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also expressed the belief common throughout the Muslim world that the
Jews were responsible for September 11 and that no Jews were killed in
the attack because they had been warned in advance.^44 One non-Jewish
teacher from a Sydney high school with a high concentration of Muslim
students commented that “even his moderate Lebanese students believe
that Israel is responsible for September 11,” while another student came
to him and asked: “Why do all the teachers hate Hitler? After all, he only
killed Jews?”^45 Another teacher commented that there was graffiti in her
school saying, “F–––k all Jews” and “Kill all Jews.” The Jewish teachers
interviewed feared that their students would realize that they were Jew-
ish and harass them. As one teacher put it: “I am not able to come out. I
want my students to know I am a person like anyone else—just flesh and
blood.”^46 Two different stories about mobile phones illustrate the depth
of the problem. In one boys’ school, the teacher said the boys’ favor-
ite video-clip that they watch on their phones is of American journalist
Daniel Pearl saying, “I am a Jew, my mother is a Jew,” and then watching
him being beheaded. In a girls’ school, one student came to the teacher
saying, “My friend pulled her mobile phone apart yesterday and when
I asked her why, she said that the Jews control all the communications
and that they could listen in on her conversations. Is that true, Miss?”
There are very few Jewish children attending schools with a high percent-
age of Muslim children due to the demographic differences discussed
above, but in a few cases Jewish parents have had to remove children
from schools with a high Muslim population because of ongoing verbal
attacks.
The radical Muslim organization Hizb ut-Tahrir is active in Sydney
and other parts of Australia, although it is banned in several European
countries, including Germany, and many of the Muslim countries. They
believe in the reestablishment of the Khilafa (Islamic Empire) and wish
to bring the West under an umma—”one Islamic state with no territo-
rial boundary.”^47 They also believe that any country that was governed
by Islamic law for a set period of time has to return to Islam. They seek
to attract university-educated young people to their cause. Their leader,
Wassim Doureihi, strongly promotes sharia law and has defended sui-
cide bombers, including the London attacks. Osman Badr, president of
the Muslim Students Association at the University of Sydney in 2005 and
a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, also stated during a sermon at the Friday
prayers after the bombings that “the attacks were retribution for what is