Students and faculty at more than 100 college campuses are hearing a clarion call to “Stop the Jihad on Campus,” thanks to the third annual Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, sponsored by this website’s sister organization, the Terrorism Awareness Project.
The David Horowitz Freedom Center launched this national event three years ago to draw attention to the global threat posed by radical Islamic extremism, the ideology fueling worldwide jihad. As in years past, Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (IFAW) is opposing this totalitarian effort to subject the world to the Koran by hosting nationally recognized experts, screening well-received documentaries, and petitioning moderate Muslim students to turn their back on those who would tie their religion of peace to perpetual warfare.
This year’s campaign maintains the broad ideological of years past theme while featuring a more specific thrust: to make the university aware of the disturbing role the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA) and campus groups play in supporting the jihadist struggle against America, Israel, and the West. This patriotic event shows campuses the threat stems not merely from aged parchments and Wahhabi preachers on distant shores but a radical fifth column within. Although this news is disconcerting, it also demonstrates that students and administrators are not helpless to fight against it: this year’s events call on campuses to defund the MSA.
The MSA is just one offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood, the ideological font of many jihadists worldwide. The Brotherhood’s radical approach to Islam is reflected in its motto: “God is our objective, the Koran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle is our way, and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations.” Its founder, Hassan al-Banna, forged an alliance with Adolf Hitler during World War II, making it truly an Islamo-Fascist group. Its alumni include multiple terrorists involved in 9/11, not least Osama bin Laden himself. Osama had been mentored by Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood preacher. Ayman al-Zawahiri had belonged to the Egyptian branch of the Broterhood, and 9/11 architect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well.
Irrefutable proof confirms the MSA is a pro-terror organization.
· MSA members at UCLA raised money for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists at their annual “Anti-Zionist Week.”
· Speaker Muammad Faheed told an MSA meeting at Queensborough Community College in New York, “The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it!”
· Nihad Awad addressed the 2003 Iowa Muslim Student Association Annual Conferences. Awad had told a college audience in 1994, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.”
· The University of Southern California MSA invited Taliban ambassador Sayyid Hashimi to speak on campus six months before 9/11.
· MSA at California State University Northridge held a fundraiser for Islamic Relief, an organization that received a $50,000 contribution from a front group run by Osama bin Laden.
With such a record, campus officials must explain why they should continue sending campus, student, and taxpayer dollars to the MSA – or prove beyond any doubt that not one dollar of these funds will ever go to international terrorists or tomorrow’s budding al-Qaeda foot soldiers.
The campaign also asks moderate Muslims to repudiate a violent interpretation of their religion’s sacred works. Across the nation, students involved in the IFAW will circulate the Petition for Hadith Reform. It asks its signatories to deny any implication that Jews must be destroyed as a people, and to affirm the equality of all people – both men and women.
Events have already begun nationwide. IFAW sponsored three campus-wide events at as many colleges yesterday. A distinguished panel, including Wafa Sultan and Yaron Brook, discussed “Islamic Totalitarianism’s Threat to Civilization” at the University of California at Irvine, a dialogue co-sponsored by the Ayn Rand Institute. The films Obsession and Suicide Killers were screened at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Penn State, respectively.
This year’s distinguished speakers include David Horowitz, Islam expert Robert Spencer, pollster Dick Morris, Daniel Pipes, author and scholar Dr. Andrew Bostom, and Nonie Darwish. Middle East reporter Deborah Weiss is also scheduled to address Tufts University at a date to be determined.
This is an opportunity for education to replace indoctrination and PC assurances that there is no problem at academic associations around the country. The lock exercised by such obscurantists as the Middle East Studies Association cannot censor this invasion of enemy-dominated territory. The third annual Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a chance to bypass the campus filter and speak directly to young people, and their administration, with a challenging call for patriotic change. Join us as we bring a second, sober voice to a campus debate that will affect our Homeland Security, our foreign policy, and our relationship with one-fifth of the world’s population.
