A coalition of distinguished Muslim teams and leaders, together with Muslim Votes and Muslim Votes Matter, have criticised what they declare is “selective outrage” in reactions to a video of two Bankstown hospital nurses claiming they might kill Israeli sufferers.
The edited video, which was posted by Israeli influencer Max Veifer, sparked widespread condemnation, together with by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who known as the footage “sickening and shameful”.
The video options nurse Ahmad Rashad Nadir saying he had despatched Israeli sufferers to “Jahannam” or hell. The girl within the video, nurse Sarah Abu Lebdeh, when requested by Veifer what she would do if an Israeli affected person attended the hospital, stated: “I won’t treat them, I will kill them.”
The 2 nurses have since been stood down and police are investigating.
The coalition of Muslim teams stated in a press release on Sunday the “speed, intensity and uniformity of responses from certain political leaders and media outlets” was “revealing”.
They stated the identical voices that condemned the nurses had “provided active diplomatic and journalistic cover for ongoing crimes by the Zionists”.
The coalition stated: “This statement is not about defending inappropriate remarks. It is about pushing back against the double standards and moral manipulation at play while the mass killing of our brothers and sisters in Gaza is met with silence, dismissal, or complicity.”
The Muslim Vote – established in response to group anger at Labor’s dealing with of the warfare in Gaza – plans to again candidates in Watson, Blaxland and Werriwa on this yr’s federal election.
Signatories included mainstream our bodies such because the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils and the Islamic councils of Victoria and Western Australia, in addition to extra controversial teams resembling Hizb Ut-Tahrir Australia and the Al Madina Dawah Centre in Bankstown and its founder, Wissam Haddad.
Individually, different Muslim organisations and medical professionals have condemned the nurses’ remarks with out reservation.
In October, the nation’s peak Jewish group, the Government Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), filed a case within the federal courtroom in opposition to Haddad and the Al Madina Dawah Centre over alleged antisemitic speeches.
The ECAJ alleges the speeches made “derogatory generalisations about the Jewish people”, together with calling them “vile” and “treacherous”.
Haddad claims in his response to the federal courtroom submitting that the speeches didn’t contravene the Racial Discrimination Act and so they had been made for objective of “delivering religious, historical and educational lectures or sermons, to congregants of the AMDC and other practising Muslims.”
The coalition of Muslim teams additionally attacked what they described because the “weaponisation” of antisemitism, saying criticism of and “frustrations” with Israel shouldn’t be conflated with hatred in direction of the Jewish group.
They stated that the “frustration and anger directed at Israel is a direct response to its violent and inhumane policies – not an expression of hatred towards Jewish people”.
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“Attempts to weaponise accusations of antisemitism to silence dissent are not only intellectually dishonest but also dangerous.”
The group stated the statements made by the nurses within the video, which included alluding to killing Israelis that introduced to the hospital, had been “clearly emotional and hyperbolic”.
NSW Police say investigations into the video and the 2 nurses are ongoing.
The previous Labor senator Fatima Payman earlier claimed in an Instagram publish there have been “double standards” within the reactions to the video.
She stated what nurses’ remarks had been “wrong”.
“No one should be ever be denied medical care based on their race, religion or nationality. There is never an excuse for that.”
Nonetheless, Payman claimed there was not “the same level of anger and vitriol when the roles are reversed”.
“When Muslims face discrimination, when Islamophobic or anti-Palestine attacks happen where is the prime minister? Where is the full scale media outrage?
“This is the double standards that must end. If we’re to condemn one, we must condemn the other, otherwise we’re not standing for justice, we’re just picking sides.”
Payman left Labor final yr over its response to the warfare in Gaza.
