The interview began unremarkably. Just after 8am on Wednesday, Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) president Adel Salman joined ABC journalist Patricia Karvelas on RN Breakfast to explain why his organisation had asked the Victorian government to cancel an official iftar event.
Salman, a businessman who has led the peak representative body for Victoria’s 270,000 Muslims through their most confronting circumstances since September 11, explained why, given the horrific and ongoing loss of life in Gaza, the ICV didn’t think it was the right time for a celebratory dinner.
Adel Salman, president of the Islamic Council of Victoria.Credit: Jason South
From there, the conversation took an unexpected turn.
Pushing the case for the Australian government to take stronger action against Israel, which has promised to push ahead with a planned offensive in southern Gaza despite UN warnings of catastrophic consequences, Salman compared the war in Gaza to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
When Karvelas pointed out that the two conflicts weren’t comparable, as Israel’s actions were a response to the atrocities of October 7 that killed 1200 Israelis, Salman described the events of that day as “legitimate resistance”.
The interview went as follows.
Salman: “Clearly, if there were crimes committed by the October 7 attackers and the Palestinians who did launch that attack on October 7, clearly they have to also be held to account. But you need to look at the historical context.
“We are talking about 75 years of occupation and we are talking about 16 years of the siege of Gaza. Israel through that siege of Gaza are actually occupying Gaza, because they determine what comes in, what comes out.