In the aftermath of the Hamas terror attack that killed 1,400 Israelis, including children, Australian Grand Mufti Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed wrote a glowing tribute to the ‘heroes’ and ‘martyrs’ of the ‘brilliant’ Palestinian ‘resistance’ .
Dr. Mohammed also said Jews were “occupying” a land that was “not theirs” because of a “religious myth about the Promised Land” in an October 10 Facebook post, three days after attackers flooded the Gaza border to commit numerous atrocities .
The cleric argued that “the central issue in this bloody recurrence of violence is not about Hamas, but rather about the innocent Palestinian people who have been oppressed for more than seventy years.”
“The blood of the martyrs will smell of musk because his will will never break and his resolve will never fail,” wrote Dr. Mohammed.
Australian Grand Mufti Dr. Ibrahim Abu Mohammed will meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in April
‘On the contrary, everything around him participates: the earth, the air, the water, the air and even the remains of graves will now and forever remain resistant to the arrogance of the occupier and the cruelty of his military machine.
‘Until Palestine is finally free.’
He argued that ‘resistance to tyranny is a legitimate right for every human being’.
“It will only add to the brilliance that every form of resistance displays with its daring and innovations,” he wrote in a possible reference to the tactics used by Hamas terrorists to blind Israeli forces.
Dr. Mohammad argued that the rest of the world had an “ideological blindfold” that prevents them from seeing Israel’s “fanatical leaders humiliate the land’s traditional owners, attack their women, murder their youth in cold blood and starve them on a massive scale.”
“Is it time for the normalizers to wake up?” he asked.
“To come to terms with the fact that the Palestinian people will continue to produce generations of heroes? That they will never give up or fade into oblivion?’
In a Facebook post on October 10, three days after the Hamas sneak attack that claimed 1,400 Israeli lives, including young children, Dr. Mohammed wrote a Facebook post glorifying “resistance martyrs.”
The post called for an end to “false claims about Israel’s right to defend itself, as if the Palestinians who own the land are not human and have no rights?”
Dr. Mohammed said that Palestinians are “defending a land in which their roots stretch for centuries,” unlike those “who came from all corners of the earth to occupy a land that is not theirs, driven by a religious myth about Promised Land!!’
In April, Dr Mohammed spoke about Islam’s attitude towards other religions during a Lenten meal with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the National Muslim Community’s annual Iftar.
“It is understood and instructed not to offend the beliefs of others, nor attack their places of worship, nor desecrate their sacred objects, or any action that may provoke conflict and incite hatred,” he said.
Dr. Mohammed (pictured center with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh) and a delegation of leading Australian Muslim figures traveled to Gaza in 2012
He praised Australia as “our homeland” as “a beautiful celebration of cultural and religious diversity with more than 120 faiths and more than 200 races.”
‘How does Islam view this diversity?’ he asked
‘Islam views the world as a forum where civilizations and multicultural backgrounds can coexist in peace.’
In 2012, Dr. Mohammed visited Gaza along with a delegation of other senior Muslim leaders from Australia and reportedly told Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh that he was happy “to be in the land of Jihad and to learn from his sons.”
“It is an honor for me to stand among the people of Gaza, where weakness always becomes strength, the minority becomes the majority and humiliation becomes honor,” he said.
He told a reporter from Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV that the delegation had come to “learn from Gaza.”
“As I said in my speech, we will let the stones, trees and people of Gaza talk, to learn from them steadfastness, sacrifice and the defense of one’s rights. We feel like we are in Cloud Nine,” he said in a translation from Arabic.
“We feel like we’re on top of the world.”
Dr Mohammed and the Australian National Imams Council have been contacted for comment.