Before I began actively appearing and speaking on college campuses in support of Israel, I was of course aware of the activism on U.S. campuses by the Muslim and Arab organizations, but when I actually began experiencing it firsthand I was stunned. Radical Islam is not just powerful in the Middle East but is thriving inside the free world, especially in the institutions of higher learning in America. The rallying point for this insidious effort is to exploit the Palestinian-Israeli issue. In doing so, Jewish students across America are constantly put on the defensive, and they and other American students are fed outrageous misinformation.
In March of 2004 at the University of California, in Santa Barbara, I accompanied guest speaker Sheikh Professor Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community and a vocal critic of militant Islam, who was invited to speak on campus. His speech focused on his opposition to terrorism. He described suicide and the murder of civilians as an aberration to Islam. His speech was simply anti-terrorism and he never mentioned Israel. This remarkable Italian Muslim cleric is a supporter of Israel, but that was not the topic of his speech. On his Web site, he often mentions verses in the Koran on God’s Covenant with Israel. For instance, “Children of Israel, remember the favor I [Allah] have bestowed upon you, and that I exalted you above the nations” (Koran, The Cow, Sura 2:47).
One would think that the university’s Muslims, who vigorously proclaim Islam as a religion of peace, would have been appreciative of Palazzi’s message. However, the Muslim Students Association at the university disrupted the event during the question-and-answer period, criticizing Sheikh Palazzi for not beginning his speech by saying “In the name of Allah and his Prophet Mohammed,” totally ignoring the fact that the sheikh was not addressing Muslims in a mosque.
Some of the students were holding Islamic prayer beads and wearing clothing that is usually worn only when attending a mosque. They were loud, rude, and aggressively “in your face.” It became obvious that they did not want to ask questions but came only to be disrespectful to Professor Palazzi. Two men who claimed to attend an Afghani mosque used their time at the microphone to give their own speeches against the sheikh. When they were politely asked to state their question, they refused, claiming “freedom of speech.” A female Muslim student expressed her support of terrorism by asking, “If not terrorism, what would Palestinians then do against the oppression?” At this point, other Muslim students yelled, “We cannot live with Zionism” and even threateningly told the professor, “You are finished, man!” The Muslim students’ leader then called on his group to leave the hall, and as they did they were hurling insults at the sheikh.
In 2004, I participated in a panel with a Jewish professor at a library in California where several Egyptian women were in the audience. As soon as I began speaking, I heard yelling by some of them, and two women left the room. In the question-and-answer portion of the event, an Egyptian woman told us, “The Jewish speaker is justified in being biased about Israel, but you [referring to me] are a traitor!”
My speaking requests increased consistently, and I began going on extended tours. I spoke in London, where Muslims in the audience expressed their belief that 9/11 was perpetrated by the U.S. government itself. In Berlin I spoke with an Arab woman who spoke only French and could not speak a word of Arabic, although she claimed she had lived in Algeria all her life. She accused me and my companions of being CIA or U.S. State Department representatives. She was extremely angry and left the room when I discussed Islamic terrorism and radicalism, and its impact on the culture of Europe.
In Rome I was happy to meet an Egyptian Italian journalist, Magdi Allam, who also speaks against terrorism and in support of peace with Israel. During these tours, despite the interruptions and hate encountered, I was often myself inspired as much as I inspired others.
In early 2006, the University of Guelph in Canada cancelled my presentation after the Muslim student association demanded that I not speak, claiming that I have a hateful message. My speech, which is posted on my Web site, was described as very positive by 99 percent of everyone who heard it at the rest of the thirteen campuses I visited on that particular tour. For every Muslim student who rails against me, there are often several Muslim students who tell me they appreciate my speech. As to the Jewish and American audiences, most are extremely supportive. People often come up in tears afterward, thanking me for what I say.
At York University in Canada, Muslim students shouted, “Shame, shame, shame,” and “Racist, Racist,” during the question-and-answer period. They falsely accused me of saying that all Muslims are terrorists. But at the same time, many of them refused to condemn terrorism or take responsibility for breeding terrorists in Arab culture. Some whispered to me as I was leaving, “How dare you!” An indignant thirty-year-old Muslim student in a wheelchair introduced himself as the head of the student association—I was told he’d been a student there for twelve years. He said he would demand an apology from the Jewish group that sponsored my presentation. There was nothing I said that day that should offend Islam—it is terrorism, not Islam, that I condemn. There were no apologies given to that bully. I often wonder who pays the tuitions for all these Muslim students who are sent from the Arab world to get their education in the United States, often staying within these institutions for years, and who while here spend a lot of time spreading anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda.
On one college campus, I was approached by an Arab student who called me “a terror apologist,” meaning—I suppose—that Arabs and Muslims should not apologize for terrorism! His excuse was that all cultures have terrorists, not just Arabs. Other students denied the existence of hate speech in the Arab world, but when I asked these students how long they had lived in the Arab world, the answer was either just a few years or none at all.
When I spoke at a Brooklyn college, my audience included several Muslim women with headscarves who told me they supported polygamy. During my presentation, one of them got up then returned, apparently to bring in a group of bearded Muslim men who did not appear to be students. The sight of these men was not intimidating to me, but the Jewish students in the audience appeared intimidated. The bearded men were not particularly strong in build or eloquent in speech, but they seemed ready for a confrontation. In my mind they looked almost comical, but I sensed that the Jewish students feared them and overestimated their power. That was precisely the impact they were trying to achieve: intimidation of the Jewish students and silencing of Arab Americans like myself. But I knew them too well to fear them or be silenced by them. They were pathetic, and clearly were not in America to become Americans. Instead, they appeared to be here with an agenda and to exercise control over others. They looked very much like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; a group once squashed like flies by President Gamal Abdel Nasser but now gaining control and influence within Egypt. The men asked questions even though they had come at the end of my speech and so didn’t hear most of it. They accused me of misrepresenting the word “jihad.” So I asked them to define it for me. They said it should be “inner struggle.” I congratulated them on their admirable new peaceful interpretation of jihad and told them that interpretation was not what we Arabs grew up with in the Middle East. I told them Arab kids in the Middle East needed their enlightened expertise in reforming the educational system in the Arab world and not just in the eyes of the American audience. I encouraged them to send a letter to Al-Azhar University and Arab media calling upon them to start teaching jihad in the new peaceful light they were advocating to me in front of an American audience. They were speechless after my words of “encouragement.” I thanked them for their presence, and they left the hall scratching their heads.
During an April 2006 tour, I asked my Muslim audiences how many of them did something to save the life of the Afghani man sentenced to death for converting to Christianity. Did any of them demonstrate in front of the Afghani embassy demanding the man be set free? I heard silence—which meant th
at nothing was done to save that Afghani convert’s life by the so-called Muslim moderates who call their religion “the religion of peace.” No Muslim group anywhere in the world came to that poor man’s rescue, only Christian and Western groups worked to save his life. Under Islamic law, a Muslim who converts to another religion is to be put to death. Does this sound like a religion of peace?
As I spoke on campus after campus, it became clear that Muslim students in America, instead of thinking for themselves, are imprisoned in a collective mentality based on wrong assumptions and worn-out platitudes. Saying that “there are extremists and terrorists in every religion” somehow becomes an excuse for Islamic terrorism. Israel striking back at terrorists makes them somehow responsible for terrorism!
When Muslim students ask me to criticize Israel’s action of bulldozing the homes of terrorists, I tell them that when terrorism ends, or even abates for one year, I will be the first one to stand in front of the Israeli embassy demanding an end to any retaliation inside Palestinian areas. But I cannot do that now when Israeli children are being killed while riding buses to school or eating pizza in a café. I often tell my Muslim audience to put themselves in the shoes of the Israeli prime minister. Like any leader, his number one job is to protect his people or else he is out of office. When a terrorist attacks Israeli civilians, what do Arabs expect the Israeli leader to do? I offer a little quiz with four choices: (1) Turn the other cheek and allow them to throw you in the Mediterranean like they continually threaten to do. (2) Blow up the whole West Bank and Gaza. (3) Find an Israeli nut case from a mental hospital, strap him with a dynamite belt, and tell him to blow himself up in a Palestinian restaurant or on a bus. Or, (4) bulldoze the home of the Arab terrorist who just killed your Israeli citizens, giving the residents of the house forty-eight hours to leave and take their valuables. Answer number 4 is perhaps the most humane of all, other than turning the other check and allowing the total destruction of Israel.
Without fail, after every speech, Muslim critics employ all the same tired excuses and arguments that confuse the idealism of Islam with the reality of the actions of Muslims and Muslim society. For example, when I speak about Muslim terrorists, the response is that “Islam is a religion of peace.” When I say polygamy is hurting the Muslim family unit, Muslim women become very defensive and totally ignore the tragedies stemming out of polygamy in the Muslim world. Their defense is to say that “polygamy is allowed only under certain conditions; that a Muslim man must to be totally fair with all the wives.” Then they add that the Prophet Muhammad was the only one who could be fair equally to all his wives and that ordinary Muslim men could not be fair to all of them equally. Therefore, by this circular thinking and quoting the ideals of the book, in their eyes they have solved the problem. They have constructed a logic, which says polygamy is no longer a problem since men cannot apply it the same way Muhammad did. One Muslim student defended polygamy by saying that no one in her family practiced polygamy. I asked her, “Where does your family live?” She said in the USA. I told her she had U.S. laws to thank for protecting Muslim women in her family from the tragedy and insecurity of polygamy practiced elsewhere in the Muslim world. I advised her to conduct research about polygamy in the Middle East by looking into the tragedies dealt with by sharia family courts across the Muslim world.
When I spoke about the oppression of Saudi women, an attractive, modern-looking, uncovered Saudi girl told me repeatedly in the question-and-answer session, “Look at me, look at me, do I look like an oppressed Saudi?” I told her, “If you can walk like that in Saudi Arabia, then you are not.”
One Egyptian student defiantly told me after my speech, “You don’t speak for me.” I told her I hope not and that I never claimed to speak for her or for any other person. I told her I speak only for myself as an Arab American. I reminded her that in a democracy we do not speak for each other and that I hope to one day see the Arab world with many different political parties and many different views, with everyone respecting those differences of opinions. She also objected to my speaking about the oppression of Egyptian Coptic Christians. She said, “I had many Coptic friends, and they never complained to me that they were discriminated against. You are exaggerating their problems.” At the end of that same lecture I was approached by another Egyptian student who told me she was Coptic and was too scared to speak in front of the Muslim student union members because they intimidate her even right here in America. She told me she and her family moved to the United States because of the discrimination they suffered in Egypt.
Simply put, the Muslim student organizations wanted to advocate “Islam as a religion of peace” through intimidation and arguments that made no sense. They are still victimizing Coptic students who are too frightened to speak their views even though they have left Egypt and are living under U.S. freedoms. Is that the way for Muslim students to show the world the compassion, forgiveness, and tolerance of Islam?
Vocal American Muslims in my audience often refuse to condemn Hamas as a terror group. They say Israel is born out of sin and should not exist. I consider such statements by Muslims in the heart of our institutions of higher learning an embarrassment. It is not just the Jewish students who should be offended by such statements, but any decent human being. Defending Hamas is supporting terrorism. What arrogance to say that a group of people has no right to exist. The cruelty of what some people in my culture advocate never ceases to amaze me.
Even by Egyptian standards, I am personally shocked by the degree of radicalism I am encountering on American campuses. I look at the covered-up women and the bearded men who appear to be in an exclusive club with a chip on their shoulder and an us-against-them, holier-than-thou attitude. Though we share the same cultural background, I cannot relate to them. I am stunned to see them choose to revive the worst of Islamic culture in America rather than be part of America and demonstrate the best of Islamic culture. I have met many Egyptian Americans who tell me they also cannot relate to their culture of origin—perhaps half the Muslims in America do indeed reject the extremists and fanatics, but stay silent. Most Egyptians who visit Egypt come back to the United States depressed over the conditions in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world. Many even say, “We don’t want to go visit again.”
If the majority of American Muslims reject fanaticism, then how does one explain the presence of radical Islam in the heart of U.S. educational institutions? This is not by mere coincidence. Saudi Arabia and oil-wealthy Arab countries support such student Muslim organizations and fund Islamic and Middle East studies departments to promulgate their radical views. They are very well organized.
A further word about the Muslim young women I have encountered on my speaking tours: On every campus I visit, there are always groups of covered-up female Muslim students, a phenomenon one never saw in America or even the Middle East twenty years ago. When I told one covered-up Egyptian Muslim student that when I lived in Egypt, no one was covered up, she reluctantly agreed and said her mother didn’t cover up until the late seventies. Her American friend responded, “I never knew that Islamic attire was a new thing.” I consider myself a reasonable feminist who wants equality and respect, but I feel that treating one’s body like a tempting juicy steak that should be covered up—besides being uncomfortable and impractical—implies an arrogant, holier-than-thou attitude. It also displays a symbol of the oppressive ugly past of the Middle East and an in-your-face defiance of all the achievements women have fought for in the last one hundred years. These young women often openly defend polygamy and sharia laws, but have no clue about what happens in sharia courts around the Middle East and the family tragedies that result from the oppression of women in such courts. Their opinions on polygamy and divorce laws are naive because they judge the issues from their own personal perspective where they live protected by American laws, enjoying privileges Muslim women in the Middle East do not have. These girls, so eager to stand out from the other American college women, are championing an op
pressive lifestyle they are not living under. I would doubt that even they would tolerate living under the Saudi or Iranian system. Over there they would probably burn their burkas and demand their equal rights. But in America they love to show defiance. Unfortunately, these naive young women are contributing to the oppression of women in the Middle East by their hard-line stand against reforming sharia laws.
How ironic that while sharia laws are being challenged by brave Arab and Muslim feminists in the Middle East, we are seeing radical Muslim groups promoting sharia laws to apply to Muslims in Canada! I was glad that the Canadian government rejected the attempts of radical Muslim groups to bring sharia laws into the West. In my mind I wondered whether we might even see the day where sharia is reformed in the Middle East but practiced by Muslims in the West. I hope not.
Women’s issues have become a hot-button issue, which sometimes impacts my speaking engagements—perhaps because I am willing to speak my mind and tell the truth rather than follow the latest trends in political correctness. In 2004, when I spoke at University of California Santa Cruz in Northern California, the Women Studies Department refused to sponsor my presentation. Other departments did, but not Women Studies. On the other hand, in April 2006, I spoke on a panel in New York on “Middle East Women’s Rights,” and the response to my presentation was very positive.
One of my most memorable experiences occurred when I was invited in 2004 to speak to a Jewish group called Jimena.org, which stands for “Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa.” That is a group of Jews who were born and lived in Arab countries. At this event, I met Jews from Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Morocco. They all spoke Arabic and graciously welcomed me to speak. I saw a woman about my age who spoke to me with an Egyptian accent and who looked familiar. We looked at each other, puzzled. Then in my mind I saw a young woman who was at the American University in Cairo with me. She also recognized me, and we realized that we had studied at the American University at the same time, between 1965 and 1969. When I asked her why she had disappeared before graduation, she told me her story. After the 1967 war, her fiancé and all the male members of his family were arrested by Nasser and placed in the Torrah prison in Cairo. It was a brutal jail, where they had to sleep on concrete floors three to a small cell and were tortured and sexually assaulted. These were educated Jews from good upper-class families in Egypt. She said the jailed Jewish Egyptian men begged the women of their families to leave Egypt, but the women refused to go without their men. Under pressure from Western governments, the men were finally released in 1969 and forced to leave Egypt immediately. That explains why my friend suddenly left Egypt before our graduation at the American University. When we were students together I didn’t even realize she was Jewish, and I had no idea what she was going through at the time.
Now They Call Me Infidel Page 25