Alhadeff and Jones discuss Hizb ut-Tahrir
The New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies’ CEO Vic Alhadeff has spoken on air with Sydney radio station 2GB’s Alan Jones about Hizb ut-Tahrir a group which has accused Jews “of corrupting the world”.
J-Wire publishes the text:
JONES: I, in the last week or so, have on several occasions, with you, addressed this issue in relation to the pictures you see on your television screens of thousands – and they’re on there again today – thousands of so-called refugees streaming into Europe. And one of the issues I’ve said that has to be addressed is this clash of cultures. A looming clash of cultures. It’s here. And it’s what many have anticipated. And these so-called refugees from Muslim, Islamic cultures which have produced no wealth now want the wealth of the West in their tens of thousands. As I said a bit earlier today, it’s a bit like someone barging into your home and taking what you’ve worked hard to provide. And of course, the left-wing media and many in the left wing levels of administration have apparently agreed with all of this. They don’t want to report the cultural clashes, they don’t report the riots on the Greek island of Lesbos last week by hundreds of Afghan men, the chanting in Hungary (and you can see this on the television tonight) when they were denied a place on a train. I’ve said many times and many people out there are angry with government because they believe we are in the throes of a great cultural clash and they want to know what’s being done about it. And the clash is between Islam and the Christian West. And as I said earlier today only one question remains to be asked: are we now going to surrender? And if not, what’s left to fight with?
Now Israel will not take any of these so-called refugees. I’m going to say something this morning about Jews. May not impress a lot of people, but well may we ask, with bureaucracy coming out of our ears, nothing has been done, in relation to a Sydney race hate incident. Indeed, Muslims were called on to rid the world of “Jewish hidden evil’. Ismail Al-Wahwah, who is the spiritual leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, has accused Jews of corrupting the world. Describing them as “the most evil creatures of Allah” and threatening “the ember of jihad against the Jews will continue to burn. An eye for an eye; blood for blood; destruction for destruction. Judgement day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews.” This in a mosque at Lakemba. Rallying the mob. He said “there’s only one solution to the cancerous tumour – it must be uprooted and thrown back to where it came from.” All this was said firstly in 2014, then a video in 2015. In Lakemba. Sydney’s west. Within weeks the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board determined “a serious breach”, rightly, of race hate laws and passed the case onto police and the DPP. Note the comments again: “judgement day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. Tomorrow you Jews will see what will become of you: an eye for an eye; blood for blood; destruction for destruction. There’s only one solution” and his voice gets louder and louder “for this cancerous tumour – it must be uprooted and thrown back to where it came from”.
Vic Alhadeff
Well, now the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies referred the incident to the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board. They forwarded it to the Attorney-General, should I say the gutless Attorney-General, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Gabrielle Upton that’s you! And the police. They said they were powerless to prosecute. There’s a six-month time limit for commencing a criminal prosecution in such a case. The window was due to close earlier this month. The police decided not to prosecute despite the DPP advising that “a likely breach of the law had occurred”; police said they didn’t have sufficient evidence to secure a conviction or the power to obtain that evidence. Just imagine if Mark Latham had said that or I’d said it. If it’s true, that they don’t have the power, law is in need of reform. Section 20D of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act was enacted in 1989. I would have thought it was pretty clear: A person shall not, by a public act, incite hatred towards, serious contempt for or severe ridicule of a person or group of persons on the ground of the race of the person or members of the group by means which include threatening physical harm towards or towards any property of the person or group of persons, or inciting others to threaten physical harm towards or towards any property of the person or group of persons. To the layman, that’s pretty simple, I would have thought. Well, no one has been prosecuted. No one.
The Anti-Discrimination Board has referred 11 similar cases to the DPP, nothing’s happened. A parliamentary enquiry into Section 20D made 15 recommendations for reform. Macquarie Street has done nothing. About any of them. Hizb ut-Tahrir calls for the overthrow of democracies and their replacement by religious dictatorships. There are other provisions of various acts as well, overthrow of democracies. Well, sedition is defined as conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state. Treason is an act of overthrowing one’s government. There’s plenty of laws around. The failure to prosecute this bloke Al-Wahwah tells every ethnic group in New South Wales the law is unable to protect any person of ethnic background.
Vic Alhadeff is the CEO of the Jewish Board of Deputies. He’s on the line now. Mr Alhadeff, good morning.
ALHADEFF: Good morning, Alan.
JONES: You quoted recently the Army Chief David Morrison once saying “the standard you walk past is the standard you accept”. So basically, by inference, it’s okay to say what these Muslim lunatics are saying.
ALHADEFF: Our focus today, Alan, is on the appalling speech which you’ve just been quoting from and Ismail Al-Wahwah. If the law cannot deal with such an outrageous incident, then the law is broken and needs to be fixed. And, quite simply, as Australians who care about the society we want for our children, we cannot walk past this and we cannot accept anything less. So what we are calling for, very simply, in New South Wales is a law that says “if you deliberately advocate violence against a person or a group because of their race, that is a criminal offence.” That’s clear and uncomplicated. And not the convoluted system we have in place right now, which means, exactly as you have just pointed out, Alan, that no one has ever actually been brought to court for breaching these laws.
JONES: To the layman, it doesn’t seem complicated, does it? Section 20D, “a person shall not”; we just think of the language of this bloke, who’s calling on the world to get rid of “hidden Jewish evil. A person shall not incite hatred or serious contempt for or severe ridicule of”; well, to the layman it looks simple, “on the ground of race, or threaten physical harm”, that’s precisely what’s being said, “judgement day will not come until the Muslim s fight the Jews. Tomorrow, you Jews will see what will become of you – an eye for an eye, blood for blood, destruction for destruction” That is threatening physical harm towards a person. It’s inciting others to physically harm. To the layman, 20D seems quite adequate.
ALHADEFF: One would think so, but the complicating factor is that the proof has to be made that a person was incited by a particular speech and therefore went and did a particular action.
JONES: So the word “incite” is most probably the weakness here. The Anti-Discrimination Board did determine that a serious breach of race hate laws, 20D, had occurred passed the matter on to the DPP and police, both failed to take any action.
ALHADEFF: That’s correct. And, in fact, the Daily Telegraph, here in Sydney, published a photograph of Man Monis, the same individual who carried out the Lindt Café siege in Martin Place, they published a photograph of him listening to a speech by this very same speaker, Ismail Al-Wahwah. Now we don’t – and this is several months before the Martin Place siege – Al-Wahwah did not go home and write in his diary “I heard a speech. I therefore am going to hold up the Lindt Café”. It’s an almost impossible proof to make. So as a result of that, there’s a very high bar, no-one gets prosecuted. And if we let people get away with this, sooner or later people get hurt. We need to have zero tolerance for hate-speech.
JONES: Terrifying. Appalling, absolutely appalling language. “An eye for an eye, blood for blood, destruction for destruction”. Now, Gabrielle Upton, the Attorney-General, was contacted about all of this, and a spokesperson for the Attorney-General’s office said the matter should be referred to the DPP. The DPP said that it should be directed to the police. The police refused to provide any information on the case, but they released a statement: “The NSW Police Force has investigated the complaint thoroughly and found that at this point it’s not possible to identify who uploaded the footage in question or charge him or her for uploading the offensive material. Now, you weren’t concerned about the uploading. You were concerned about the utterance, surely?
ALHADEFF: Precisely. The utterance, the speech itself, is the primary offence. The uploading is the secondary offence.
JONES: Why did it take the police five months to make a decision?
ALHADEFF: Obviously that is a matter which only the police can…
JONES: But just in layman’s language, I mean we can get all complicated here. Where’s Premier Baird in this? Where’s the Attorney-General, Gabrielle Upton? Is this okay? Silence betokens consent, Sir Thomas Moore said, didn’t he?
ALHADEFF: Two years ago the State Government introduced a parliamentary enquiry into this very law, Section 20D of the Anti-Discrimination Act, and they took multiple presentations from a number of communities, including from the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. The inquiry, which was a multi-party inquiry, came out with a number of recommendations. We supported the recommendations, though we actually think they did not go far enough, because they did not simplify the elements of the offence.
JONES: Well there were 15 recommendations but none have been acted upon. Answer this question for me – you’re almost probably too much of a gentleman to answer it, but I’ll ask it: What would happen if a white Anglo-Saxon or a Jewish spokesperson directed such language at Muslims?
ALHADEFF: The point, Alan, as you say, is that if the law cannot deal with such an outrageous incitement to violence, then the law is broken and it needs to be fixed.
JONES: So there are people in this cultural war and that’s what it is, they’re aiming to get rid of you people and get rid of others and they can call on the world to get rid of Jewish hidden evil, that’s fine. You lodged a complaint in March against this Australian head of the extremist Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, Ismail Al-Wahwah, after video footage emerged of him allegedly calling for violence against Jews. “judgement day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews,” he said in a speech to a crowd at Lakemba. “Tomorrow you Jews will see what will become of you. An eye for an eye, blood for blood, destruction for destruction”. Within weeks, the Anti-Discrimination Board determines a serious breach of race-hate laws. The case goes to the DPP, it goes to the police – both take no action. No one’s prepared to explain why such language isn’t prosecuted.
ALHADEFF: We need a very simple, clear law in New South Wales – one that says “if you deliberately incite violence against people because of their race, then you have committed a crime, you will be prosecuted.”
JONES: What’s the point of an Attorney-General? The Attorney-General doesn’t want to know. Are these people frightened of militant Muslims? The DPP doesn’t want to know. The police don’t want to know. And the police have focused on who uploaded the material. Your complaint was about who uttered the stuff. So well may we say, the standard you walk past is the standard you accept. That seems to be acceptable. Must be, must be. It’s not prosecuted. You wouldn’t get away with it.
ALHADEFF: The most disturbing aspect of this, Alan, is that we live in a society where we have 200 ethnic groups overwhelmingly living in peace side by side, with mutual respect. And if a person can get away with such an inflammatory, outrageous speech, as this person has, it puts everyone at risk. It totally violates and endangers the society we have where people overwhelmingly respect each other. We live in a society with social inclusion and mutual respect. It puts every single group, every single member of this state, at risk if we do not have zero tolerance for such outrageous speeches.
JONES: Absolutely. I agree with you. Thank you for talking to us.
Smooth talking obfuscates the points to which Alan Jones alluded. The incitement bit is the weak point of the act, or at least its (mis)interpretation and if such speech had been directed at al-Wahwah mob, there would have been riots.
The simple fact is that the polite, oh-so-quiet, behind the scenes (in)action failed, yet again. There should have been protests in front of Parliament, in front of the offender’s mosque and ads – paid if need be – in the media demanding action against the Party of Freedom (!!).
Actually there is no problem with 20D; it is the reluctance of authorities to take on a violent segment of our community. Correction: not of our community, but in our community, because they do not regard themselves as Australian. Listen to al-Wahwah on YouTube and hear his self-alienation from Oz.
The act states that incitement to harm is prohibited. It is wrong and gutless to claim that incitement cannot be proven unless it leads to an act. If an outlawed act occurs, that is a separate crime. Threats and calls to commit crimes are criminal acts. The fault lies with politicians, bureaucrat and cops all playing politics and running for cover, while our own “leaders” yabber about communal harmony.
Society is not endangered through the failure to enforce good legislation. Our Jewish community is endangered and our leaders lost their seeing eye dogs. Should other communities be threatened, the fit would hit the shan, because those communities have the numbers to affect a voting pattern.
I heard the interview. It was an impressive performance by Mr Alhadeff.
It is very concerning that hate-speech such as that uttered by Ismail Al-Wahwah is not subject to successful legal action. It makes a mockery of all the so-called “laws” and human rights organisations – State and Federal – we have that are meant to stamp out this kind of language.
It is even more concerning that two years ago the State Government introduced a parliamentary enquiry into the relevant law – Section 20D of the Anti-Discrimination Act – and came out with a number of recommendations – none of which has been implemented.
Shame on the Government.