Man Assaulted in Australia for Wearing His IDF Shirt

On Thursday night, Zachary Gomo was making a trip to a local shop in his Jewish neighborhood in Melbourne, Australia. He was wearing a t-shirt from his service in the Israel Defense Forces, when he says two young Arabic-speaking men assaulted him.

Gomo stated that he didn’t notice his attackers until it was too late, reports the JTA: “They jumped on me, started punching, screaming ‘kalb Yehud!’ (Jewish dog,) ‘Allahu akbar’ (God is great,) and something about Gaza in Arabic.”

“One of them tried to pull me to the ground, I started fighting and punching back,” Gomo went on. “I grabbed one of them by the throat and screamed at them, cursing in Arabic as well. This shocked them, they ran off.”

Suffering wounds to his face and cuts and bruises over the rest of his body, Gomo was taken to a police station by members of a community security group.

Nina Bassat, president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria released a statement expressing her disappointment: “This was an act of cowardice and aggression that has no place in our society,” she said. “From past experience it is clear that it is no coincidence that this attack occurred as hostilities between Israel and Gaza are escalating.”

“It appears from the words used by the attackers that he was targeted only because he was clearly identifiable as a Jew,” Bassat said, adding that all Jewish citizens “should be free to walk on the streets of Melbourne and to live a peaceful life in what has until now been a model of multicultural harmonious co-existence.”