Australian Jewish community leaders requested action be taken against Ismail Al-Wahwah, spiritual leader of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, for terming Jews “evil creatures” and calling for their eradication.
President of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies Jeremy Spinak lodged an official complaint with the state’s Anti-Discrimination Board for a rally Al-Wahwah held in Lakemba, Australia, last summer during Operation Protective Edge, the video of which only recently surfaced.
During the speech, Al-Wahwah called Jews “a hidden evil,” the Australian Jewish News reported Thursday.
“The entire world suffers from the children of Israel… Who will set the world free from the children of Israel so that the world will be able to say that it has rid itself of that hidden evil?” Al-Wahwah asked.
In his complaint, Spinak requested that Al-Wahwah and Wassim Doureihi, a spokesperson for Hizb ut-Tahrir, be prosecuted under the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act.
The Anti-Discrimination Act deals with the “offense of serious racial vilification,” and states that “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.”
“The speech incited hatred towards, serious contempt for, and severe ridicule of, Jews on the ground of them being Jewish,” Spinak wrote.
“It is clear that the speech threatened physical harm towards Jews. It also incited others to threaten physical harm towards Jews.”
In addition to the Jewish Board of Deputies’ formal complaint against Al-Wahwah, the CEO of the Jewish organization, Vic Alhadeff, compared remarks made by the spiritual leader last week to the extremism of the Islamic State.
In a sermon on March 3, Al-Wahwah declared, “The Jews are the most evil creatures of Allah.
“Coexistence with Israel and the Jews is a delusion. There is only one solution for that cancerous tumor: It must be uprooted and thrown back to where it came from,” he said.
In response to the speech, Alhadeff appealed to the government to prevent another attack like the one in December where Iranian-born cleric Man Monis held 17 people hostage in a cafe for 16 hours.
“This has nothing to do with Israel and is in the same vein of Islamic extremism and incitement to violence that IS peddles,” he said. “It is another wake-up call for authorities to act before these hate-preachers inspire the next Man Monis.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0x4hzTmTLE&ab_channel=MEMRITVVideos
