By Michaela Whitbourn
A Sydney-born Islamic preacher vilified the Jewish community in lectures posted online that perpetuated “age-old tropes against Jewish people that are fundamentally racist and antisemitic”, the Federal Court has ruled.
In a decision on Tuesday, Justice Angus Stewart found Wissam Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act in delivering three lectures in November 2023. The judge ordered that they be removed from social media.
Wissam Haddad (centre) leaves the Federal Court in Sydney after a court found he contravened the Racial Discrimination Act in three lectures.Credit: Edwina Pickles
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, via its co-chief executive Peter Wertheim and deputy president Robert Goot, filed proceedings against Haddad under section 18C over five speeches delivered at the Al Madina Dawah Centre in Bankstown and subsequently posted online.
Of the five speeches, Stewart found three lectures contained slurs about Jewish people that were “reasonably likely in all the circumstances to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate Jewish people in Australia”, and that Haddad “said the many disparaging things about Jews because of their race or ethnic origin”.
Among other offensive comments, Haddad referred to Jews in the lectures as a “shifty”, “treacherous” and “vile people”, and “descendants of apes and pigs”.
The lectures included “age-old tropes against Jewish people that are fundamentally racist and antisemitic” and made “perverse generalisations against Jewish people”, Stewart said in a summary of his decision.
“Jews in Australia in November 2023 and thereafter would experience them to be harassing and intimidating,” the summary said.
“That is because of their profound offensiveness and the long history of persecution of Jews associated with the use of such rhetoric.
“Those effects on Jews in Australia would be profound and serious. That is all the more so because the lectures were delivered at a time of heightened vulnerability and fragility experienced by Jews in Australia following the attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023, Israel’s bombardment and blockade of Gaza in response, and resultant solidarity protests and other actions in Australia.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry (right) co-chief executive Peter Wertheim and (left) deputy president Robert Goot after the decision on Tuesday.Credit: Edwina Pickles
The judge found a separate interview and a sermon did not fall foul of the racial discrimination laws because they contained comments critical of Israeli defence forces and Zionists, and would not be understood to be referring to Jewish people in general.
Wertheim and Goot successfully sought court orders requiring Haddad and the centre’s incorporated association to remove the lectures online, not to repeat similar statements in public, and legal costs.
Haddad’s legal team unsuccessfully argued an exemption in section 18D of the law applied, claiming that he acted “reasonably and in good faith” in the course of a debate in the public interest. Stewart said the lectures were delivered neither reasonably nor in good faith.
There was “no reasonable basis on which he could have in good faith believed that what he was teaching was indeed the teaching of Islam”, the judge said in his decision.
“Because of the scholarly theological evidence demonstrating that the view of Jews articulated by Mr Haddad in the lectures has no foundation in Islam, this case does not call for a decision on whether religious belief can ever be a justification for propagating racist bigotry and hate.”
In a statement, Wertheim said the case was “not about freedom of expression or religious freedom” but “about antisemitism and the abuse of those freedoms in order to promote antisemitism”.
“People are free to engage in robust debate about international conflicts, whether their beliefs are true or false, informed or ignorant,” Wertheim said.
“But that does not include the freedom to mobilise racism as a polemical tool to promote one’s views – to dehumanise and vilify entire communities or individuals on the basis of their racial, ethnic or ethno-religious identity.”
Wertheim said the peak Jewish body decided it had “no alternative” but to bring the court case when “it became evident that the responsible authorities in Australia could not or would not act to protect vulnerable members of our community from hate-mongering, threats and violence”.
The judge noted Haddad had also made “attacks on the Christian and Hindu religions that were calculated to generate outrage” and “revelled in the publicity and notoriety that that brought him”.
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