Anti-Jewish Feelings among Muslims
The fact that Arab Muslims have been less successful in integrating at
every level of Australian society—economically, culturally, educationally,
and socially—creates resentment, especially among younger Muslims.
This resentment has been heightened by the anti-American feelings en-
gendered by the Iraq war, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the belief
in the power of the Jewish lobby. One outcome of this is that, as in other
parts of the world, Muslims have themselves fostered ethnic hatred and
support of jihad. Taj al-Din al Hilaly, mufti of Australia until 2007, has
made a number of problematic and anti-Semitic statements. In 1988, in
a speech at the University of Sydney entitled “Islam and Judaism: Can
They Co-exist?” he said that Jews were “the underlying cause of all
wars.”
31
Over the years Hilaly has continued to ferment ethnic tension
and opposition to western values. In addition to Hilaly, there are a num-
ber of home-grown Australian imams who have radicalized by them-
selves, largely due to exposure to the Wahhabi philosophy sponsored
from Saudi Arabia and also to the Egyptian Salafi movement. Saudi Ara-
bia funds many Australian Muslim schools and institutions.
32
Bernard
Lewis claims that such schools are established in order to “promote their
108 · Suzanne D. Rutland
version of Islam,” and his argument that this “indoctrination is provided
in private schools, religious seminars, mosque schools, holiday camps,
and, increasingly, prisons”
33
applies to Australia. It can also be argued
that Saudi funding was provided to stop other Islamic groups, especially
the non-Salafists, from funding Muslim schools and other institutions.
34
A recent phenomenon has been the conversion of a number of Aborigines
to Islam while they are in prison.
35
Some underprivileged young Muslims are drawn to firebrand preach-
ings of radical Muslims and clerics. In 2002, Imam Imran Hosein gave a
lecture on Jerusalem in the Quran, which was a strong attack on Jews,
Judaism, and the state of Israel. Sheikh Khalid Yasin, an African Ameri-
can convert and radical Islamist, has visited Australia on a number of
occasions. In Sydney in July 2005 he stated that non-Muslims cannot be
trusted or be true friends as they do not know what sanctity means.
36
A description of his charismatic appeal, especially to young Muslims,
noted: “The Muslim youth have copped an absolute battering in the me-
dia since 1998, which has, and I’ve seen it first-hand, which has affected
their self-esteem and their confidence. Khalid Yasin instils a lot of pride
in the youth and reminds them that, as Muslims, they’ve got a lot to
be proud of.”
37
Commentators note that some young Muslims are be-
ing drawn to the preachings of hardline imams, such as Sheikh Moham-
med Omran in Melbourne and Sheikh Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud in
Sydney.
38
Muslim bookshops located in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba and the
Melbourne suburb of Brunswick sell Islamic literature preaching hatred
or violence as well as anti-Semitic publications such as the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion in Arabic.
39
For example, a children’s board game with the
aim of conquering Jerusalem, with many symbols of violence, was sold
at a Muslim bookstore in Sydney in 2005. Much of this material emanates
from Saudi Arabia and is translated in London. It includes titles such as
Ideological Attack and Defence of Muslim Lands, with the latter advocating
suicide bombings and jihad.
Many problematic websites are easily accessible. For example, the
“Mission Islam” website promotes blatantly anti-Semitic material. It in-
cludes the Protocols and a section entitled “The Truth about the Talmud,”
which, according to the 2007 ECAJ report on anti-Semitism, “contained
a list of fraudulent and out-of-context statements designed to portray
Judaism as ridiculously and violently hostile to all non-Jews.”
40
Another
Jews and Muslims “Downunder”: Emerging Dialogue and Challenges · 109
anti-Semitic publication, Nida᾿ul Islam, which includes provocative ma-
terial against Jews, is also readily available on the web. A number of Mus-
lim websites, such as “Islamic Sydney” and “MuslimVillage Forum,” al-
low anti-Semitic correspondence and chat. The Forum on MuslimVillage,
which receives 100,000 posts a month, mainly from adults ages 22–25,
also posts some pro-Jewish material, and some non-Muslims join and
post anti-Muslim material. However, the site is moderated, and the anti-
Muslim posts that are allowed through are not as problematic as the anti-
Jewish posts. In addition, the average reader would be Muslim and so
less likely to be influenced by anti-Muslim posts, whereas the anti-Jewish
material can “have the effect of normalizing anti-Semitism among Mus-
lims.”
41
The founder and administrator of the website, Ahmed Kilani,
does block some contributors, so more care could be taken with anti-
Jewish material. There have also been links between far right websites
and groups, such as the Australian League of Rights, and Muslim groups
and speakers.
There have been a number of instances where the Arabic press, which
is mainly run by Christian Arabs, has published anti-Semitic material
including promoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, resulting in legal
proceedings being undertaken by the Press Council of New South Wales
at the instigation of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. The longest case
running was with the Christian Arabic newspaper An Nahar, but action
has also been taken against An Nahda, which revived the blood libel accu-
sation in 1986, and Al-Moharrer Al Arabi in 1994, in regard to an offensive
article entitled “Blood for Zion’s Unleavened Bread.”
42
In recent years,
An Nahar has been more pro-Jewish.
Jewish children and teachers in government schools with large Mus-
lim populations have experienced both verbal and physical abuse. While
anti-Muslim feelings in schools have been researched, no research to date
has been undertaken on anti-Jewish feelings among Muslim children in
high schools. To fill this gap, five teachers in schools with a high percent-
age of Muslim children in the southern and western areas of Sydney were
interviewed about their attitudes toward Jews in their schools, such as
a school in the Fairfield area with 265 Arabic-speaking children out of
a total school population of 873.
43
The teachers all reported a venera-
tion of Hitler and Nazism with statements such as “Hitler did the right
thing,” “Hitler did not go far enough,” a tendency to draw swastikas on
their desks, hatred of Israel, and general antipathy towards Jews. They
110 · Suzanne D. Rutland
also expressed the belief common throughout the Muslim world that the
Jews were responsible for September 11 and that no Jews were killed in
the attack because they had been warned in advance.
44
One non-Jewish
teacher from a Sydney high school with a high concentration of Muslim
students commented that “even his moderate Lebanese students believe
that Israel is responsible for September 11,” while another student came
to him and asked: “Why do all the teachers hate Hitler? After all, he only
killed Jews?”
45
Another teacher commented that there was graffiti in her
school saying, “F–––k all Jews” and “Kill all Jews.” The Jewish teachers
interviewed feared that their students would realize that they were Jew-
ish and harass them. As one teacher put it: “I am not able to come out. I
want my students to know I am a person like anyone else—just flesh and
blood.”
46
Two different stories about mobile phones illustrate the depth
of the problem. In one boys’ school, the teacher said the boys’ favor-
ite video-clip that they watch on their phones is of American journalist
Daniel Pearl saying, “I am a Jew, my mother is a Jew,” and then watching
him being beheaded. In a girls’ school, one student came to the teacher
saying, “My friend pulled her mobile phone apart yesterday and when
I asked her why, she said that the Jews control all the communications
and that they could listen in on her conversations. Is that true, Miss?”
There are very few Jewish children attending schools with a high percent-
age of Muslim children due to the demographic differences discussed
above, but in a few cases Jewish parents have had to remove children
from schools with a high Muslim population because of ongoing verbal
attacks.
The radical Muslim organization Hizb ut-Tahrir is active in Sydney
and other parts of Australia, although it is banned in several European
countries, including Germany, and many of the Muslim countries. They
believe in the reestablishment of the Khilafa (Islamic Empire) and wish
to bring the West under an umma—”one Islamic state with no territo-
rial boundary.”
47
They also believe that any country that was governed
by Islamic law for a set period of time has to return to Islam. They seek
to attract university-educated young people to their cause. Their leader,
Wassim Doureihi, strongly promotes sharia law and has defended sui-
cide bombers, including the London attacks. Osman Badr, president of
the Muslim Students Association at the University of Sydney in 2005 and
a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, also stated during a sermon at the Friday
prayers after the bombings that “the attacks were retribution for what is
Jews and Muslims “Downunder”: Emerging Dialogue and Challenges · 111
happening in Palestine and Iraq and they were bringing the war home
to those who were funding it.”
48
In a discussion on the topic “Should
Muslims subscribe to Australian values?” held in Sydney in April 2006,
the conclusion of Hizb ut-Tahrir was “a firm no.”
49
The group also held
a meeting in August entitled “Israel is an illegal state which no Muslim
will ever recognise.” At the end of the meeting, one speaker warned that
all Jews in Israel needed to have a foreign passport as they would have to
return to the lands they came from. Another radical group is the Federa-
tion of Australian Muslim Students and Youth (FAMSY), which has sup-
ported the position of the Muslim Brotherhood in the past and claimed
that the Australian government is carrying out a war against Islam. It is
difficult to know to what extent these radical views represent mainstream
Muslim society because there are so many Muslim ethnic groups in Aus-
tralia and no authoritative research has been conducted on the topic.
50
American researcher Steven Emerson argues that these groups, whom
he describes as the “cultural Jihadists,” make the “military jihad pos-
sible.”
51
From her study of Muslims in Australia, Nahid Kabir has argued
that “militant Islamic activities and worldwide terrorism have impacted
negatively on moderate Muslims in the West” and have contributed to
discrimination against Muslims in finding employment.
52
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