A Moslem cleric who claims Jews use sex, perversion and treason to try to rule the world has been granted the right to permanent residence in Australia, outraging the Jewish community and many other Australians working for religious and racial harmony.
The center of controversy is Sheik Tajeddin el-Hilaly, who came here from Lebanon on a visitor’s visa in 1982.
He now heads a congregation of about 6,000 of the country’s estimated 110,000 to 120,000 Moslems and was elected this year the first mufti of Australia.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has protested to the government over the decision, as has the New South Wales Board of Deputies, the representative body of Jews in Australia’s most populous state.
The Board of Deputies unanimously adopted a resolution Sept. 18 condemning residency rights for Hilaly, whom it said “has continued to be a source of contempt for Jews and Judaism.”
The decision is contrary to the spirit of multiculturalism, which the government is trying to promote, and can only give succor to hatemongers, the resolution said.
“It brings into question the government’s commitment to communal harmony and flies in the face of repeated commitments that racism is unacceptable in Australian public life,” a senior officer of the Executive Council said.
In September 1988, Hilaly delivered a speech in Arabic at Sydney University. He described Jews as “a cancer” and claimed they were “the underlying cause of all wars threatening the peace and security of the whole inhabited Earth.”
He said Jews tried to “control the world through sex, sexual perversion, then the promotion of espionage, treason and economic hoarding.”
After a year of public debate and widespread calls for cancellation of Hilaly’s temporary residence visa, then Immigration Minister Robert Ray praised him lavishly for “his public affirmation of support for multiculturalism and a commitment to enter into a dialogue with different groups of Australians.”
He said, in addition, that the fact Hilaly has two Australian-born children was reason enough to extend his visa for another 12 months.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
