Five youths arrested over bus attack
Five youths were arrested at 3:30am this morning in Dover Heights following an antisemitic attack on a school bus yesterday during which terrified students were told they throats would be slit.
The youths were taken to Waverley police station and ultimately released into the custody of their parents as according to police they were too drunk to be interviewed.
Police are still searching for several other youths believed to have been engaged in the scene, which has been widely condemned inside and outside of the Jewish community.
President of Moriah College Giora Friede told J-Wire: “Initially we have two priorities. One is to get to the bottom of this and we are working with the police and the transport authorities. Second is to do all we can to reassure our parents and students that their safety and security is of paramount importance to us and everything possible will be done to get everyone through this horrible but isolated incident.”
Haaretz reports that about 30 children, aged 5-12, from Moriah College Mt Sinai College
About 30 children, aged 5-12, from Moriah College, Mt Sinai College and Emanuel School were aboard the bus when the driver stopped to collect a group of 15-17-year-olds.
Police allege the youths then racially taunted some of the kids and physical threatened others. One of the parents alleged the offenders yelled “Kill the Jews” and “Heil Hitler.” No one was injured.
Sydney’s 45,000-strong Jewish community awoke to a screaming headline splashed across the front page of Sydney’s major tabloid, The Daily Telegraph: “Hate Bus.”
The story generated mass media coverage throughout the day, and has made international headlines.
One mother, Jacqui Blackburn, told local media that her 12-year-old daughter said the gang had threatened to “slit the children’s throats.”
Facebook was ablaze with posts, most of them irate, some inflammatory.
But another mother, Isabelle Stanton, whose two daughters were on the bus, told Haaretz: “My two girls were definitely scared,” she said. “The language they used was definitely scary and definitely strong. I don’t think they were physically threatened though.
“They’re alright, they’ve been a bit fragile today but they went to school.”
She added: “I feel overwhelmed but I said to the school I feel that it was just an isolated act. I don’t feel like it was premeditated or that they planned to be on that bus and say all those terrible things.
“Because of the situation in Israel we are all extra-sensitive and the media has been so biased that these boys probably repeated what they heard.
“I think we are dealing with ignorant young children,” Stanton said. “I don’t want to jump the gun and think this is antisemitism in Australia.”
Police also said they did not believe it to be a targeted attack on the students because they were Jewish.\
From Melbourne Sam Tatarka president of the Zionist Council of Victoria, sent this message:
“The recent antisemitic attack on a bus full of Jewish children is despicable”.
“These kids were on their way home from school when a group of young men boarded their private bus and subjected them to a terrifying barrage of abuse and threats of violence. There is no place in Australian society for incidents such as these, and even though there has been a rise in antisemitic incidents in recent months the fact that children were victimised is all the more shocking”.
“All Australians, no matter their age, race or creed have the right to go about their daily lives without having to fear for their safety. These children were targeted solely on the basis of their religion. We are pleased that the NSW police have moved swiftly to investigate the matter and arrest five of the alleged perpetrators” Tatarka said.
The Zionist movement and the Jewish community are very concerned at the rise in verbal and physical assaults on Jews in Australia in recent months, as the war on Hamas in Gaza has unleashed a torrent of vitriol and hatred particularly on social media but also in the media mainstream. “Criticism of Israel and its policies is legitimate but no matter how heartfelt cannot be allowed to descend to Jew hatred. Those responsible for demonising and dehumanising Israel should take note of the impact their words and deeds can have on peaceful, law abiding citizens going about their daily lives”.
It would be delusional to dismiss the attack on Jewish children random, not racist nor targeted and just an instance of juvenile bullying. There are scores of busses the louts could have boarded, but it just happened to be a bus full of Jewish children.
The police are trying to quieten things down because facing up to what really took place would mean actually doing something and that would restrict the time they have to file reports on missing kittens. It would also mean confronting a violent segment of our community and, in performing their sworn duty to uphold the law, stepping on the toes of their political bosses who don’t want to lose any group of voters.
Clearly the louts checked out which busses conveyed Jewish children and targeted it. Our “leaders” are part of the conspiracy of silence in failing to name and shame the school from which those louts came, partly because they are still playing the multiculturalism game, partly because it gives them a sense of importance and partly because it allows them to hide their impotence.
I would like to absolutely condemn this kind of behaviour as totally abhorrent, but before we get too excited this does not look like a racist attack. The school bus was for Jewish students only and not in a million years would the driver stop to allow drunken hooligans on. There is only one explanation and that is that the driver picked up known Jewish students. Why they had a go at the little ones would have fallen into the age old category of bullying.
The students seem to all live locally and have been quickly released into parents care which is code for “they are all good boys really”. Expect some prominent parents to be working behind the scenes here.