Australian Muslim scholars meet Hamas leader
A delegation of Australian Muslim scholars has visited Gaza and met with Hamas senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh…a visit which may be subject to a government investigation.
Credit: MEMRI-TV
The delegation was led by Australian Grand Mufti Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed who is considered a ‘moderate’ and who reportedly said, “I am pleased to stand on the land of jihad to learn from its sons and I have the honour to be among the people of Gaza where the weakness always becomes strength, the few becomes many and the humiliation turns into pride”. The visitand meeting with Haniyeh was reported by “The Australian”.
Hamas is officially listed by the Gillard Government as being a terrorist organisation.
Watch the video translated by MEMRI:
A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr told J-Wire: “It is unlawful to offer financial support for Hamas, which Australia considers a terrorist entity. There are also additional prohibitions on interaction with the Hamas Brigade which is a proscribed terrorist organisation.
It is not unlawful to travel to Gaza as a private citizen but the Australian Government strongly advises against it.
It is the responsibility of every Australian to abide by the restrictions on interacting with Hamas. Allegations that any Australian had breached the restrictions on dealings with Hamas would be subject to examination by government agencies.”
Julie Bishop, Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Foreign Minister told J-Wire: “If reports about the Mufti’s comments and conduct in Gaza are accurate, this is an extremely disturbing development.
It is important that all community and religious leaders support non-violent resolution of the tensions between Israel and the Palestinian people.
The Mufti’s reported comments appear to be supportive of the approach that Hamas has taken, which has involved thousands of rockets fired into Israel in an attempt to terrorise and kill civilians.
The Mufti must immediately withdraw these remarks, condemn the attacks on Israel by Hamas and other extremist groups, recognise Israel’s right to exist and call for a peaceful negotiated resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.”
Executive Director of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council Dr Colin Rubenstein told J-Wire: “If the Arabic media reports accurately reflect the tone and intent of their visit, the recent Australian Muslim delegation to meet HAMAS in Gaza led by Australian Mufti Dr. Ibrahim Abu Muhammad, is a cause for serious concern.
It is incumbent upon responsible Australian leaders and officials to stress to the delegation members that religious or community leaders offering open support for HAMAS profoundly contradicts the core values of Australian multiculturalism, such as tolerance, non-violence, mutual respect and the rule of law.
HAMAS is a terrorist organization, subject to Australian financial sanctions, which is engaged in terrorism and war crimes, is rife with extreme antisemitism, and is dedicated, in word and deed, to the violent destruction of a friendly State. It is incomprehensible that any one with pretensions of moral authority would hold up HAMAS-led Gaza as a model from which Australians can learn.
Australian leaders should also inquire of the delegation whether they conveyed to Gaza’s rulers the commitment of the Australian government and people to Israel’s right to live in peace and security and to a negotiated two-state outcome. Further, the delegation must be asked whether they made clear to HAMAS the necessity to emulate Australian rejection of antisemitism and all other forms of intolerance and terrorism, and if not, why not.
Executive Director of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry Peter Wertheim added: “Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed has said that the purpose of his mission is to learn from Gaza about how to defend his rights. There is nothing he can learn from Gaza and its Hamas rulers that can possibly have any legitimate application in Australia. His visit and his comments undermine Australia’s efforts to build a peaceful, inclusive and democratic multicultural society.”
Philip Chester is the president of the Zionist Federation of Australia. He told J-Wire: “The Australian government and indeed all Australians should be very concerned about the Australian Grand Mufti’s visit to the leadership of Hamas in Gaza,an organisation proscribed by Australia as a terrorist organisation. The Grand Mufti is described as a moderate,however his comments lauding Osama bin Laden and jihad in Gaza are very disturbing.”
Great to see opne bigotry. Israel itself has been talking with Hamas. So why is wrong for others to talk with Hamas ? Is Hamas any different from Likud and Israel Beitinu?
Ben
Have you seen what this man has to say?
Aren’t you worried about this country?
“Ben” has his usefulness !!
Yes , spot on, Hamas and Israel Beitenu perfect analogy., The same Israel Beiteinu heroes who on one of the main drags in Tel Aviv , Ben Yehuda, executed in plain day light a Jewish pro palestinian activist, as in the type of idiots assisting Ben’s cause, then chained him to a top of the range Harley and dragged along his corpse , not to mention that they received a medal from the Tel Aviv’s Likud dominated City Hall for cleaning the pavement with the same useful corpse while traversing the Tel Aviv CBD in the cheers of the bigoted Zionist enthusiasts.
Meanwhile Ben’s cousins and uncles in Gaza were celebrating in their main sqaure 200 years from the premiere of Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto, the Emperor, soloist Abu Kosachta, the great Hamas scholarship humanist.
I wish to add my support to the commentators by asking if the ECAJ is pushing the Australian Government for HAMAS to be classified as a terrorist organization, as it is in other Western democracies.
We need to hear Bob Carr explain his rationale for sanctioning such a diabolical visit which can only incite more ” bloodlust” against Jews in Australia. Carr has sacrificed his prior moral standing for Muslim votes in Western Sydney and has earned my disgust.
The Muslim Brotherhood Project document of 1983 expressly declares that Muslims will use Israel as a wedge issue and prevent peace. Moreover they call for constant Jihad and linking the Jihad in Palestine to world wide Jihad.
The late king Fahd bin Abdul Aziz created and funded IIMA with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood with the charter to desroy the West from within.
For Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed to say he can “learn” from Hamas is telling.
Hamas is an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Muslim Brotherhood Mission statement and Project document are seditious.
The MB is behind terror funding, Halal food rorts, Sharia finance scams and hate preaching in mosques and should be banned.
I find it quite amazing that the ECAJ has just seen fit to comment on this very important issue when it was released over a week ago now. Despite the fact it featured on a number of MSM outlets, thanks to a few of us drawing their attention to it. Tim Blair has blogged it twice.
I hope the comment wasn’t restricted to the Jewish Community. This should have been made at the highest Government level.
Oh, but hang on. That means Bob Carr and we all know that votes are more important than trivial matters such as the Australian Grand Mufti visiting with Hamas.
I’d like to know if the ECAJ, as our highest official communal body, is pushing for Hamas in its entirety to be classified as a terrorist organisation? If not why not? It is in the USA, the UK, the EU, Canada and Japan.
Ibrahim Abu Mohammed MODERATE.??
Some is kidding someone here and it’s not me.
“”Sheikh Ibrahim Salem expressed his happiness for being in Gaza, describing it as the land of pride and martyrdom.””
“I am pleased to stand on the land of jihad to learn from its sons and I have the honour to be among the people of Gaza where the weakness always becomes strength, the few becomes many and the humiliation turns into pride,”
“We came here in order to learn from Gaza. As I said in my speech, we will make the stones, trees, and people of Gaza talk, in order to learn steadfastness, sacrifice, and the defence of one’s rights from them. We feel like we are on cloud nine. We feel like we are on top of the world.” “”
The second remark sounds like it came straight from the Hadith
” The last hour will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, so that Jews will hide behind stones and trees and the Stone and the tree will say, O Muslim, O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me; come and kill him. ”
Moderate??
The matters presented and discussed here are quite serious.
It is blatantly obvious that Australia is hosting individuals and by realistic extention, entire communities capable to create very serious social disturbances, incitement to actions contrary to the constitutional framework of our country.
What Dr. Ibrahim and the community he represents so clearly is doing is incitement to hatred and related physical retribution identical to the activities of organisations legally prescribed, but to which Dr. Ibrahim and his community adheres, such as Hamas.
These are not simple comments but a serious warning that we, Australians, are harbouring seriously dangerous elements represented by respective leaders such as Dr. Ibrahim.
Several official entities MUST act accordingly. And since the prime target of Dr. Ibrahim’s communal charges is the Australian Jewish community, it is also expected that our Jewish communal leaders take the necessary protective measures, legal ones most definitely included.
Hamas and Hizballah should be illegal in Aust and as such it should be illegal to fly one of their flags.
Any one who supports them should be arrested.
But Bob Carr needs the votes of the south westerns suburbs of Sydney so ‘of course’ nothing will change.
The next Anti-Max Brenner Protest will see these flags flying proudly on the streets of Sydney and Melb.
Yes Debbie, we MUST allow Dr. Ibrahim back to Australia because he IS an Australian, just like you and I and Michael and Paul and, most of all, because he DOES represent not 100% of the Australian Muslims but, say, 99.999% of them. The reminder are Zionist infiltrators. These people, the community Dr. Ibrahim sincerely represents are entitled to practice their beliefs, go shopping, eat, sleep, wake up in the middle of the night as many times as they want and as often as their blocked prostate demands, just like you (?) and I, buy white goods at a discount, encounter State Police force at the coal face abuse them, spit on them, king hit them, just like you and I and……………..V O T E !!! just like you and I.
Can any politician ignore all those significant factors, prostate included !!?? Just ask Bob Carr and his mates because, as Labor men/women they automatically qualify as “Friends of Israel “.
I, also as a freind of Israel, just realised that I automatically qualify as a Labor man. Trouble is that, contrary to my natural condition, I keep on voting against them………….something wrong !!
Very amusing, Otto. But Debbie lacks the bit that you note can get blocked.
But seriouslu, we have a problem with Labour, our social democrat party. For narrow political ends, it is pursuing policies that are socially divisive. In partricular, by excusing mohammedans and accomodating them it is creating a privileged class of colonialist who support violent action to achieve political ends. Further, to suck up to jihadis and their pay masters, Carr is abandoning social democratic principles, cozying up to fascists and backstabbing a fellow democracy. As a life-long Labour voter, I feel very let down by Carr and the unprincipled MPs he incited to roll the PM because he betrayed the principles on which Labour was founded and the Australian ethos of fairness and principled national and social behavour that we are all so rightly proud of.
Oops, two points I missed.
We need to get legislation like in the USA where a person acting contrary to Australian law has his or her citizenship revoked and
we need to keep people like Dr Ibrahim restricted with regard to travel and access to the public; his views can incite people to actions that endangers public safety.
As usual, Paul, you make me realise that I chose my mates very well.
Your reasoning has mathematical perfection. Legally I thought the reasons you present for court action against our Dr. Ibrahim are very valid. Trouble is, do we have any lawyers within the Jewish community leadership, or anywhere else !!?? I don’t think so. We do have, yes, blokes and sheilas dressed in suitable dark suit/pinstripe attire charging approx.$125.00 for “perusing letters” and alike, but are they any good at defending a worthy Jewish cause/case !!!??? Nop, that runs contrary to the direction of the pin-stripes and may ruffle their selfsatisfactory disposition of self-importance cum leadership superior qualities. The brief, no bull answer, is, it is all left to Paul , Michael, Moishe and Otto to carry on an on and on………..and the problem won’t go away and nor will we.
Australian Muslim leaders meet the terrorist leaders in Gaza wow what a surprise .
What is needed is more interfaith meetings by do gooders in our community to Make them love us more .
“To make them love us more” I don’t think so – “to make them love to kill us more” is more like it! I agree with the comments about Bob Carr. He is a loose cannon and needs to have his powder drenched. I’ll leave it to others to decide whether water or other suitable fluids. There are a couple of alternatives that come to mind. Sorry for being so cynical, but…..
First of all one must despair about Australia’s mohammedan leadership when an advocate of global jihad and terror against Israel is regarded as a moderate. It bodes ill for Australia if when a moderate travels to Gaza and proclaims that jihadi violence is the way to attain mohammedan goals.
Our FM’s statement is true to form. Carr fails to condemn an advocate of the destruction of a state with which Australia has friendly relations and the “moderate” who opposes Australia’s position in calling for the observance of resolutions calling for negotiations leading to two states for two people. Carr’s other comments are obfuscation and humbug.
Bishop’s comments are appropriate, especially her call for the “moderate” to withdraw his comments.
The comments by Rubenstein and Wertheim are dignified and address the inconsistencies between the “moderate’s” comments and Australian values. Its just that they both fail to call on the “moderate” mufti to moderate his manner or to assist multiculturalism and the moderation of Australian society by taking up permanent residence in Gaza where his moderate calls for jihad are acceptable.
Now let’s just see who will OFFICIALLY do something about this obvious breach.
And if nothing will be done at official level ex oficio, will the Aus. Jewish communal leaders know how to react at all !!!
I give them ten days after the return of the enthusiastic multicultural agent of………….
Many many years ago the then CEO of the NSWBoard of Deps. ( Margaret Gutman ) sent me to a very informal meeting of a few “multicultural” enthusiastoic blokes, well before the Concil of the same kind took shape – to express the Jewish community’s position. Margaret trusted me without giving any indications, instructions about what I was supposed to say. After listening to a few people of various ethnic origins, most of whom had the command of English akin to a substandard commedy routine, I gave my piece of mind, clear and unambiguous. I concluded by saying that the notion of multiculturalism is: divisive, intellectually deficient, usurps seriously the fabric of ethical homogenity of our Australian society etc. etc. I remember that the then editor of the Italian newspaper. La Fiama, ran after me to the lift almost suffocating me with his excitement that “someone” had the guts to say what precisely he, a highly educated Italian – and that is quite highly in any langiage – felt all the time.
Needless to say that Margaret never trusted me again with any similar “missions”.
Today the notion of multiculturalism is so solidly entrenched in our DIVIDED culturally society, that addressing critically such outrageous events as the one above reported, could be regarded as politically incorrect, conversely allowing an ethnic rep of a large ethnic/religious group to state that he is, in fact, representing simply the “cultural” aspirations of an AUSTRALIAN ethnic group entitled to voice and practice its rights, cultural (!!!!!!) aspirations…………… and all that offensive drek.
What if we dismantle this oxymoron, multiculturalism, and re-introduce proven Western norms implying at the same time that individuals may enjoy CULTURE as they see it fit WITHOUT usurping the reliable cultural (!!!) ethical values on which a decent Australian society may rest its aspirations to a safe and happy future.
Dr Ibrahim Mohammad’s disgraceful visit with Hamas and his desire to ‘learn’ from them should be the subject of an inquiry. What is it that he seeks to learn from Hamas? And what ‘rights’ doesn’t he already have in Australia? Hamas teaches genocidal mass-murder of the Jews and the annihilation of their lawful state. Is this what he’ll disseminate on his return throughout the mosques of Australa?
The Muslims of Australia should sack him right now.
This is a weak response from the official Australian Jewish leadership given the snide but unmistakable references by the Mufti of Australia to the genocidal antisemitism that has been part of Hamas policy since they inherited it from the Nazis via the Muslim Brotherhood.
Australia has a serious problem and it is a problem that threatens all Australians and not just Jews. Some of us are trying to make this point to Australians who are not Jews. It would help if the Jewish communal leadership seriously took on the issue of how far genocidal antisemitism has penetrated the Australian Muslim community.
This Mufti was supposed to be a moderate. What is the definition of a moderate? Someone who believes Jews are an insult to humanity and God because they rejected the Prophet and should be murdered everywhere but don’t start in Australia. Or if you do be careful about it.?
The community leadership should tackle head on the issue of crazy violent religious extremism in any form but we all know we are not talking about the Presbyterians. They have a responsibility to the Jewish community but they also have a responsibility to all Australians. I would argue a larger responsibility.
My blog is here.
http://geofffff.blogspot.com.au/
Thanks Geoff,
Well said
Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed a true muslim with jihad in his heart. Don’t allow him back to Australia.