Jewish community leader takes aim at response to violent Caulfield South protest

A Jewish community leader says police were too slow to head off Friday night’s violence outside a Jewish synagogue in Caulfield South.

Nearly 200 pro-Palestinians descended on Princes Park screaming insults across the street while chanting anti-Israel slogans and Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Liebler says the response points to “an issue” with the legal system or with police resourcing.

Press PLAY below to hear what he thinks explains the slow action from police

He told Neil Mitchell the police originally dismissed any link between the fire bombing of a nearby burger shop, run by a Palestinian, the night before the violent protests.

“The police quite clearly issued a statement making clear that from their perspective there was no evidence at all of any racial or religious motivation and yet we saw these protests that then ended up spilling over outside a synagogue turn violent,” he said.

“There is either an issue here when it comes to the way in which our legal system is structured or the laws are structured — particularly around hate speech and incitement of violence — or potentially a resourcing issue because I don’t think there’s any ill will at all on the part of the police, or even political support, but we’ve had multiple rallies now where people are shouting ‘gas the Jews’ or ‘kill the Jews’, yet no one has been charged and no actions have been taken.”

Image: Nine