Cleric Wissam Haddad a ‘sacrificial lamb’, defends alleged anti-Semitic sermons
Fundamentalist cleric Wissam Haddad has broken his silence after being taken to court by Australia’s peak Jewish body, defending his sermons as rooted in Islamic scripture or ‘facts’, claiming he’d become a ‘sacrificial lamb’.
Fundamentalist Sydney cleric Wissam Haddad has broken his silence after Australia’s peak Jewish body instigated proceedings against him at the Federal Court, defending his sermons as rooted in Islamic scripture or “facts” while claiming he’d become a “sacrificial lamb”.
It comes after The Australian revealed in October that the Executive Council of Australian Jewry had sued Mr Haddad – also known as Abu Ousayd – and his Al Madina Dawah Centre for a series of sermons it alleges breached racial discrimination laws.
Mr Haddad or speakers at his centre have called Jewish people “descendants of pigs and monkeys”, recited parables about their killing, described them as “treacherous people” with their “hands” in media and business, encouraged jihad, and said people should “spit” on Israel so its citizens “would drown”.
Speaking in a near hour-long YouTube video on Saturday, Mr Haddad rubbished the legal proceedings, saying he was either reciting or referring to Islamic scripture, claiming that some of his sermon’s anti-Semitic tropes were instead “facts”.
“I brought up verses from the Koran … and sayings (from) Mohammad that speak about the Jews, and (I) said things that the Jewish community felt they’d been insulted over,” said Mr Haddad, who is represented by high-profile Sydney lawyer Elias Tabchouri, who most recently acted on behalf of dumped Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs star Josh Addo-Carr.
“(It) wasn’t my intent to insult anyone, but we were just speaking (from) scripture.
“We can speak about the Koran and what it says about Jews, the Christians can do the same, and the Jews can speak about us ... (The Jewish community) turned it into a big issue.”
He denied he had called for violence against Jewish people, saying reports were inaccurate.
The Australian first reported in late 2023 that Mr Haddad had cited parables at his centre about the killing of Jews, on November 6 and again the following day, while making clear in both instances that he was reciting passages from Islamic scripture.
The parable stated that at the “end of days” Muslims and Jews would be fighting and “the rock will say, ‘oh Muslim, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’”.
Mr Haddad defended calling Jewish people “descendants of pigs and monkeys”, pointing to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
“It’s not like we have something personal against Jews; whatever beliefs we hold it is something our religion teaches us,” he said, claiming that he was “pretty sure” Jewish people believed Muslims “would go to hell” and that comparable Islamic beliefs about nonbelievers were regarded as “criminal”.
“... And this is not to say that every single Jewish person is a bad person.
“We believe that if they don’t embrace Islam – and this goes for any person from every religion – that they are destined for the hellfire.”
Mr Haddad claimed that a sermon that alleged Jewish people had their “hands everywhere” in the media and business industry – a common anti-Semitic trope – could be proven as a fact.
“(That is) something obvious ... they are involved in (running the media and business industry),” he claimed.
Mr Haddad said such a claim was also tabled at the community “at the time of Hitler”, who he alleged historians believed “targeted the Jews because of this”, before citing a Forbes Israel article about that country’s billionaires.
“(The article) gets into what I said about Jews being in banking, loans, the media … the list goes on,” he said, arguing the magazine’s story was “proof” that his claim was “not a lie”.
The belief that Jewish people control industry and the media is a long-peddled anti-Semitic trope that attempts to evoke the notion that Jewish leaders are part of a global conspiracy.
In October, the ECAJ’s co-chief executive, Peter Wertheim, and deputy president Robert Goot instigated proceedings under the Racial Discrimination Act “to defend the honour of the community”, after mediation between the parties failed at the Australian Human Rights Commission.
“We are all free to observe our faith and traditions within the bounds of Australian law, and that should mean we do not bring the hatreds, prejudices and bigotry of overseas conflicts and societies into Australia,” Mr Wertheim said in October.
The ECAJ is seeking declarations that Mr Haddad and his centre contravened the Racial Discrimination Act, injunctions to remove the sermons from the internet, and an order that the cleric refrain from publishing similar speeches in future.
It is also seeking a “corrective notice” on the centre’s social media pages and costs, but not damages or monetary compensation.
Mr Haddad claimed that he took down some of the sermons and that his YouTube page was shut down.
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