Tony Abbott has sparked outrage among Australia’s Jewish community after suggesting Isis terrorists are worse than the Nazis because they “boast” about their actions.
The Australian Prime Minister, who is considering joining the US in launching air strikes on Syria, later defended his comments and said Isis needed to be destroyed.
Speaking during an interview with Fairfax radio station 2GB, Abbott said: “The Nazis did terrible evil but they had sufficient sense of shame to try and hide it. These people boast about their evil, this is the extraordinary thing.”
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“They act in the way that medieval barbarians acted, only they broadcast it to the world with effrontery which is hard to credit,” he continued, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
His comments, echoing similar ones made last year, followed a question from broadcaster Alan Jones about critics who said Abbott was trying to raise fear about Isis.
Robert Goot, the president of Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said Abbott's comments were “injudicious” and Isis could not be compared to the genocide committed by the Nazis.
“Whilst there is no question that Islamic State is a profoundly evil organisation, the Prime Minister’s comments suggesting that it is in some respect worse than the Nazis is injudicious and unfortunate.”
Goot said: “The crimes of Islamic State are indeed horrific, but cannot be compared to the systematic round-up of millions of people and their despatch to purpose-built death camps for mass murder.”
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But Abbott stood by his comments later that day at a press conference in Melbourne and said he was “not in the business of trying to rank evil”.
He said the group broadcasted “atrocities of an unspeakable inhumanity” and it was vital the “decent people” of the world united to destroy them.
“I stand by what I said, and not by the interpretation that other people might want to put on it,” said Abbott after suggesting a journalist was trying to put words in his mouth, according to WA today.
Bill Shorten, Australia’s Labour leader, said while he agreed Isis was “evil”, he would not “go to the Second World War analogies”.
