Good on Labor’s Tony Burke for condemning “without reservation” the anti-Jewish rants of a western Sydney Muslim hate preacher.

The Albanese Government has been too timid in responding to extremist Muslim leaders calling for violence against Jews and making other insults.

Burke’s electorate of Watson takes in the As-Sunnah mosque, where sheik Ahmed Zoud gave a sermon on December 22 seemingly praising the “attacks of the mujahideen” on October 7 where Islamist terrorists screamed “Allahu Akbar” while raping women and murdering 1200 people including babies.

“I consistently condemn hate speech in all its forms – (the sheik’s) comments should be rejected without reservation,” Burke said after video of Zoud’s sermon appeared online.

Yesterday’s Family First blog contains extracts of Ahmed Zoud’s diatribe which sadly is yet to be condemned by the National Council of Imams.

There is of course no doubt that the loss of civilian life in Gaza, including the lives of children, is a tragedy.

The right to criticise Israel’s prosecution of the war against Hamas is not in question.

But surely Australians, including and especially Muslim Australians, can agree that there should be nothing but contempt and condemnation for the “attacks of the mujahideen”.

Disappointingly, media coverage is largely unsympathetic to Israel’s dilemma of needing to protect innocent lives by destroying Hamas, an evil organisation which vows to continue killing Jews.

The necessary task of destroying Hamas is made perilous because Hamas takes hostages and uses its own people as human shields as part of its battle tactics.

While relentlessly condemning Israel, it is difficult to find any public condemnation of Hamas’ barbarous acts by Australia’s Muslim leaders.

It is worth understanding what Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained in the Wall Street Journal this week.

Israel does its best to minimise civilian casualties by dropping leaflets, sending text messages and using other means to warn Gazans to get out of harm’s way. Hamas by contrast does its utmost to keep Palestinians in harm’s way — often at gunpoint.

Unjustly blaming Israel for these casualties will only encourage Hamas and other terror organisations around the world to use human shields. To render this cruel and cynical strategy ineffective, the international community must place the blame for these casualties squarely on Hamas. It must recognise that Israel is fighting the bigger battle of the civilised war against barbarism.

The glorification of Islamist violence in a western Sydney mosque should alarm all Australians. It must be condemned, even and especially by Muslim leaders.

Islamist violence does not stop with Jews, it quickly moves to Christians and other “infidels”.

Left unchecked, the many calls for violence against Jews from western Sydney hate preachers since October 7 pose a risk to public safety.

The Australian reported that Burke said the As-Sunnah mosque was not one of his electorate’s more widely attended mosques.

It seems like it might be a fringe outfit.

If that’s true, it should not be hard for Muslim leaders to condemn Zoud and the other western Sydney hate preachers, all of who have been found by police to have no case to answer despite seemingly inciting violence.

Tony Burke’s intervention yesterday is welcome.

But if we are to remain a cohesive society, we must find agreement about what constitutes barbarism.

The glorification of the “attacks of the mujahideen” must not be tolerated.

Action: Join the political party that is fighting for the restoration of Judeo-Christian values of peace, tolerance and love. Become a supporter or better still a member today.