Nicholas James Alexander, 33, was in March jailed for five years after he admitted to hiring others to carry out a spate of firebombings and graffiti attacks across Sydney in January 2025.
They included arson attacks on a childcare centre and cars outside the former home of Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief Alex Ryvchin.
Alexander appealed against the severity of his sentence in the NSW District Court, arguing he had been acting as a conduit under the direction of unknown people overseas.
But Acting Judge Paul Conlon dismissed the petition on Tuesday, noting shadowy figures placed a lot of trust in the 33-year-old to do whatever was necessary to achieve their objectives.
Alexander occupied a senior and important role in the offending, which was designed to target the Sydney Jewish community and engender fear for their safety, the judge found.
He had organised for stolen cars to be used for the attacks, explained how to create and use Molotov cocktails, and arranged for handguns to be passed on, the court was told.
Before an attack on a synagogue in Sydney's Newtown, Alexander instructed a co-offender to tell police if he was caught that Muslims made him do it to pay off a drug debt.
The facts reveal a deliberate tactic to divide Arab and Jewish communities to further the aims of the criminal group overseas, Judge Conlon told the court.
"This was also an attack on our Australian way of life, which has always been to detest the vilification or intimidation of any particular religious, ethnic or minority group," he said.
Recent cases and the Bondi Beach massacre in December make it "abundantly clear" that there are overseas organisations who are determined to attack, destabilise, and fracture Australian society, the judge remarked.
"These same overseas organisations are also involved in backing various activist groups who, under the guise of 'peaceful protests', are also seeking to cause division with the ultimate aim of inciting violence and terrorism," he said.
"The courts need to be on notice and aware that these overseas influences are potentially the greatest threat to our civilised and peaceful way of life."
An individual's rights are "not limitless", Judge Conlon noted in his emphatic remarks.
Arguments that Alexander had merely been transmitting instructions from overseas actors ignored the extent of his involvement in the anti-Semitic attacks and his influence over those he hired, the judge said.
He accepted he had been motivated by financial reward and a desire to win the favour of those in control of the overseas criminal group, rather than racial hatred.
Judge Conlon dismissed Alexander's appeal and upheld the jail term imposed in March.
With time served, Alexander will be eligible for parole in July 2028.
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