Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.On a sunny Friday afternoon in May, as prominent Sydney sheikh Ibrahim Dadoun led protesters through Sydney University’s quadrangle chanting free Palestine slogans, a diligent encampment regular filmed with his mobile phone.
In social media posts, Bhuiyan has written that Muslims will “continue resisting until Israel is completely wiped off the map, from the river to the sea”. He supports “armed resistance against Zionist barbarism”. Bhuiyan is a cog in Hizb ut-Tahrir’s sophisticated campaign to seize on legitimate grievances about the Gaza conflict to muster support for the controversial group’s goal to destroy Israel as part of the creation of a caliphate ruled by Islamic law and stretching across majority-Muslim nations.
A deep dive of the online accounts of its backers also reveals that Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia has stepped up its presence in mosques and youth groups. The ban was supported by the Labour opposition but sparked intense debate in Britain about whether it was justified or a politically charged stunt by a Conservative government lagging in the polls. Some critics highlighted Hizb ut-Tahrir’s historical repudiation of violence in its quest for a caliphate.
Deakin University extremism expert Josh Roose says Hizb ut-Tahrir has used the Gaza conflict to boost its activism.“They might not be necessarily crossing that line into advocating terrorism, but there is inherent violence in what they’re doing,” he says. Like so much modern activism, it began with a series of online posts. Hours after fighters flooded into Israel, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s international headquarters posted a historical video of the founder of the group’s Australian arm, Ismail Alwahwah, who died last year after a busy life that included a stint in a Jordanian jail and frequent scrutiny in Australia for virulently antisemitic preaching.
Anas Alwahwah is a senior Hizb ut-Tahrir activist in his own right.
“I’m smiling and I’m happy,” Dadoun said, as news bulletins around the world were still broadcasting images of terrified Israeli hostages, including civilians who had attended a dance party, being bundled into Hamas trucks. “The Mujahideen’s Attack on the Jewish Entity Mandates the Ummah and its Armies to Rush to Support Them”, the press release republished by Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia stated.