Sadee sub Laban refuses to apologise for calling Jewish American tourist ‘child killer’ in Kings Park stoush

A Sydney reality star who verbally abused Jewish tourists in Kings Park is refusing to apologise for calling them child killers in an ugly confrontation in front of families. Speaking two days after the incident — filmed in front of the State War memorial — the woman told The West Australian she was “petrified” she was going to be attacked by Sydney law student Sadee sub Laban. Mr sub Laban appeared on reality show Love Island in 2021 and has a criminal record over a previous fight. Sophie, who spoke from Hong Kong on Friday on her way home to New York, said she and her husband were at Kings Park for a picnic when Mr sub Laban’s companion interrupted them. “She saw the Star of David which must have irked her … and they started screaming, ‘You baby killers, you monsters’,” she said. “At that point I started filming them. I decided that the way I wanted to deal with it was to sing, because I don’t want to be afraid … I (wanted to be) a proud Jew.” She claimed the pair were “deliberately threatening and intimidating” and that she was “petrified” Mr sub Laban, who was a promising rugby league player, was going to “attack”. “(Mr Laban) told me to shut up. He tried to push my husband,” she said. “I was petrified he was going to attack my husband and my husband was petrified he was going to attack me.” Mr sub Laban made no apology after being identified on Friday, insisting Sophie and her husband approached him first. “They attacked me for who I am and for what I was wearing,” he told 7NEWS. “I have the right to defend myself just as much as they have the right to express themselves. “I loved Perth . . . I think that’s not what Australia is and I’ve been living here for 20 years, I’ve never had an encounter like that.” Footage posted on social media showed Mr sub Laban yelling at the Jewish woman, who had a Star of David displayed on her phone, saying: “Do you support your genocide? What’s wrong? “Youse are gronks, that’s what youse are, youse are genocide . . . the children killer.” Sophie chanted a Jewish solidarity anthem in response. A “proud” Trump supporter, she has previously posted videos of her protests outside the United Nations headquarters, calling its general secretary a “terrorist sympathiser” and declaring that the Biden administration “stinks”. Sophie, who did not want her surname used, doubled down on criticising Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for making Australia “ugly”, urging him to “protect his citizens” as she flew home to New York. “What has your Prime Minister done except by pacifying the Jewish community by saying there will be extra patrol cars?” she said. Sophie rejected claims her husband instigated the verbal spray. “The fact that (Mr sub Laban) said that we did it first, when literally a minute before we were happily walking in a park with a family, is as insulting as the accusations he hurled at us in the first place,” she said. Premier Roger Cook called it a “good stand up stoush”, but said WA remained one of the safest places in the world to live or visit. “I call on everybody to continue to observe and make sure that we keep WA a peaceful place,” Mr Cook said. “No amount of religious or cultural intolerance and intimidation or discrimination is acceptable in my community and I think that’s shared by all Western Australians. “Police can’t be everywhere, we can’t stop outbreaks of anti-social behaviour but I think we all, as a community, condemn that sort of behaviour.” Mr Albanese said the original video, posted on X, was “abhorrent”. “There is no place for anti-Semitism in Australia,” he said. Jewish Community Council of WA vice-president Steve Lieblich called for a tougher response. “Unfortunately it’s sort of a horse has bolted situation — it’s too little, too late,” he said. “The public proclamation denouncing this is not enough, there needs to be some real action and some real consequences for people who engage in this behaviour.” Mr Lieblich called for police to investigate whether it amounted to a hate crime. “Clearly there’s been a nasty disturbance of the peace and I would say anyone who accosts a stranger and engages in verbal abuse should be told that it’s not acceptable,” he said. “And if that applies to the tourist from New York as well then so be it, but it’s a clear case of anti-Semitism and an ancient blood libel was expressed to a stranger, whether he saw the Star of David or not. “Whether (they) said something to him, he certainly engaged in anti-Semitic behaviour and if she’s engaged in abuse then she deserves the same warnings.” Mr sub Laban, who was born in Palestine, rejected the anti-Semitism tag. “I think it’s ridiculous, because what’s happening overseas at the moment is not about religion,” he said. “It’s about humans ... I wasn’t speaking to the woman herself. She was yelling to me, ‘We are Israel’ so I was responding to her, ‘Yes, Israel is children killers, they’re committing genocide’... I’m not saying all Israelis are bad, of course not. “It’s not the Jewish people, it’s the Israeli hierarchy that’s the problem.” But Mr sub Laban wasn’t sure he would react any differently, in hindsight. “I wish I did approach it in a calm way, but at the end of the day how calm can you be when someone is telling you ‘all glory’ to the people that are putting your people in the ground,” he said. A report by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, released in November, recorded three alleged assaults among 116 “anti-Jewish” incidents in WA this year, up from 25 “anti-Jewish” incidents in 2023.