Australia: Inaction fuels outrage at green light for hate preachers

This article was originally in The Australian but Victorian senator James Paterson has brought it into general view. 

Political and Jewish leaders have said inaction on incendiary sermons delivered at a Sydney Islamic centre has given radical clerics a “green light” as another preacher called for a Muslim army, describing it as “the final solution”, a term explicitly linked to Nazism and the Holocaust.

…a cleric known as “Brother Muhammad” gave the sermon at Bankstown’s Al Madina Dawah Centre – itself the subject of two police investigations now dropped – that called for a Muslim army and an Islamic state with sharia law, and wrongly accused Israel of using AI to target children.

Jewish leaders said “Australia’s tolerance of intolerance” was reaching its limits.

The Australian previously revealed how police had dropped investigations into hate-fuelled sermons at the centre by cleric Abu Ousayd – also known as Wissam Haddad – and “Brother Ismail”, which included calls for jihad, parables that said “kill Jews” and that if Islamic nations “spat on Israel the Jews would drown”. The police involved said each case had not breached the criminality threshold.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Peter Wertheim contrasted Brother Muhammad’s use of the term with former senator Fraser Anning saying “the final solution to the immigration problem is a popular vote”, referring to Muslim immigrants, for which he was criticised.

“Brother Muhammad has used that identical expression in a manner that is even more directly reminiscent of Nazi ideas and practices,” Mr Wertheim said. “Yet the same parties that screamed their disapproval of Mr Anning have been silent about this latest incident. Their hypocrisy and double standards could not be more obvious.”

NSW Police was contacted about whether Brother Muhammad’s sermon would be subject to inquiries.

The Australian Daily Mail also carries the story and some background

 Brother Muhammad raged about the ongoing war in Gaza.  ‘This is the barbarity, this is the inhumane nature of this Israeli-Zionist state,’ he told worshippers in a video seen by Daily Mail Australia.

The Israel-Palestine conflict ‘has to be a spark for the umma (Muslim community) and a spark to the final solution,’ Brother Muhammad said.

The preacher called for the Muslim world to unite ‘under one leader, the khalifa, the imam, the sultan, that implements the sharia of Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala and he sends Muslim armies to defend the lands of Islam’.

The radical cleric also compared what is happening in Gaza to other conflicts which involve or did involve Muslim populations, such as those in Syria, Chechnya and Bosnia.

‘The final solution is we must be united as one state under a Muslim government,’ he said.  ‘All these lands must be united under one leader who implements the Koran and sunnah way of life: it will use its resources, its oil, its army to defend its people. The Muslim community needs a Muslim army to defend it and the lands of Islam … to fight for them and protect them.

The preacher also claimed Israel was using artificial intelligence (AI) to kill children.  ‘They (Israel) put information in, the computer crunches the numbers, it gives them some targets, they press the buttons, and hundreds of civilians and children are killed in one go,’ he said.

The Islamic centre in Bankstown also made headlines last month when another Muslim cleric gave a sermon telling followers to ‘kill Jews’. He used the name Abu Ousayd, but was revealed to be well known extremist Wissam Haddad, who runs the Al Madina Dawah Centre.

In a speech in November, he said he was an ‘Ustadh’ (teacher) and that Jews were ‘scheming’ to pit Muslim against Muslim because it was ‘good for their business’.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Al Madina Dawah Centre for comment and clarification as to what Brother Muhammad meant by ‘the final solution’.