From an Australian friend of mine comes this commentary about the rioting by muslim (mostly Lebanese) immigrants in suburbs of Sydney:

Hi Ross,

Yes there have been some serious problems with the Lebanese here and it has recently boiled over!! Two young lifesavers were belted up by some Lebs and this apparently hadn't been the first time someone has been beaten up by them.These gangs have been throwing their weight around on this beach for some time! According to the reports they(the Lebs)terrorise the local girls on the beach and stand over people at the beach rockpool refusing to allow anyone to use the pool while muslim woman swim in it in their hijabs etc etc! The locals say they have absolutely no respect for the local people,the beach or authority and they have had enough!!

The locals have all banded together to chase them away from Cronulla!! Obviously race discrimination of any type is to be abhorred but you can see where the locals are coming from!! A lot of Lebanese that I have met in the building industry also have little respect for our laws or our people and interperate our restrained laws and conduct not as caring or kind or giving people a "fair go"but merely as weakness that they can exploit!

It probably is time that we took a stand against this muslim attitude of flaunting our citizenship--burning our flag etc and kick out those that don't live by our standards! However these type of race riots by the locals don't really solve anything as the Lebanese now look as though they are being victimised and are retaliating by going to other beachside suburbs smashing cars etc. Police have a difficult situation but they too need to toughen up!!

Anyway this your "comment of the day" direct from Sydney!!!

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Additional follow-up: Here is a comment on the prior post from a reader:

"First point, I am an Australian.

This matter has nothing to do with supposed Australian racism and immigrants. It is specifically to do with the racist behaviour of a substantial number of Muslims of mid-eastern background.

Are some (non-Muslim Australians) racist? Sure. In which country of the world is there no one who has racist views? In Australia, they are actually less than in most countries and when they occur are generally matters of views rather than action.

Australia is a multiracial country. A large proportion of Australia's population is overseas born or second generation Australians. They are from all of Europe, Asia, some Africa, some middle East and some South America.

In recent years there have been high levels of immigration from Vietnam, India, China. Check the news. There is no history of clashes with these groups. No riots. They came here and basically bought into being Australians, accepting Australian laws, style of public behaviour, etc.

There was also previously a substantial influx of Christian Lebanese who did likewise.

The big change has been with the arrival of Muslims from the mid-East, some Lebanese, some from other localities.

They have refused to blend in (as they have refused virtually everywhere else they have gone). They have displayed active, overt racism against the mainstream Australian community (while quite happy to take Australia's very generous social welfare payments).

Over a number of years, gangs of young mid-eastern men have terrorised parts of Sydney, attacking young males of other ethnic groups (not all Caucasian) going about their own affairs (usually when the gang members drastically outnumber their victims), abusing and threatening Australian women young and old. They have staged driveby shootings at police stations.

There have been a number of horrific gang rapes of young Australian girls by Muslim youths that have gone through the courts. One clear factor to emerge was that they had targeted these girls precisely because they were European origin, ie these were racist gang rapes.

In the main, police protection has been totally ineffective. Talkback radio here over the last few days has had numerous instances of ordinary people who have been attacked or harassed by these thugs, where the police have refused to do anything.

Why are the police so useless? I do not know for sure. It may have to do with politically correct behaviour, of which we have had a lot in recent years. It may be that because of these PC attitudes we have recruited police who can get degrees, and a lot of young women, so we no longer have a police force whose members are physically strong and imbued with physical courage. And when it comes to a direct confrontation with a number of violent young males, that is what is needed. It may also be because the Labour party (which is similar to US Democrats) depends on these mid-Eastern enclaves for votes.

The net result was that after some lifeguards were beaten by mid-Eastern youths, a lot of people in the area concerned said "enough is enough, we want our lives back" and demonstrated for it. In the demonstration a few people of mid-Eastern background were assaulted. A drop in the ocean compared to the prior assaults by mid-Eastern youths on other members of the Australian community.

Gangs of these same mid-Eastern youths have then rioted and assaulted other people, and destroyed property. Well they do the latter two things all the time, just not in a mass group.

Our mass media, politicans and police are all a-twitter, trying to claim an equivalence between these two events (the Muslim youths come with guns, steel bars and baseball bats, the ordinary Australians just bring themselves), totally ignoring all the one-way, racist violence by these Muslim thugs that this group of "leaders" has tolerated for years (since it did not affect them).

But the event has connected huge numbers of ordinary Australians who previously were suffering individually, with no public voice.

Yes, there is racism here, but it is one way. If these mid-Eastern Muslims (and we have Muslims from other countries, such as Indonesia, who do not behave in the same way) choose to become part of the community, the same as every other race that has come to Australia, there will be no problem. As long as they do not, they create a problem of ongoing violence."