‘Opportunistic’ clerics preaching toxic views are preying on people’s fears but don’t speak for all

Brother Ismail sermon on October 27 at the Al Madina Dawah Centre where he criticises Anthony Albanese, his stance on Israel and Australia's treatment of indigenous Australians.

In the early morning I wake and check my messages for news from Gaza. I’m not looking for information about bombs or the death toll or other grim headlines, but word from a Palestinian father named Mohammed.

Mohammed tells me about one of his kids, Abdul Rahman, a 12-year-old boy who suffers from a serious facial deformity. I heard his story from a Palestinian friend four years ago and I’ve since been committed to helping him access the healthcare he needs.

Before the October 7 attacks, the boy was undergoing final tests and 3D imaging; the family was planning for him to be admitted to a highly specialised reconstructive surgery at an Israeli hospital. His deformity was so complicated it had moved beyond any treatment available in the Palestinian health system. If Abdul remains alive – but can’t get back to Israel for surgery – he’ll live the rest of his life with a terrible deformity.

That’s where my attention is at the moment: on this 12-year-old boy and those living through this dreadful conflict.

Back home, I have seen media reports about “Brother Ismail” and his sermon in Bankstown. To be honest, I had never heard of him before. I listened to the sermon and asked people in my community about him. I learned he is an Australian citizen. But he is a preacher who doesn’t pretend to reflect my views, or those of Bankstown and the wider western Sydney Muslim community.

Like everyone, he is entitled to his views and has every right to express them so long as he does not vilify or incite violence against any other group in our society.

There is never a justification for violence: anti-Semitism and Islamophobia will never be tolerated. I noticed media reports about what this man allegedly said – I realised I had seen this kind of commentary and moral panic before. It was during the height of the Islamic State crisis – a group I prefer to call by its Arabic name Daesh out of respect to a mother who asked me not to call them by the name of her daughter, Isis.

Dr Jamal Rifi

About a decade ago, when this group of radicals tried to carve out a home in Iraq and Syria, other extremists took to podiums and stood behind microphones here in Australia to deliberately spread fear and toxic ideology. These people are opportunists, preying on people’s emotions and fears. The panic Daesh spread was serious – and posed a national security risk. But this was felt most keenly in the homes of peaceful Muslim families.

I know most people in western Sydney Muslim communities are smart. They know self-serving people when they see them in the flesh – and watch them online. We are all angry about what’s happening in the region but we will never do or allow anyone to destabilise Australia’s social cohesion and the harmony we enjoy.

For me and so many others in my community, we’re desperate for the bloodshed to stop. Just like my friends in the Jewish community, who are mourning the loss of innocent civilians, we are too.

I am Australian-Lebanese, not Palestinian. But I have an intimate knowledge of war and its consequences after growing up through the civil war conflict in Lebanon. I grew up with Palestinians in northern Lebanon. The Badawi and Nahr Albared Palestinian refugee camps were close to my home. My friends who lived there told stories of displacement, of resilience and dreams for a better life.

The wreckage of buildings, destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip.

I was lucky enough to get that opportunity when I eventually found my way to Australia, where I graduated from medicine and set up a life in Belmore.

The stories of Palestinian Australians aren’t all that different from Jewish Australians. They are stories of displacement, loss of hope and starting again in a new home. Both groups are mourning the horrors of October 7. We in the Muslim community recognise their pain and also mourn the deaths of all innocent civilians who have lost their lives in this war. We want an immediate ceasefire and for the bloodshed to stop.

Jamal Rifi is a retired general practitioner. He lives in southwest Sydney.