Anti-Semitic preachers’ ‘vile’ claims

The peak body for Jewish Australians has launched a vilification complaint against Abu Ousayd, also known as Wissam Haddad, over a sermon delivered last year. Picture: YouTube
The peak body for Jewish Australians has launched a vilification complaint against Abu Ousayd, also known as Wissam Haddad, over a sermon delivered last year. Picture: YouTube

The peak body for Jewish Australians has lodged vilification complaints against two Sydney Islamic preachers over sermons that described Jewish people as “monsters”, “vile”, and “bloodthirsty”.

In complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry says the two “anti-Semitic sermons” delivered by western Sydney clerics Wissam Haddad and Sheikh Ahmed Zoud included “derogatory generalisations about Jewish people”.

The complaint also names Mr Haddad’s Al Madina Dawah Centre and the trading company of Mr Zoud’s mosque.

Of particular concern were the descriptions of Jewish people as “monsters”, “criminals”, “bloodthirsty”, raised on “terrorism, violence and killing”, a “vile people” and a “treacherous people” and claims that “their hands are in everywhere in businesses … in the media”, which the council alleges is a violation of the Racial Discrimination Act.

The ECAJ is seeking a public apology and the removal of the speeches from the internet as well as a binding commitment that similar sermons are not given again.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has lodged a complaint against Abu Ousayd, also known as Wissam Haddad. Picture: YouTube
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has lodged a complaint against Abu Ousayd, also known as Wissam Haddad. Picture: YouTube
Sheikh Ahmed Zoud called Jews ‘bloodthirsty monsters’ in a December sermon.
Sheikh Ahmed Zoud called Jews ‘bloodthirsty monsters’ in a December sermon.

Co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said the council had been disappointed by the lack of “proper leadership” from governments and law enforcement agencies and had taken the action not only to defend the Jewish community’s “honour” but also to “protect the future of Australia as a peaceful and socially-cohesive society”.

“Our country has provided a wonderful home to people of many different faiths and ethnic backgrounds. For the most part, we all live together in harmony with mutual respect where everyone is free to observe their faith and their traditions,” Mr Wertheim said.

“One of the rules of Australian multicultural society is that we do not bring the hatreds, prejudices and bigotry of overseas conflicts and societies into Australia. It is truly regrettable … that it has fallen to our community to stand up to the hatemongers in our midst.

“We will do this regardless of the human and financial cost. The issue is simply too important for Australia’s future.”

A recording of both sermons and the transcripts are publicly available online on the website Memri TV.

VIGIL for ISRAEL
The council is asking for a public apology and the sermons to be removed from the internet. Picture: NCA NewsWIRE / Monique Harmer

Mr Haddad, who is also known as “Abu Ousayd”, delivered a lecture on November 4 at Al Madina Dawah Centre, where he discussed Quran verses about the Jewish tribe of Banu Qaynuqa.

As described on the website where the vision and transcript are available, his speech described Jewish people as “a mischievous people who use their wealth to have authority over the weak”.

He also “quoted the hadith about the Muslims fighting the Jews at the End of Times when the trees and stones will speak and tell the Muslims where the Jews are hiding so they can kill them”.

On the same website is the vision and transcript of Mr Zoud’s December 22 sermon at Masjid As-Sunnah Lakemba mosque.

In his lecture, he spoke about “the characteristics of the Jews”, and as stated in the abstract, he described Jews as “criminals, terrorists and Zionists” but qualified that not all Jews were like this, “just most of them”.