[Updated on May 8.]
New South Wales Police took eight weeks to locate a Zionist who planted a bomb on a Palestine supporter’s utility vehicle last year.
David Wise was eventually arrested, held on remand since early March, and was sentenced for stalking and intimidation on May 7. He was given a non-parole period of three months and a two-year community corrections order.
Theo, the target of the attack, told Green Left that he placed Palestinian flags on his ute and front yard after Israel launched its attack on Gaza.
Later, encouraged by the support he received, he added a board with the numbers of Palestinians being murdered by Israel.
Theo said Wise contacted him in early December, saying he felt “personally attacked” by the Palestinian flag. “He told me he lived around the corner and had been thinking of doing something bad.”
Theo and his partner tried to de-escalate the situation and find “common ground”. They added a quote from Martin Luther King Jr and the Israeli hostages to the number tally board. “We ended with a hug,” he said.
Using figures from Haaretz, Theo also added the number of Palestinian hostages and the number of people being killed.
“I became a supporter of Palestine when I was 12, after reading a graphic novel about Gaza,” Theo said. “I placed some flags in my home to normalise support for Palestine.
“On January 5, I walked out to my ute with what looked like a bomb with a note [pinned to it saying]: ‘Enough! Take flag down! One chance!!!’”
Theo called the police and the bomb squad, who described the jerry can, which contained petrol, a rag and a lighter, as an “inactive improvised explosive device”, but with “explosive potential”.
Theo said the ABC “called it ‘fake’ and Premier Chris Minns parroted that”.
Despite informing the police about Wise’s threat, “a junior constable … took eight weeks to find him”, Theo said.
“Wise called me on a pay phone in mid-February, threatening me. I tracked down the pay phone and let the police know the location.”
Theo complained to his Labor MP about the slow progress. “Finally, in early March, police located Wise, who admitted to planting the explosive and harassment.”
Wise was placed on remand on March 7. He was charged with several offences, including leaving an article with intent to cause alarm (which carries a maximum sentence of five years), stalking and harassment, and unlawfully entering enclosed land.
Wise was given the lesser charge of stalking. Theo said he should have been charged under the Weapons Prohibition Act 1998 and given a terrorism charge — 20 years in jail — because it would send a message to those thinking of trying something similar.
“If a Palestinian, not a white Israeli, did this, they’d be in jail quick smart and for decades,” Theo said.
Yet, police are “charging peaceful protesters at Palestine rallies with assault and malicious damage for conducting a die-in. The maximum penalty is 10 years. Yet they don’t want to hold Wise to account in the same way.”
Theo said police pressed him not to send a complaint to the Department of Public Prosecution (DPP). When he did visit the DPP, accompanied by his lawyer, the police followed him and the DPP refused to meet.
“I wanted the DPP to consider weapons and terrorism charges [for Wise] and take it to the federal courts, where terrorism charges can be laid.
Police went to a lot of effort to charge and jail a 13-year-old autistic boy who had a fixation on the Islamic State, Theo said, but “couldn’t find Wise for two months, nor charge him with a serious crime”.
Theo reported on X on May 7 that he is being harassed by another man, who he thinks has been emboldened by the police protection of Wise. The man in question has been photographed by far-right “influencer” Freya Leach at a Zionist-organised “blood march”.
He has made his support for the genocide of Palestinians clear, Theo said, and his wish that Israel be ethnically cleansed of Arabs.