Latest news with #dehumanization
News24
03-08-2025
- Politics
- News24
Hitler's Germany, Netanyahu's Israel, Trump's America: Terrifying parallels
History, when forgotten or distorted, often returns – not as memory but as repetition. The dehumanising machinery of fascist regimes begins not in death camps, but in the use of denigrating, inflammatory language. In Nazi Germany, it began with the labelling of Jews, Roma (Gypsies) and other non-Aryans as 'Ausländers' – outsiders, unworthy of national inclusion. In 21st-century America, President Donald Trump's labelling of black and brown immigrants as 'illegals', 'animals' and 'invaders' echoes this extremely dangerous rhetoric. These parallels demand not only remembrance but immediate action. The use of language in pursuing an agenda of exclusion and oppression is more than adequately defined by Professor Edward Said in his book Covering Islam. In Adolf Hitler's Germany, for example, the SS (Schutzstaffel) was a feared state paramilitary apparatus responsible for enforcing racial purity, rounding up Jews in particular, and orchestrating deportations and genocide. Their targets were first demonised through massive propaganda campaigns, as Iran is today, then criminalised through law and finally liquidated under state policy. In modern-day America, immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) has similarly operated as a tool of ideological enforcement. Under the Trump administration, ICE raids are tearing through communities, workplaces, schools and homes. Immigrants, many of them long-time residents, workers and parents, are being detained and jailed in substandard conditions, herded on to flights in handcuffs, and deported without due process. Jeenah Moon / Reuters The comparison lies not in methods of extermination in this instance, but in the political and legal mechanisms of dehumanisation. The SS was, and now ICE is, empowered by legislation, normalised by political rhetoric by supposedly sane legislators and sustained by a large part of mainly white society willing to turn away from this reality. In occupied Palestine, we continue to witness a third iteration of the Ausländer doctrine. Zionist Israeli propaganda continues to cast Palestinians, especially in Gaza, as an alien threat to the Jewish state. Under the pretext of defence and divine entitlement, Israel has destroyed homes, restricted movement, detained children and killed thousands of civilians in operations that bear a stark resemblance to collective punishment. READ: Netanyahu slams French proposal to recognise Palestinian state as 'launch pad to annihilate Israel' The ongoing siege and massacre of innocents in Gaza – and now the terror on civilians in the West Bank – is not a spontaneous response to violence; it is a systematised policy of domination and de-Arabisation designed as Plan Dalet by David Ben Gurion in 1947/8. Just as Hitler used the language of 'lebensraum' (living room) to justify expansion, Zionism invokes biblical claims to deny Palestinian sovereignty and existence. Palestinians are vilified in the media, denied the right of return, labelled 'terrorists' by default and kept in ghettos behind walls. The echoes of Jewish suffering in Europe should not have been a shield for Israeli policy. It should have been a cautionary tale – a lesson to be learnt and not to be repeated. During Hitler's rise, many ordinary Germans supported or tolerated discriminatory policies. Anti-Jewish laws were passed with little opposition. When the trains to Auschwitz ran, the silence of the public enabled genocide – as is the silence or complicity of most 'civilised' western nations and Arab oligarchs seeking to protect and enhance their control of resource-rich nations. In the US today, congressional support for anti-immigrant enforcement has bipartisan roots. Approved budgets are funding mass deportations, detention camps and border militarisation. While outrage flares on social media, legislative support for these actions continues unabated. An ever-growing military machine continues to get billions more to remain the chief hegemon – a deeply debt-ridden 'superpower'. Even more disturbing is how many American Jews, who once experienced the sharp edge of exclusion and extermination, now back a state that echoes those same exclusionary ideologies driven by powerful lobby groups – chief among which is the well-funded American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Support for Zionist aggression in Gaza and the West Bank often comes from precisely those people whose ancestors were themselves cast as outsiders. What ties these histories together is the dangerous process of labelling human beings as others. Whether called 'Ausländers', 'illegals' or 'threats', the language opens the door to policies that strip people of dignity, rights and, ultimately, life. The lesson is not that all oppressors are the same, but that the structure of oppression is terrifyingly repeatable. Refusing to see these signs opens the doors to allow the cycle to continue. If state violence is excused based on race, religion or national identity, this legitimises the very ideologies once condemned. ICE is not the SS. Gaza is not Auschwitz. But the immoral architecture, use of fear, division and silence are very familiar and concerning. The question is not whether history is repeating itself. The question is whether the world is brave enough to stop it.
Yahoo
28-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Contributor: Dehumanizing and starving Gazans has been a strategy all along
An Israeli soldier would position his leg against the wall in the narrow corridor to our school, then order us: 'Pass under my leg, or no school.' That was a recurring event for us children during the early 1990s in our Al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, the "beach camp." Read more: Famine's toll on the children of Gaza: The world shouldn't look away It took us some growing up to understand it as systematic humiliation, an experience that would define most of our encounters with the Israeli army. That left many of us feeling helpless and outraged, as it seemed an attack on our humanity. This is why when former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant called us 'khayot adam' (human animals) after Hamas' bloody attack on Oct. 7, 2023, it was not a surprise. Yet, this time, there was an eerie feeling that Gallant was thinking beyond the typical Israeli dehumanization of us. Read more: What does it feel like to be dehumanized? Just ask any Palestinian 'It was a prelude to dismantling what was left of us as a people,' Yousri al-Ghoul, a novelist from Gaza, told me over Whatsapp, in one of many ongoing conversations I maintain with contacts, friends and family in Gaza. Throughout history, dehumanization preceded and justified atrocities. The Nazis before the Shoah, and the Hutu against the Tutsi before the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Before Israel's 1948 inception, the Zionist movement in Palestine negated our national consciousness, calling us merely 'Arabs,' suggesting an absence of a unique identity. And by viewing us much as colonial powers viewed their subjects, we were perceived as inferior and less worthy of statehood. Many Israelis today see Palestinians as Palestinians — a people with an identity — but still hang on, at least unconsciously, to the notion of superior Israeli Jews. This hierarchical thinking has normalized the occupation, so that Palestinian resistance against it is perceived as aggression against the natural order. Decades of undermining our agency has evolved to a monstrous level, destroying what was left of our physical existence. Seemingly, it's now not enough to besiege, indiscriminately bomb, displace and starve us. We're now asked to die for food. 'We were lured into death traps labeled as humanitarian aid,' says Ahmed, a history teacher in Gaza, referring to the new system of food distribution under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. 'Even our bodies, the last pasture of dignity, are reduced to breathing corpses,' he added. 'Corpses' is the word the commissioner-general of the U.N. aid agency for Palestinians, Philippe Lazzarini, used to describe Gazans. Quoting a colleague in Gaza, he said they 'are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses.' This is a metaphor my uncle, a professor of English literature, has used to describe Gazans under Israeli siege since 2007. He quoted T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' to paint an image of a Gaza engulfed with despair and spiritual aridity. To Ahmed, 'corpses are not people, so no compunction killing them.' Indeed, the Gaza war is the bloodiest in recent memory. Palestinian numbers point to 59,000, including 18,000 children, killed by the Israeli military as of July. A study by the University of London estimates the death toll to be 100,000. More than 85% of those who remain alive are displaced, squeezed into only 20% of the narrow strip of land. Many of them are facing famine, while the rest are months into sustained malnutrition. A dire situation has weakened many Gazans' sense of self. No longer do they care if they live or die, many have told me. Over a thousand aid-seekers were killed as they tried to reach Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution sites, but people still went knowing they may not come back. 'The U.S. contractors manning the aid treat our desperation as savagery, and the IDF shoots us like rats,' Ahmed angrily said, referring to Israel Defense Forces. And the hungrier and more deprived people become, the less 'like us' they appear. Al-Ghoul, the novelist, lamented how the 'hunger games' turned some people against each other, driven by basic survival instincts. He added: 'Don't talk to me about civility when my children are fading to skin and bone.' Meanwhile, Gaza writer Mahmoud Assaf told me that as the war fractures Gaza's society, 'personal survival tops everything. Very few people are now concerned with culture, education or morality, things that Palestinians typically took pride of.' Assaf was offered money to sell his cherished library to be burned as fuel in the absence of basic petroleum-based products or wood. 'I actually considered the offer to feed my children,' he said. 'You lose your soul hopping hungry from a displacement tent to another while herded by Israeli drones and tanks. You feel you don't deserve to live,' he added. But in the ocean of despair, there are those who find salvation in faith to reclaim some of their humanity. My mother, 65, is losing the strength to walk because of malnutrition, as I watch helplessly from the U.K. But she tells everyone to keep faith, because through faith 'she feels complete as a human being.' A comforting outlook for many Palestinians, in a world they feel has abandoned them. 'The world says the Holocaust happened because they didn't know about it. But the Gaza bloodshed is live-streamed,' my friend Murad told me. He added, 'What can I do to prove my humanity to be worthy of saving?' 'Shall I show them my blond blue-eyed daughter so they can relate to us? How about our malnourished cats?' Our conversation was after an Israeli airstrike killed Murad's sister and her family in Al-Shuja'iyya, a neighborhood in eastern Gaza City. We spoke as he searched for water to wash up following hours digging out his sister's family from the rubble. Murad's niece, 5, died from malnutrition a week ago. And like all Gazans, he's deprived of grieving his loved ones. 'No time to grieve,' he said, because one has to shut down such natural human instincts to physically survive. And in doing so, one loses part of their soul, the sense of self as a human being. To close the circle of dehumanization, they deny our right to feel pain. Emad Moussa is a Palestinian British researcher and writer specializing in the political psychology of inter-group and conflict dynamics. If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Masked ICE officers: The new calling card of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown
When New York City Comptroller Brad Lander returned to a Manhattan immigration courthouse on Friday, days after being arrested while escorting an immigrant whom federal agents detained, he said he again witnessed 'a deeply dehumanizing process.' 'We saw three people removed by the same non-uniformed, masked ICE agents who gave no reason for their removal, ripped them out of the arms of escorts in a proceeding that bears no resemblance to justice,' said Lander, who is running for mayor, according to CNN affiliate WCBS-TV. It has become the new calling card of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown: Federal officers, often masked and not wearing uniforms or displaying badges, arresting people outside courtroom hearings, during traffic stops and in workplace sweeps. 'I never saw anyone wearing a mask,' John Sandweg, an acting director of Immigration Customs and Enforcement under President Barack Obama and a former acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, said of the dozens of ride-alongs he attended during his tenure. 'When you're at ICE and you're at DHS, the first and highest priority is the safety of the workforce, and you have to do what's necessary to protect them, but I think there's no doubt it's gone past what any reasonable policy would allow, and it really has to be a situation where it's the exception, not the rule.' Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has said federal officers are covering up to protect their families after some have been publicly identified and then harassed online, along with relatives. 'I am sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I'm not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, and their family on the line, because people don't like what immigration enforcement is,' Lyons said. Sandweg believes the wearing of masks by agents started around March. That's when federal immigration officers in plainclothes and without visible identification began detaining international students on campuses or near their homes as part of the Trump administration campaign targeting pro-Palestinian student activists and critics of Israel's policies. 'The way that they're carrying on without any visible identification – even that they're law enforcement, much less what agency they're with – it really is pretty unprecedented to see at this scale, and I think it's very dangerous,' said Scott Shuchart, a senior ICE official during the Biden administration. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the practice of officers using neck gaiters, balaclavas and surgical masks during high-profile enforcement actions, or instances of agents not revealing what agency they're with or not displaying credentials or badges. There is no federal policy dictating when officers can or should cover their faces during arrests. Historically, officers have almost always concealed their faces only while performing undercover work to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations, law enforcement experts have told CNN. The experts acknowledge the need to protect agents from future retribution in a climate where technology and social media has made it easier to access and expose officers' personal information. While the doxxing threat is real, they said, many of the controversial enforcement actions have been conducted in places such as residences and courthouses. And critics are quick to point out the irony of the Trump administration demanding bans on masks during protests on college campuses and other locations while allowing immigration officers to wear them to detain immigrants. A week ago, after immigration raids sparked sometimes violent protests and the deployment of US troops in Los Angeles, President Donald Trump vowed to ban the use of masks by demonstrators. 'MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why???' the president posted on Truth Social. On Friday, the New York City Bar Association said it 'views with alarm' the new practice of immigration officers 'wearing masks and otherwise obscuring their identities.' The tactic, it said, 'appears to be an effort to evade accountability, and to decrease transparency in response to increasing allegations of government overreach, abuse of power, and violations of constitutional rights.' The practice also makes it 'nearly impossible to distinguish the conduct of an imposter from that of an authorized agent,' the bar association said in a statement, citing the recent shootings of Minnesota state legislators and their spouses — two fatally — by a suspect masquerading as a police officer. 'There are a lot of guns in this country,' Shuchart said. 'I don't know how we aren't setting ourselves up for a kind of vigilante problem where people either don't know, or at least aren't sure, that these officers who are dressed up like bank robbers are actually law enforcement officers.' In California on Monday, a pair of state legislators proposed a bill making it a misdemeanor for local, state, and federal law enforcement officers to cover their faces while conducting operations in the state. The bill, if approved, would require all law enforcement officers to show their faces and be identifiable by their uniform. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat who represents San Francisco, and state Sen. Jesse Arreguín, a Democrat representing Berkeley and Oakland, said the proposal aims to boost transparency and public trust in law enforcement in the face of what they called the Trump administration's 'use of secret police tactics.' US Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, speaking at the House Oversight Committee hearing on June 12 where Democratic elected officials were grilled about immigration policies in their states, likened the actions of masked and un-uniformed immigration officers to the Gestapo, the political police of Nazi Germany. 'When you compare the old films of the Gestapo grabbing people off the streets of Poland, and you compare them to those nondescript thugs… it does look like a Gestapo operation,' said Lynch, according to video from C-Span. Since Trump took office, ICE – which had previously been operating with a set of guidelines focused on public safety and national security threats – has become the agency at the core of the president's campaign promise to carry out mass deportations, CNN has reported. Publicly, the administration has touted its immigration crackdown. Privately, however, officials have come under fire for failing to meet White House arrest quotas, according to multiple sources. Some ICE officers welcomed the greater latitude because it allowed them to have more discretion on who they arrest. But the agents have continued to come under pressure from senior Trump officials to arrest more people, including those with no criminal records. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, architect of the administration's hardline immigration policies, communicated that urgency in a May meeting with senior ICE officials, urging that agents search anywhere and everywhere for undocumented immigrants, according to multiple sources. 'I will tell you, if these agents had their druthers, the majority of them, especially the (Homeland Security Investigations) ones, they wouldn't be doing this work at all,' Sandweg said. 'They'd be focused on criminal investigations, working the stuff they've always done, working wiretaps to apprehend 'Chapo' Guzman in Mexico, not grabbing migrants, you know, day laborers at Home Depot parking lots.' Internal government documents obtained by CNN show that only a fraction of migrants booked into ICE custody since October have been convicted of serious violent or sexual crimes. More than 75% of people booked into ICE custody in fiscal year 2025 had no criminal conviction other than an immigration or traffic-related offense, according to ICE records from October through the end of May. And less than 10% were convicted of serious crimes like murder, assault, robbery or rape. 'Immigration enforcement officers at ICE are caught in a constant pendulum,' said Kevin Landy, a former ICE official during the Obama administration. 'Under liberal administrations, they've been told to concentrate on priority cases like criminals and avoid all other arrests. Then the Republicans take over, and suddenly they're swinging in the opposite direction. They're being harangued to meet impossible daily quotas and arrest everybody.' Referring to the more aggressive enforcement tactics, including the use of masks, Landy added: 'It creates this feeling that we're living in a lawless country. Soldiers and police in some other countries wear masks either to avoid accountability for their actions or because they're afraid of retaliation from criminal organizations.' On Tuesday afternoon, Lander, the New York City comptroller, was released from federal custody, hours after he was arrested by officers at immigration court in Manhattan while escorting an immigrant whom officers detained. On Friday morning, the mayoral candidate returned to the downtown courthouse, along with state Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Democrat, WCBS-TV reported. Ramos' team took video of a couple being separated, the station reported. The woman's husband was detained by a strapping immigration agent wearing a baseball cap and a mask. His pregnant wife, whose immigration case is still pending, cried as he was taken away. CNN's Emma Tucker, Priscilla Alvarez, Casey Tolan, Curt Devine, Majilie de Puy Kamp, Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Gloria Pazmino contributed to this report.
CNN
21-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Masked ICE officers: The new calling card of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown
Immigration Federal agencies Donald TrumpFacebookTweetLink Follow When New York City Comptroller Brad Lander returned to a Manhattan immigration courthouse on Friday, days after being arrested while escorting an immigrant whom federal agents detained, he said he again witnessed 'a deeply dehumanizing process.' 'We saw three people removed by the same non-uniformed, masked ICE agents who gave no reason for their removal, ripped them out of the arms of escorts in a proceeding that bears no resemblance to justice,' said Lander, who is running for mayor, according to CNN affiliate WCBS-TV. It has become the new calling card of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown: Federal officers, often masked and not wearing uniforms or displaying badges, arresting people outside courtroom hearings, during traffic stops and in workplace sweeps. 'I never saw anyone wearing a mask,' John Sandweg, an acting director of Immigration Customs and Enforcement under President Barack Obama and a former acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, said of the dozens of ride-alongs he attended during his tenure. 'When you're at ICE and you're at DHS, the first and highest priority is the safety of the workforce, and you have to do what's necessary to protect them, but I think there's no doubt it's gone past what any reasonable policy would allow, and it really has to be a situation where it's the exception, not the rule.' Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has said federal officers are covering up to protect their families after some have been publicly identified and then harassed online, along with relatives. 'I am sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I'm not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, and their family on the line, because people don't like what immigration enforcement is,' Lyons said. Sandweg believes the wearing of masks by agents started around March. That's when federal immigration officers in plainclothes and without visible identification began detaining international students on campuses or near their homes as part of the Trump administration campaign targeting pro-Palestinian student activists and critics of Israel's policies. 'The way that they're carrying on without any visible identification – even that they're law enforcement, much less what agency they're with – it really is pretty unprecedented to see at this scale, and I think it's very dangerous,' said Scott Shuchart, a senior ICE official during the Biden administration. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the practice of officers using neck gaiters, balaclavas and surgical masks during high-profile enforcement actions, or instances of agents not revealing what agency they're with or not displaying credentials or badges. There is no federal policy dictating when officers can or should cover their faces during arrests. Historically, officers have almost always concealed their faces only while performing undercover work to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations, law enforcement experts have told CNN. The experts acknowledge the need to protect agents from future retribution in a climate where technology and social media has made it easier to access and expose officers' personal information. While the doxxing threat is real, they said, many of the controversial enforcement actions have been conducted in places such as residences and courthouses. And critics are quick to point out the irony of the Trump administration demanding bans on masks during protests on college campuses and other locations while allowing immigration officers to wear them to detain immigrants. A week ago, after immigration raids sparked sometimes violent protests and the deployment of US troops in Los Angeles, President Donald Trump vowed to ban the use of masks by demonstrators. 'MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why???' the president posted on Truth Social. On Friday, the New York City Bar Association said it 'views with alarm' the new practice of immigration officers 'wearing masks and otherwise obscuring their identities.' The tactic, it said, 'appears to be an effort to evade accountability, and to decrease transparency in response to increasing allegations of government overreach, abuse of power, and violations of constitutional rights.' The practice also makes it 'nearly impossible to distinguish the conduct of an imposter from that of an authorized agent,' the bar association said in a statement, citing the recent shootings of Minnesota state legislators and their spouses — two fatally — by a suspect masquerading as a police officer. 'There are a lot of guns in this country,' Shuchart said. 'I don't know how we aren't setting ourselves up for a kind of vigilante problem where people either don't know, or at least aren't sure, that these officers who are dressed up like bank robbers are actually law enforcement officers.' In California on Monday, a pair of state legislators proposed a bill making it a misdemeanor for local, state, and federal law enforcement officers to cover their faces while conducting operations in the state. The bill, if approved, would require all law enforcement officers to show their faces and be identifiable by their uniform. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat who represents San Francisco, and state Sen. Jesse Arreguín, a Democrat representing Berkeley and Oakland, said the proposal aims to boost transparency and public trust in law enforcement in the face of what they called the Trump administration's 'use of secret police tactics.' US Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, speaking at the House Oversight Committee hearing on June 12 where Democratic elected officials were grilled about immigration policies in their states, likened the actions of masked and un-uniformed immigration officers to the Gestapo, the political police of Nazi Germany. 'When you compare the old films of the Gestapo grabbing people off the streets of Poland, and you compare them to those nondescript thugs… it does look like a Gestapo operation,' said Lynch, according to video from C-Span. Since Trump took office, ICE – which had previously been operating with a set of guidelines focused on public safety and national security threats – has become the agency at the core of the president's campaign promise to carry out mass deportations, CNN has reported. Publicly, the administration has touted its immigration crackdown. Privately, however, officials have come under fire for failing to meet White House arrest quotas, according to multiple sources. Some ICE officers welcomed the greater latitude because it allowed them to have more discretion on who they arrest. But the agents have continued to come under pressure from senior Trump officials to arrest more people, including those with no criminal records. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, architect of the administration's hardline immigration policies, communicated that urgency in a May meeting with senior ICE officials, urging that agents search anywhere and everywhere for undocumented immigrants, according to multiple sources. 'I will tell you, if these agents had their druthers, the majority of them, especially the (Homeland Security Investigations) ones, they wouldn't be doing this work at all,' Sandweg said. 'They'd be focused on criminal investigations, working the stuff they've always done, working wiretaps to apprehend 'Chapo' Guzman in Mexico, not grabbing migrants, you know, day laborers at Home Depot parking lots.' Internal government documents obtained by CNN show that only a fraction of migrants booked into ICE custody since October have been convicted of serious violent or sexual crimes. More than 75% of people booked into ICE custody in fiscal year 2025 had no criminal conviction other than an immigration or traffic-related offense, according to ICE records from October through the end of May. And less than 10% were convicted of serious crimes like murder, assault, robbery or rape. 'Immigration enforcement officers at ICE are caught in a constant pendulum,' said Kevin Landy, a former ICE official during the Obama administration. 'Under liberal administrations, they've been told to concentrate on priority cases like criminals and avoid all other arrests. Then the Republicans take over, and suddenly they're swinging in the opposite direction. They're being harangued to meet impossible daily quotas and arrest everybody.' Referring to the more aggressive enforcement tactics, including the use of masks, Landy added: 'It creates this feeling that we're living in a lawless country. Soldiers and police in some other countries wear masks either to avoid accountability for their actions or because they're afraid of retaliation from criminal organizations.' On Tuesday afternoon, Lander, the New York City comptroller, was released from federal custody, hours after he was arrested by officers at immigration court in Manhattan while escorting an immigrant whom officers detained. On Friday morning, the mayoral candidate returned to the downtown courthouse, along with state Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Democrat, WCBS-TV reported. Ramos' team took video of a couple being separated, the station reported. The woman's husband was detained by a strapping immigration agent wearing a baseball cap and a mask. His pregnant wife, whose immigration case is still pending, cried as he was taken away. CNN's Emma Tucker, Priscilla Alvarez, Casey Tolan, Curt Devine, Majilie de Puy Kamp, Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Gloria Pazmino contributed to this report.
The Guardian
10-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Sydney cleric used ‘dehumanising' generalisations designed to intimidate Jewish people, federal court hears
A Sydney Muslim cleric being sued for alleged racial discrimination gave a series of speeches calculated to 'dehumanise' and 'denigrate all Jewish people', the federal court has heard. But ahead of the Tuesday hearing, Wissam Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, took to social media to say he rejected the court's authority. Posting a video of Sydney's federal court online, he told followers: 'We disbelieve in these courts, these are the houses of the Taghut,' Haddad said, using an Islamic concept that describes the worship of anyone or anything other than Allah. In modern contexts, the term is used to dismiss, diminish or insult a non-Muslim power as anti-Islamic. Haddad is being sued by two senior members of Australia's peak Jewish body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), over a series of lectures he gave in Bankstown in November 2023 and subsequently broadcast online, in which he is alleged to have maligned Jewish people as 'vile', 'treacherous' and cowardly. The claim alleges Haddad breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which prohibits offensive behaviour based on race or ethnic origin. Peter Wertheim, one of the applicants in this case and ECAJ co-chief executive, told the federal court on Tuesday that Haddad's speeches used 'overtly dehumanising' language. 'Making derogatory generalisations, calling Jews a vile and treacherous people, calling them rats and cowards … are things which I think would be experienced by most Jews as dehumanising,' Wertheim said. His barrister, Peter Braham SC, told the court Haddad's speeches repeated a range of offensive tropes and were designed to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate Jewish people. The court heard Haddad had sound recording and camera equipment installed to record his speeches, for the purpose of disseminating his message far beyond his congregants. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Braham told the court the intent of the five speeches was to 'persuade an audience that the Jewish people have certain immutable and eternal characteristics that cause them to … be the objects of contempt and hatred'. Braham argued Haddad's inflammatory rhetoric was an 'exercise that's so dangerous'. 'It's threatening, it's humiliating and it's offensive. It's calculated to denigrate all Jewish people, including the Australian Jews for whom we appear. 'It involved repeating a large range of offensive tropes about Jews: they're mischievous, they're a vile people, that they're treacherous, and that they control the media and banks et cetera.' But Haddad's barrister, Andrew Boe, argued the cleric's speeches were addressed to, and intended only for, a private Muslim congregation of 40 people and that Haddad was not responsible for them being published online. Boe said it was unlikely a Jewish person would have discovered the speeches, to then be offended by them, if the recordings had not been covered and thus amplified by mainstream media. 'It would be analogous to a person of a prudish sensitivity seeking out pornography on the web and then complaining about being offended by it,' Boe told the court. Boe argued there must be room, in a democratic society, for 'the confronting, the challenging, even the shocking'. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion He said the court should take a 'rigorous and detached approach' in applying the Racial Discrimination Act, and remain careful to uphold the 'intended balance between … proscribing racially motivated behaviour that may be harmful in the Australian community, and … preserving the freedoms of speech and religion that are so essential to the continued existence of a free democracy'. Haddad's defence case argues that his sermons were delivered in 'good faith' as religious and historical instruction. If his sermons are found to breach 18C, then, his defence submission argues, the law is unconstitutional because it restricts the free exercise of religion. The long-running dispute, which failed to find resolution at conciliation, came before the federal court Tuesday, with the case set to test the limits of religious expression and hate speech under Australian law. A directions hearing last week heard expert witnesses would be called to assess whether Haddad's sermons were accurate representations of Islamic scripture, with the court likely to be asked to adjudicate whether Haddad's sermons, in which he quotes the Qur'an and offers interpretation of it, amount to incitement or are protected religious expression. The applicants are seeking an injunction that Haddad's five offending sermons be removed from the internet, and an order that he refrain from publishing similar speeches in future. Wertheim and his co-applicant, Robert Goot, are also seeking publication of a 'corrective notice' on Haddad's prayer centre's social media pages, and to be awarded the legal costs of bringing their action. They have not sought damages or compensation. In his social media posts ahead of the court hearing on Tuesday morning, Haddad said he rejected the court's authority, telling online followers that 'the Jewish lobby' was 'dragging us into [a] court', whose jurisdiction he did not recognise. 'But we're not going to come unarmed, we are going to fight them with everything we have. 'Isn't it about time that somebody stands up to these bullies.' The hearing, before Justice Angus Stewart, is expected to run until the end of the week.
