Hilali to lose advisory position

AUSTRALIA'S most senior Islamic cleric, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, will be thrown off John Howard's Muslim advisory board after dismissing the Holocaust as a "Zionist lie".

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Multicultural Affairs, Andrew Robb, yesterday attacked Sheik Hilali's comments in The Weekend Australian as "offensive and divisive".

He said the Egyptian-born leader would be stripped of his senior position on the Muslim Community Reference Group when its membership was reviewed next month.

"It's unlikely he will continue," Mr Robb, who oversees the Muslim advisory board, told The Australian yesterday. T

The chairman of the reference group, Ameer Ali, was not surprised by the comments.

Knowing the man, he's a bit of a loose cannon so I don't get shocked by any of his views," Dr Ali said. But he said Sheik Hilali played an integral role in the nation's 300,000-strong Muslim community and should not be sidelined by the Government.

"He is part of the community and he is the leader of the community and the Government should make use of him rather than push him aside," he said.

"I will not support the view of throwing him out."

The Weekend Australian revealed that the mufti labelled the Holocaust a myth fabricated and perpetuated by Zionists in Arabic sermons and had played down the number of Jews killed by the Nazis. The Jewish community was outraged, with the executive director of the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council, Colin Rubenstein, describing the comments attributed to Sheik Hilali as "repugnant, raw racism".

"The comments are beyond the pale of decency, and anyone who has uttered them has disqualified themselves from any role in Australia's tolerant, democratic society, let alone any position of responsibility or community leadership," he said yesterday.

The author of The Holocaust Denial in Australia, Danny Ben-Moshe from Victoria University, said the mufti's comments were anti-Semitic. "You would have to wonder about the responsibility of such a person when moderation is needed at a time like this," he said.

Sheik Hilali, the head of Lakemba Mosque in Sydney's west, came under fire in March after The Australian revealed he said the 14-member Muslim reference group was "stillborn" and set up to disseminate government propaganda under the guise of an elite Islamic body.

Mr Robb said yesterday Sheik Hilali's reported views about the Holocaust were at odds with the comments the cleric made to him during a meeting about three months ago. "It's quite hypocritical in terms of what he had said to me and it's not consistent with leadership if that's true," he said.

He said the sheik - who was appointed mufti by the now heavily divided Australian Federation of Islamic Councils - was not representative of Australia's Muslim communities.

"There are many Muslim communities and ... I'm encouraged that he doesn't speak for many of the Muslims in my view."

AFIC spokesman Haset Sali said the council was not considering stripping Sheik Hilali of his position as mufti.