The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) is geared up for its four-day court hearing against antisemitic Muslim preacher, Wissam Haddad, which begins Tuesday morning in Sydney. Haddad was previously revealed by an anonymous Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) agent to be the spiritual leader of Australia’s Islamic State network.
ECAJ announced it was taking action against Haddad – also known as Abu Ousayd – and the Sydney religious center, Al Madina Dawah Centre Incorporated, over speeches that were allegedly made at the center, recordings of which have been uploaded online.
The legal action began in the Federal Court of Australia in October 2024, with ECAJ’s co-CEO Peter Wertheim and deputy president Robert Goot claiming Haddad had violated Section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Haddad posted on his Instagram on Monday that he was relying only “on Allah, not on the system of Kufr.” Kufr is a derogatory term for non-believers. He also posted a video in which he said, “No problem facing the Jewish lobby, but we are not going to come unarmed, we’re going to fight them with everything that we have,” with the image of a sword attached.
According to court filings, Haddad described Jews as “vile” and “treacherous” with their “hands in businesses, in the media.” In one sermon from November 2023, viewed by The Jerusalem Post, Haddad quotes Sahih Bukhari volume 4, book 52, Hadith number 176, which reads, “Toward the end of times, when the Muslims will be fighting the Jews, the trees will speak, the stones will speak, and they will say, ‘O Muslim, O believer, there is a yahudi behind me, come and kill him.’”
This passage is famously quoted in Article 7 of the Hamas charter.
Later in the sermon, Haddad says, “Muslims are starving for jihad, they can’t wait to be amongst the mujahideen.”
Section 18C states that it is illegal to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people because of race, color or national or ethnic origin” in public.
For there to be a legal case, the act must be “reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate, or intimidate because of race, color, or ethnic/national origin,” and the insult must have “profound and serious effects.”
Additionally, Goot and Wertheim are seeking injunctions to remove the speeches from the Internet. The ECAJ is also seeking to restrain the respondents from publishing similar content in the future, and is asking for an order requiring publication of a corrective notice on the social media pages of Al Madina Dawah Centre.
The ECAJ stressed that it is not seeking damages or monetary compensation.
The Al Madina Dawah Centre published a statement in November 2024 expressing “unwavering commitment” to Haddad and asking for help with the “significant financial cost” of the trial.
It called for support in what it said was a demonstration against “Zionist forces that our community stands united behind us.”
The ECAJ’s previous attempt to lodge the case with the Australian Human Rights Commission did not succeed, resulting in the current action at the Federal Court.
“Accordingly, we have commenced proceedings in the Federal Court to defend the honor of our community, and as a warning to deter others seeking to mobilize racism in order to promote their political views,” Wertheim said.
“Australia has long enjoyed a reputation as a multicultural success story where people of many different faiths and ethnic backgrounds have, for the most part, lived in harmony and mutual respect,” he added.
“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.”
Previous incidents relating to the case
THE CASE attracted significant media attention in April when a former ASIO spy broke his cover to expose Haddad’s activities, claiming the cleric was at the center of Australia’s resurgent pro-Islamic State (IS) network.
A former secret agent, codenamed Marcus, risked prosecution by providing the first inside accounts of Haddad’s operations and the undercover counterterrorism work done during an interview with Four Corners, an Australian investigative TV program.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Haddad has never been charged with any terrorism-related offense, despite known ties to global terrorist leaders.
Marcus – an imam and teacher recruited by the ASIO to infiltrate Haddad’s Sydney network – told Four Corners that the preacher is the spiritual leader of a network of IS sympathizers.
He said that Haddad was mentored by now-jailed British extremist Anjem Choudary.
The ASIO sees Haddad “as the most important jihadist, extremist preacher in Sydney,” Marcus told Four Corners.
In a second recent development, the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia, revealed in May that Australian terrorist leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika had organized funding for Haddad’s defense in the upcoming ECAJ case.
Benbrika, who spent 18 years in jail for leading a terrorism cell, met Haddad in December to discuss funding for the trial.
John Coyne, a former AFP officer who was involved in the 2005 investigation that led to Benbrika’s conviction, told ABC that Benbrika’s behavior was not that “of someone who has been de-radicalized.”
“One of his first acts [after his restrictions were eased] was to make contact with someone who is a renowned firebrand speaker. This, in terms of extremist Islam, is extraordinary,” Coyne said.