THE MUFTI OF LAKEMBA IS A GREAT THREAT TO AUSTRALIA

Con George-Kotzabasis

The following article was written on March 8, 2004, and it's an extract from my book Unveiling The War Against Terror published in Melbourne on May 9, 2004. It's republished here in the wake of both the Mufti's indefatigable support of Iran in its refusal to abide to the demands of the International Community in regard to its nuclear program, and of the statement of his present loyal supporter and spokesman, Keysar Trad, made on the ABC on April 10, 2007. Mr. Trad let the cat out of the bag! To the question of the interviewer from the ABC whether al Hilaly should resign from his position, Trad replied that the Mufti 'still had support' in the Muslim community. This essentially means, as my article argues, that the radical fundamentalist views of the Mufti are reflected and have support among many Muslims in Australia. Furthermore, this is strongly corroborated by the hesitancy and the dilly-dallying of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils to sack the Mufti from his position. Afraid and concerned that such an action would trigger a backlash against it from the community.

This concatenation of events clearly reveal, that there is an ominous substantial number of radical Muslims lurking in our midst. Which shots to pieces the argument that one should encourage moderate Muslims to oust the radicals and take over their positions. In this so called confrontation of the radicals and the moderates, the latter have lost the battle even before they fired their first shot. Of course the probability is that al Hilaly will be ultimately replaced, but by another "wolfish" radical in sheep's clothes.

It's therefore incumbent upon the government, indeed, of any government of whatever political hue, to win this battle against the radical Islamists in our midst. Since it's beyond the ability or inclination of moderate Muslims to deliver this victory.

The praise with which Mufti Sheik Al- Hilaly, the religious leader of Australian Muslims, anointed suicide bombers and the terrorists of Hezbollah, and his reference to September 11 as 'God's work against oppressors', in his sermon at the Lebanon mosque, should be of great concern to all Australians, from whatever cultural background, and should be raising the hackles of the government. This is in despite of the denials and the renunciatory statements of his spokesman Keysar Trad, with his by now repeated refrain, that the comments of the Sheik had been taken 'out of context', which Mr. Trad uses as an escape hatch for the inflammatory statements of the Mufti, and as a means to cozen and deceive the Australian public. However, Australians should not allow themselves to be tricked by this mouthful of deceptions belched forth by his spokesman, and should vehemently reject them as another attempt by Mr.Trad to fool them.

Keysar Trad's conduct and behaviour reminds one of the typical cunning of a vendor in a bazaar, who uses guile and lies to sell his shoddy products to the public. And one would be foolish not to assume, that both the Sheik and his spokesman have a bountiful storage of guile and lies, by which they will attempt to cover up their treacherous actions and statements, and hence, hoodwink the Australian public. Moreover, it is well known that most Arabs trade on lies in all spheres of life. Especially in the present circumstances, when radical Islam considers itself to be engaged in a deadly holy war against the infidels of the West and of Israel, the telling of lies is part of its holy armour. Radical Islam can seek and find justification for this in the sacred writings of Mohammed, where he states that in war Muslims are not banned from telling lies.

Certainly, the telling of lies is not an exclusive trait of a particular people. In certain circumstances all people will tell lies. But usually in human conflicts of all kinds, mendacity is the "armour" and "shield" of the weak, not of the strong, as the former have no ample means at their disposal, like the latter, either for offence or defence, and therefore resort as a result of this lack of means to disingenuousness and guilefulness against their opponents. Undoubtedly, radical Islam in its implacable confrontation with the West, and more precisely with the U.S.A., is the weaker foe in contrast to its opponent. It would therefore be prudent to take all the denials of the Mufti and his spokesman, with more than a grain of salt. However, no veneer of lies can hide and conceal the real beliefs and intentions of the Mufti. Sheik Al-Hilaly's, "Sermon of Lebanon" represents and embodies these real beliefs and intentions in the most transparent and limpid way. His incendiary and inflammatory statements and his direct inciting of the youth of Islam to be heroes and martyrs in its cause, which according to the Mufti is advancing everywhere, reveals lucidly that he is a man of war and not of peace. Moreover, his comments to this congregation of believers that they should not be surprised if in the near future Islamic ideology would pervade into Western countries, and indeed, that one would even hear 'Állah is great from the top of the White House', shows that the Mufti is no mere defender of Islam, but an aggressor, who really believes that the goal of radical militant Islam, his cause, is the subjugation and domination of the West.

Furthermore, his sermon also reveals a grim aspect of the Muslim Community in our country. The existence, among the majority of moderate Muslims, of an aberrant dangerous fundamentalist breed of "snakes" that are lurking in the "grassy lawns" of Australia, and that he has rivals within the country who are even more radical and militant than himself. His sermon therefore, from far off Lebanon, had the further aim of passing on a message to the followers of those fundamentalist imams (whose followers obviously are not small in number), that he himself is as radical as their leaders - all in the hope of winning them over to his side. The Government and ASIO therefore, need to be aware of this portentous danger that lies within the borders of our country, and to take the appropriate hard measures against it.

It would be the ultimate folly of any government not to take these statements of Mufti Hilaly as being most dangerous to Australia. At the present moment, Australia is involved in an implacable and relentless war with global terror. The Howard government has wisely chosen to join the U.S., the U.K. and its other allies in this war against terror, which threatens the civilised world with catastrophic annihilation. For this purpose, it has committed and sent its brave young men and women to fight both in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is pivotal to the defeat of global terror and which can only be accomplished by fighting it on two fronts, i.e., also against the rogue states which support directly and indirectly terrorists and which are more likely than not to supply weapons of mass destruction to the latter, with devastating consequences upon the survival and viability of open and free societies. It is for this reason necessary, not merely to denounce the statements of the Mufti, as the Foreign Minister Mr. Downer has done, but to take firm unrelenting measures against the Mufti and his cohorts, for inciting young Muslims to join the ranks of suicide bombers and to become martyrs in this holy war against the infidels.


Sheik Al-Hilaly is an Australian citizen, and as such his statements are treasonable since they support the enemies of Australia, with whom the latter is currently engaged in war. It behoves therefore that the government enact immediately preventative measures that would restrain the Mufti and other radicals from inciting Muslims in this country to engage in a Jihad against Australians. If a Muslim country such as Indonesia could charge the religious leader of Jemaah Islamiah, Abu Bakar Bashir, with offences related to terrorism that would put the latter in jail, why should Australia not do likewise? Does it have to have a Bali bombing on its own territory perpetrated by local Muslim terrorists, inspired and instigated by the teachings and statements of the Mufti, or of his rival fundamentalists, before the government will find the grit, fortitude, and resolve to jail Sheik Al-Hilaly? But no wise, imaginative, and strong government acts retroactively.


As predicted above, the Mufti has an abundance of cunning and duplicity in the storage of his mind. On his return to Australia he tried to conceal his insidious, sinister, and treasonous statements - this time behind the facade of Arab poetry. In his interview on the ABC on the 7th of March 2004, he said that his comments had to be taken within the poetic context in which they had been expressed and must be interpreted within such a context. However, the enormity of the Sheik's cover up has been exposed by his fellow Arabs themselves. The chief executive of The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils’ Amjad Mehboob, said that many Muslims were concerned that Sheik Al- Hilaly's speech had been interpreted (no poetic interpretation by his fellow Muslims?) as ' a call to arms', although in the same interview Mr.Mehboob said that the Sheik was a 'moderate and tolerant leader'. But this contradictory comment of Mr. Mehboob reveals the Janus nature of many Arab leaders and the many faces with which they "double-speak".


The war against global terror will not be won easily unless governments also uproot the breeding grounds of terror, which many Islamic schools and mosques are, not only in the East, but also, in the West. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the Australian government takes prerequisite and firm measures that prevent Islamic schools and mosques from propagating, either openly, or by insidious and devious means (the use of poetry?), the radical teachings of the fundamentalists, and if they continue to do so, the government should take the most severe measures against the teachers of these schools and mosques and should immediately stop subsidising these institutions with tax payers’ money.


It is about time that the cocoon of lies under which the Mufti of Lakemba hides and conceals his true beliefs and intentions be broken, and he be exposed for the real and great danger he poses to Australia. No volume of dissembling by his spokesman Keysar Trad will hide the fact that the Sheik is a wolf in sheep's clothing.