Doc's Talk: The Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine

Thursday, April 03, 2008

The Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine

FrontPage Magazine
4/3/2008

Over the next several days, Frontpage will publish profiles of individual chapters of the Muslim Students Association and Muslim Student Union on a variety of campuses around the country, showing how they work to advance the cause of radical Islam and to lead the effort to stigmatize Israel. These profiles are compiled in our new booklet, "The Muslim Students Association and the Jihad Network." To read the introduction, click here, the first profile "The MSA at UCLA," click here, and the second profile "The MSA at Berkeley, click here. – The Editors

The Muslim Student Union (MSU) at the University of California - Irvine (UCI) was founded in 1992 by a group of Muslim students who said they wanted “to establish a presence on campus.” Today MSU seeks to “build an environment that enhances good, discourages bad, and provides networks of resources, knowledge, people, and companionship to its members.” Toward these ends, MSU offers “daily congregational prayers, daily free iftars the evening meal for breaking the daily fast during Ramadan that serve over a hundred Muslims, over eight weekly classes, a quarterly magazine Alkalima, coalition building with other clubs on campus, and a gateway to the larger Muslim community …” MSU also provides career advice and a study/tutoring program to help Muslims at UCI.46Yet beneath this placid description of the group’s objectives is a seething hatred of Jews and Israel. At the organization’s on-campus events, its members commonly wear green armbands to signal their allegiance to the terrorist group Hamas. MSU also has displayed posters on the UCI campus that equate the Star of David with the Nazi Swastika.47

In February 2001, MSU hosted the radical cleric Imam Muhammad al-Asi, who told his UCI audience: “The Zionist-Israeli lobby ... is taking the United States government and the United States people to the abyss. We have a psychosis in the Jewish community that is unable to co-exist equally and brotherly with other human beings. You can take a Jew out of the ghetto, but you cannot take the ghetto out of the Jew.”48

On February 26, 2004, MSU brought another radical cleric, the black imam Abdel Malik-Ali to the UCI campus to deliver a speech titled “America under Siege: The Zionist Hidden Agenda.” According to UCI’s student newspaper, he “implied that Zionism is a mixture of ‘chosen people-ness and white supremacy’; that the Iraqi war is in the process of ‘Israelization’; that the Zionists had the ‘Congress, the media and the FBI in their back pocket’; that the downfall of former Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean was due to the Zionists; and that the Mossad Israel’s intelligence agency would have assassinated Al Gore if he was elected in 2000 just to bring Joe Lieberman (his Jewish vice-president) to power.”

Later that spring, MSU and the Society of Arab Students (SAS) co-sponsored their fourth annual “Zionism Awareness Week,” during which members of both groups again wore green armbands to show their support for Hamas.49

In June 2004, MSU asked UCI’s graduating Muslim students to wear green sashes bearing the word “shahada,” the Arabic word for the “martyrdom” of a suicide bomber, to their graduation ceremony. Two dozen students appeared in this garb.50

In March 2006, MSU led 1,000 Muslim students to protest the public display of the “offensive” Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that had recently set off massive demonstrations and riots throughout the Muslim world. In front of several television camera crews, MSU members began the protest by rolling out green prayer mats and reciting a prayer in Arabic. Many of them wore their customary green, pro-Hamas armbands. When a crowd of counter-protesters stood behind an American and Israeli flag and sang “God Bless America,” the Muslim students responded by chanting: “Hey Republicans Stop the Hate! All You Do Is Instigate,” and “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho! The Prophet’s Cartoons Have Got to Go!”51

MSU organized a May 2006 “Holocaust in the Holy Land” event which consisted of four days of anti-Israel lectures and presentations portraying the Jewish State as the modern-day avatar of Nazi Germany.52 The keynote speaker for the event was the Holocaust-denier Norman Finkelstein, whose speech, titled “Obstacles to Peace: Israelis or Palestinians,” identified Israel as the world’s worst human rights violator. Adjacent to a mock Israeli “apartheid” wall which they had set up in the center of the UCI campus, MSU students wearing leather sandals and taqiyahs (skullcaps) distributed fliers bearing the title “Exploiting the Holocaust to Justify Genocide.”53

Abdel Malik-Ali was again the featured speaker at an October 5, 2006 MSU event, where he told a crowd of roughly 200 cheering students: “They Jews think they are superman, but we, the Muslims, are kryptonite. They Jews know that their days are numbered.”54

In May 2007, MSU held an “Israel: Apartheid Resurrected” week that featured twice-daily speeches and rallies condemning the State of Israel. On May 17, Abdel Malik-Ali delivered a lecture titled “UC Intifada: How you can help Palestine,” in which he informed UCI’s Muslim students (who again wore green armbands as well as T-shirts reading “UC Intifada” and “Freedom Fighter”) that a martyr’s death is the most honorable form of death. “Victory or martyrdom,” Malik-Ali asserted, are the only two viable options available to the Palestinians in their battle against Israel. Malik-Ali referred to Israel not by its name, but only as the “Zionist Apartheid State.”55

In 2007, a UC Irvine student identifying herself as “OC Apostate” (she had recently left the Muslim faith in which she was raised) was forced to shut down the blog in which she criticized Islam’s intolerance for fear that members of the campus MSU would harm her family in retribution for her apostasy. She explained:

“I started a blog as way to express myself. Word finally got around that it was me who was writing it and my family got threats that if I didn’t shut up something might happen. I didn’t want them to suffer for something I had done. So I deleted everything. … They other Muslim students saw me with my hair out of the hijab. They knew who I was. The reaction was a lot of gossip and speculation about my upbringing. Women who I didn’t know gave me dirty looks. … I don’t underestimate them. … The notion of a traitor in your own community is the worse thing that could possibly happen. There is no room for ex-Muslims in a Muslim society. The punishment for being an apostate is death.”56

MSU invited Yvonne Ridley, a reporter and activist for Iranian PRESS-TV, to speak at UC Irvine on November 12, 2007. Ridley, who also writes a column for the New York-based publication Daily Muslims, is a member of the Respect Party led by British Member of Parliament and former Saddam Hussein supporter George Galloway. She was formerly employed as a senior editor by Al Jazeera and helped launch that website’s English-language version in 2003.

Ridley supports divestment from Israel, a nation she has described as “that disgusting little watchdog of America that is festering in the Middle East.” She says that her Respect Party “is a Zionist-free party,” adding that “if there was any Zionists in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists.”57

MSU’s ideology is expressed in journalism as well as radical actions on campus. The Muslim student newspaper, Alkalima, published a special report called “Zionism: The Forgotten Apartheid,” which glorified Hamas and Hezbollah as noble warriors fighting Israeli oppression.58

In 2006 Alkalima published For Justice We Fight, a pamphlet justifying terrorist attacks targeting innocent civilians. “The individual or community that participates in jihad finds itself between two blissful outcomes,” said the pamphlet, “either victory and the establishment of justice, or the reward of martyrdom and Paradise.”59

NOTES:

46 http://msu-uci.com/?page_id=2

47 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Readaspx?

GUID=DEA14D72-B534-4845-83CD-6E8844115D43

48 Ibid.

49 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.

aspx?GUID=%7BD0C3C7AF-F758-4F7B-A902-

77CCAB8760C4%7D

50 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.

aspx?GUID=EA730A7E-EF0C-4283-B013-AAB9470AD02D

51 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?

GUID=EA730A7E-EF0C-4283-B013-AAB9470AD02D

52 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/20060509MSUHolo

caustFlyer.jpg

53 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?

GUID=EAFC8139-A2F0-463A-98BD-C055E9609BE3

54 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?

GUID={17ECEA29-4701-4F0D-814F-E474356F1B53}

55 http://www.unitedjerusalem.com/index2.asp?id= 935244

56 http://reutrcohen.blogspot.com/2007/10/oc-blog-student-forced-toshut-

down.html

57 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_

ID=51607

58 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.

aspx?GUID=DEA14D72-B534-4845-83CD-6E8844115D43

59 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?

GUID=EAFC8139-A2F0-463A-98BD-C055E9609BE3

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

Doc's Talk