MEDIA: How supporting Palestinian human rights makes you a believer in Saudi-style hardline Islam ...

Hardline Saudi wahhabi jihadist salutes his fellow mujahideen.

It was June 2006. The Mufti of mass-media, Sheik Rupert bin Murdoch, was in Australia to receive an award for being the most influential Australian - an awesome honour for someone who showed his commitment to Australia by throwing away his citizenship to become an American. During an interview with Channel 9, Sheik Rupert issued this fatwa:

You have to be careful about Muslims who have a very strong, in many ways a fine, but very strong religion which supersedes any sense of nationalism wherever they go.

In other words, these blasted Muslims are disloyal to Australia because their loyalties lay elsewhere. It’s like those bloody Jews who are more loyal to Israel. Or those nasty Catholics more loyal to some German dude who now lives in Rome.

And as always, Sheik Rupert has plenty of attack dogs on his payroll, busily spreading his sectarian and political preferences. Among them is my old buddy Dicky Kerbaj, who has just co-authored a piece on the allegedly secret and confused agenda of Saudi Arabia in sponsoring various religious and academic projects in Australia and other Western countries.

Kerbaj et al writes about how

The Saudi Government - largely through its embassy - is believed to have funnelled at least $120 million into Australia since the 1970s to propagate hardline Islam …

Kerbaj commences his article with an example of this hardline Islam:

THE cheque from the Saudi Government for $360,000 was enclosed in an envelope.

It was a donation, a gift, a part payment to subsidise the construction of a building that would become Sydney's Muslim heartbeat: Lakemba mosque. More than 35 years after Sydney cleric Khalil Shami received the cheque, he insists it came with no strings attached. But while the cheque had no tangible conditions in the form of written instructions or binding contracts, the cleric received a message from his donors several months after depositing it.

"They said: 'Please, can you mention the tragedy of the Palestinian people and what's happened to them in your sermon?"' Shami tells Inquirer. "Which is really a very noble cause, a very noble cause, I couldn't see a negative in their request."

So according to Kerbaj, talking about “the tragedy of the Palestinians and what’s happened to them” is clearly an example of “hardline Islam”. If you don’t want to be seen to be a follower of “hardline Islam”, you basically have to deny any Palestinian suffering. You have to believe that the Palestinians are living in absolute utopia, free to practice their high-jumping skills on the “security barrier” being built through their farms, villages and towns.

If you support or even express sympathy for the Palestinians, you are obviously a recipient of Saudi petro-dollars. Either that, or you are a hardline Wahhabi who is a threat to Australian security and deserving of being declared so on the pages of our national broadsheet.

By why should Kerbaj stop at mosques? Why doesn’t Kerbaj investigate the houses of worship of his own ancestral religion? Is he not aware of the pro-Palestinian pronouncements made by leaders and clerics of the Druze faith in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria?

And what about other non-Muslims who have expressed sympathy for the Palestinians? Will Kerbaj also suggest that the Pope of Egyptian Coptic Christians is also a follower of hardline Islam?

And how about the Mayor and the parish priest of Bethlehem? And what about Jimmy Carter? And former Deputy PM and National Party leader Tim Fischer?

But there are so many more followers of hardline Islam. Check out this chap. And these two dudes.

Naturally, the evil tenticles of radical Saudi Islam have spread far and wide. Even prominent actor Stephen Fry has joined in the radical fun, along with 130 other prominent British men and women who are clearly extremist Wahhabis.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf