despicable”.
He said the Jewish community “unreservedly” condemned it, adding “criminal acts must be met with the full force of the law”.
Al Eman Supermarket is a popular corner store that stocks traditional Lebanese goods. Source: SBS News
NSW Police is also in which two cars were set alight and the former home of a prominent Jewish Australian was splashed with red paint on Friday.
Both have come at a time where reports of antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents are high following the October 7 attack, according to Jewish and Muslim groups.
The attack by and more than 200 others were taken hostage, according to the Israeli government.
Israel’s subsequent bombardment of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has killed more than 46,000 people, according to the enclave’s health ministry.
The Australian Council of Executive Jewry logged 2,062 anti-Jewish incidents across Australia over the period 1 October 2023 to 30 September 2024, up from 495 in the previous 12-month period.
The Islamophobia Register it received an average of three reports each week before 7 October last year, which has increased to nearly 18 a week in the aftermath — about a six-fold increase.
