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No arrests, questions over police resolve, and Julian Hill’s controversial appointment spark concern over antisemitism.

Four weeks after the firebombing of a Melbourne synagogue – still no arrests.

Maybe police are genuinely stumped.

Maybe it’s just one of those cases that’s too hard to crack.

Or maybe Victorian police simply aren’t up to the task.

A few years ago they could locate a pregnant woman in pyjamas responsible for a random Facebook post. These days, well they couldn’t track an elephant through snow. Then again, if the elephant forgot its mask …

Anyway, if that’s the case they shouldn’t feel too bad.

NSW police needed months to work out whether they heard people say “F the Jews” or “Where are the Jews”.

After engaging acoustic and phonetic experts from the National Centre of Biometric Science, Deputy Commission Mal Lanyon finally announced police didn’t know what they had heard.

Case closed.

There’s another possibility. And it stinks that we should even be contemplating it.

But just maybe there’s a lack of political will to find the synagogue arsonists.

It’s hard to believe that neither the Victorian Police, nor ASIO, nor the Australian Federal Police – they’re all involved in the investigation – have come up with nothing. After a month. Really?

This was AFP Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett after the terror attack …

Let me be very clear. Do not test the resolve or the determination of the AFP (to solve this crime)

Hmmm.

Like I said, it stinks that we should even raise the possibility that the “resolve and determination” to find the culprits might come second to political considerations. And none of us know that that’s the case …

But the government’s forked tongue on antisemitism – condemning it on the one hand, while stoking it on the other – means the possibility can’t be completely discounted.

You know how it goes. A big song and dance at the time of the incident. And then just kind of let it fade into the background. A bit like the hostages.

Within a week of the terrorist attack we were told police were hunting three suspects and had made what they called “significant progress”.

Three weeks later … crickets.

Plus the actual cricket – what a game. Plus New Years. Plus holidays. And by the time February rolls around everyone will have moved on.

I hope that’s not the case. But can we be blamed for wondering?

To add fuel to the fire – pun very much intended – the government has just appointed, of all people, federal backbencher Julian Hill to help co-ordinate government funding to rebuild the synagogue.

The assistant minister for multi-cultural affairs will act as the middleman between Jewish synagogue leaders and Anthony Albanese.

This is a government MP who claimed the October 7 slaughter of 1200 Israelis needed to be … contextualised. He told ABC radio last year …

“We need to acknowledge the history and the complexity.

“This didn’t just start on October the 7th as many people in my community know, viscerally. This is a 75-year-old conflict.”

This is an MP who once accused Israel being “hell bent on imposing an apartheid state” on the Middle East.

This is an MP who has called for the formal recognition of a Palestinian state while Hamas is still holding Jews hostage.

This is the MP Albanese has appointed as his liaison with the Jewish community. Is the PM completely lacking in judgement? Is it a calculated insult?

Julian Hill is the least suitable Labor MP to liaise with the Jewish community, aside from all the other Labor MPs, I mean.

You know, Albanese COULD have appointed Jewish MP Josh Burns as his go-between. But that would have made too much sense.

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Republished with thanks to James Macpherson.