THE ABC’s plan: confront Attorney-General George Brandis with an audience stacked with “moderate” Muslims and make him hop.

It took precautions. It did not select extremists to ask questions — no jihadists who’d illustrate the danger the Abbott Government is battling. Despite that, last Monday’s Q&A backfired spectacularly.

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It simply confirmed concerns that too many Muslims have a group loyalty and inflamed sense of victimhood that made them the sea in which jihadists swim.

One reason it backfired was that Brandis was brilliant in defending the Government’s anti-terrorism strategy. But what really undid the exercise was the audience which grabbed the ABC’s microphone.

Bilal Raulf warned that the big anti-terrorism raids should stop ... or else: “This gung-ho approach” against suspected jihadists would just “drive them in a particular direction”. Sheik Wesam Charkawi suggested we should instead give “young, angry Muslim men” what they wanted: “There are legitimate grievances that people have.”

Charkawi implied our anti-terror laws, rather than Islamic terrorism, were the problem: “Given that these new laws create the atmosphere of such a major divide in the hearts and minds of all concerned, isn’t it time the Government changed its approach?”

Sayed Hussainizada falsely claimed we now had “a new anti-terror law that is specifically targeting the Muslim community”.

Lydia Shelley, in a hijab, suggested the Government was just picking on Muslims as an excuse for stripping Australians of freedoms: “Don’t use the Muslim people, don’t use the issue of radicalisation, to really sell these laws, which is really about a sustained attack on civil liberties in this country.”

Walid Sabone asked how police got it “so wrong” in raiding 20 Muslim homes and using perhaps “unnecessary force” to arrest just one man and seize “one plastic sword”. (In fact, the sword was steel, the alleged plot horrific.)

May Fahmi even accused Brandis of hurting Muslims by defending free speech: “Do you think your comment that people have a right to be bigots has given mandate for some to verbally accost Australian Muslims ...?”

And again and again there was the denial. Associate Professor Mohamad Abdalla insisted: “This is not a Muslim problem.” Those watching may beg to differ.

When protecting ourselves is denounced by even Muslim “moderates” as a hostile act, it’s clear that extremists are not our only problem.