COMMENT: Muslim Aid Australia and Interpal

Richard Kerbaj writes in The Australian today of an Australian aid agency which has allegedly breached Australia’s anti-terror laws. Muslim Aid Australia (MAA), in conjunction with Muslim Aid UK, has been raising funds for Palestinians in Gaza caught up in the Israeli-enforced blockade arising from Gaza’s takeover by HAMAS. That aid has been allegedly channelled through another UK-based charity called Interpal, a proscribed organisation under Australia’s anti-terror laws.

The current Consolidated List of proscribed terrorist organisations and individuals has over 1,000 persons and entities listed. It’s an offence to hold assets on behalf of anyone on the list or to make assets available to them. This is all part of the terrorist assets freezing regime, details of which can be found here.

Interpal, also known as the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund, is number 462 on the list. It was proscribed by former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on 21 November 2003, well before the HAMAS takeover of Gaza in June 2007 and the Israeli-enforced blockade. Kerbaj claims that MAA has channelled funds to Gaza via Interpal, an organisation proscribed under US and Australian legislation but not proscribed under UK legislation. Interpal is known to work with mainstream organisations working on the ground in Gaza such as the United Nations Relief & Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNWRA) that works with Palestinian refugees living in camps in the Occupied Territories, Lebanon and other places.

Kerbaj provides a list of MAA “principal directors”. Curiously, he mentions where each director was born. I’m not sure how this is relevant to the story, especially since all directors are known to be Australian citizens (or, at the very least, Australian permanent residents).

It’s unknown how many other Australian aid agencies have channelled funds and other forms of aid to Gaza through Interpal. However, the fact that UNWRA works with Interpal raises some interesting issues. Such as how any aid organisation is expected to deliver aid to Palestinians without involving Interpal in some way, shape or form.

The other problem is with the legislation itself, which relies on the executive adding an individual or organisation to the list. Interpal was listed in 2003, allegedly because it was linked to HAMAS. Yet the reality is that HAMAS has been running various health and welfare-related projects (such as clinics and schools) since even before the Palestinian authority was established. Indeed, Israel encouraged HAMAS in these activities in the hope that HAMAS would act as an effective counter to the Fatah-led Palestine Liberation Organisation which Israel regarded as its enemy.

Given that HAMAS is now ruling Gaza, how can any organisation deliver aid to Gaza Palestinians without in some way involving HAMAS or a HAMAS-related entity? The listing of Interpal by former Foreign Minister Downer on the Consolidated List now effectively means that Australian aid agencies cannot donate to help the people of Gaza at all. I doubt this is what Downer intended when he made the directive in relation to Interpal.

Further, Australia has chosen to follow the lead of the United States instead of the UK, which has twice found Interpal having little or no substantive link to HAMAS. The United States doesn’t exactly have a brilliant record in proscription of individuals and groups as terrorists. ABC reported that the US only recently removed former South African president Nelson Mandela from its terrorism watch list.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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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

COMMENT: New Zealand's Muslim heritage ...

Click here to discover New Zealand's Muslim heritage. You will find an article published in the NZ Listener on 21 April 1979 which discusses a mosque being established in Ponsonby, as well as some of the pioneers of Islam in New Zealand.

There's plenty of stuff here for Sheik Dicky Kerbaj to make an issue of. Even here, in New Zealand, the nasty Saudis had their tentacles. Too bad they invested more in Kerbaj's employers!

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf


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CRIKEY: A rather silly attack on the Griffith Islamic Research Unit ...

Jesus Christ is reported as once declaring: "Ask and ye shall receive." But when it comes to Griffith University’s dealings with foreign embassies, Richard Kerbaj reckons what Christ really said was: "Ask and we’ll treat it as begging and attach lots of Wahhabi ideological strings."

His article in today’s Australian claims Griffith University in Brisbane "practically begged the Saudi embassy to bankroll its Islamic campus for $1.3 million." The headline (which Kerbaj probably didn’t write) screams: "Top uni 'begged' for Saudi money".

And what was the size of the bankroll? $1.3 million? $1 million? $500,000? Nope. A measly $100,000, representing just under 7.7 % of the total funds required. And the rest of the money? Where did it (and will it) come from? Perhaps from another government...

Kerbaj makes much of criticism from Dr Mervyn Bendle, an academic from James Cook University, who is critical of Griffith for accepting the donation. Kerbaj describes Bendle as a "senior lecturer in the history of terrorism". Though that’s not quite how James Cook Uni’s website describes Dr Bendle.

Kerbaj also repeats the mantra that the official religion of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (known as Wahhabism) "is espoused by al-Qaida." Yes, Dicky, that’s true. But then Wahhabism is also espoused by many Saudi scholars, both religious and secular, with little truck for Mr bin-Laden and his gang of not-so-merry men.

And what has been the impact of this Saudi largesse? Well, at the Griffith Islamic Research Unit’s most recent conference, the Saudi Ambassador did manage to give a speech. Then again, so did Indigenous Elder Auntie Valda Coolwell and Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services Laurie Ferguson. As did staunch critics of Wahhabism such as myself and an openly anti-Wahhabi American imam now based in Sydney who left a university in Saudi Arabia to study religion under Turkish scholars hostile to Wahhabism.

In fact, the place was virtually stacked out with anti-Wahhabists. If my religion allowed gambling, I’d be prepared to place money on the fact that you’d see more Wahhabis at World Youth Day events. If influence is what they wanted, the Saudis certainly aren’t getting value for their dollar at Griffith Uni.

Words © 2008 Irfan Yusuf

MEDIA: Did Dicky misrepresent Laurie Ferguson?

In the Crikey daily alert for 11 March 2008, ANU researcher Shakira Hussein suggests that my old buddy Dicky Kerbaj from The Australian may have been engaging in some poetic (or should that be journalistic?) license in relation to comments made by Minister for Multicultural Affairs (and Federal Member for Reid, perhaps the most multicultural federal electorate in the country) Laurie Ferguson.

I'd have to say I never suspected Dicky would be putting words and policies into Laurie's mouth. Further, Dicky's report (that any future Muslim Reference Group advising the Federal Government would focus less on male middle aged migrant religious leaders) was certainly a breath of fresh air compared to the coposition of John Howard's Reference Group.

Yet Ms Hussein actually appears to have spoken to Mr Ferguson on the issue.

This morning, the paper [as in The Australian] reports that the federal government is considering appointments to a new Muslim advisory board. The Muslim Community Reference Group established under the previous government was dominated by conservative religious leaders. It became a lightning rod for internal Muslim community conflicts and recriminations, and was eventually discontinued. The Australian reported that Ferguson is determined that any new government appointed body should represent a wider cross-section of Muslims, and include secular as well as religious figures.

But The Oz may have exaggerated the government's intentions a little with the headline "Rudd's quest for true blue Muslims." In an interview with Crikey this morning, Ferguson hosed down talk of a re-established reference group, emphasising that any such plans were at a very early stage. While the government is "mindful of the need for dialogue" with Muslim communities, it was impossible to say what shape that dialogue might take.

I sure hope that this government spends more time listening to ordinary Aussie Muslims, many if not most of whom aren't terribly observant. I hope they abandon the previous government's approach of talking about and at Muslims instead of talking to them.

© Irfan Yusuf 2008


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CRIKEY: How to turn 150 Muslims into a national threat

Crikey readers must grow tired reading about the smallest roaring mouse among that 1.5% of Australians who tick "Muslim" on their Census forms. Yet readers of The Oz apparently just can’t get enough.

Today’s report concerns the alleged takeover of a tiny mosque servicing hardly 600 people in Newcastle, north of Sydney. Dick Kerbaj reports the "moderate" leadership were deposed by "hardline" newcomers. Gee, that says a lot.


Apparently former Newcastle Muslim Association president Yunus Kara is concerned a group of overseas students make home visits to ordinary Muslims to preach their beliefs.

On the basis of this, Kerbaj speculates:

This home preaching may suggest that the appointment of a new imam is not an immediate priority of the new leadership.

Really?

Kerbaj should know that many metropolitan, regional and rural mosques don’t have imams. Having a basic understanding of Muslim religious ritual means he’d know virtually anyone can lead a prayer service. A full-time imam is a luxury many mosques don’t need and (in many cases) cannot afford.

You really have to wonder whether this saturated coverage of every tiny mouse that roars inside Australia’s Muslim communities makes any difference to Australians of any faith and no faith in particular. Let’s face facts. Muslim folk hardly make up 1.5% of the population.

Further, The Oz’s reporting tends to be so meaninglessly stereotypical (with words like "extreme", "hardline" and "moderate" thrown around like clothes in a dryer) that one wonders whether the goal is just to keep Muslims somehow in the news.

I spoke to the former President of the Newcastle Muslim Association, Yunus Kara, some four weeks ago about the issue. He acknowledged the caretaker imam Bilal Kanj was not a trained "sheik" but rather was a young student associated with a Lebanese sect known as "al-Ahbash". Kara acknowledged that many Muslims regarded the al-Ahbash as a fringe cult, but he preferred their beliefs to those of the Wahhabis.

And what are these beliefs? What are the theological nuances that distinguish these groups? How does this play out in the real world of Muslim congregations?

Perhaps Kara’s most telling answer was when I asked him how many Muslims attend his mosque for Friday prayer. He said around 150.

150. Out of 600. Kara, Kerbaj, Kanj & Ko may be interested. But the rest of Novocastrian Muslims are too busy getting on with life in the real world.

First published in the Crikey.com.au daily alert on 20 March 2007. Crikey is a superb source of news, commentary, gossip and lots of other interesting stuff. It is widely read by journalists, parliamentarians, staffers, editors, academics and an assortment of other persons with far too much time on their hands. To subscribe, click here

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf


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