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12:24 PM
Reut R. Cohen
Last week, on May 8th, Nonie Darwish spoke at UC Irvine at an event hosted by ZOA-UCI and the College Republicans. Darwish was born in Cairo, Egypt and spent much of her early life in Gaza. Her father, who was part of Fatah, was involved in killing hundreds of Israelis. As a result the Israeli Defense Forces eventually killed him. Ms. Darwish explained how she grew up in a society where she was taught to hate Jews and Israel. However, around the period of 9/11, Darwish began to reject Islamic violence and became a critic of "Jihad."
Darwish expressed her frustration that moderate Muslims are too fearful to speak up and suggested that many Americans simply do not understand Islam or Arab culture.
Darwish also had some criticism for administrators on college campuses and stated she was shocked regarding the kinds of events groups like the Muslim Student Association will hold that present outright lies, fabrications and hatred against Jews, Israelis and the west.
"Muslim student organizations are very active, well-funded, connected to the Middle-East," she said. "Unfortunately, they are bringing Gaza and the West Bank with them. The Saudis give a lot of donations.... The administrators, they are more naive about the cultures they are dealing with."
Following Nonie Darwish's talk, Pierre Rehov's film "The Suicide Killers" was screened. Rehov's film examines the phenomenon of suicide bombers through rare and unique interviews with actual family members of terrorists, the prisoners whose bombing attempts have been thwarted, and exclusive footage of a terror bomber as he prepares for mission. The film provides a message of urgency for increasing our understanding and awareness of the psychopathological dynamics of these terrorist bombers.
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Hate Fest at UCI-Day 4 (Final Day)
On the final day of the Muslim Student Union's "Palestinian Holocaust Week" at UC-Irvine, the highlight of today's program was the speech by Amir Abdel Malik Ali, a fiery Imam from Oakland, who comes to UCI every quarter. He is an open supporter of Hamas and Hizbollah and anti-American to boot.
Malik Ali is the classic example of the adage: "Show me a great speaker, and I will show you-a great speaker". He is a magnificent public speaker. It is what he says that is objectionable. In past appearances at UCI, he has described suicide bombers, as heroes and martyrs, and railed about "Zionist Jews". Today, he took pains to state that many Jews oppose Zionism. (Thanks a lot.) Yet, his hour-long speech was all vitriol toward Israel-and toward America. Imperialistic America. He referred to President Bush as "an idiot" on numerous occasions. He referred to an unnamed African-American general (head of US forces in Africa) as an "Uncle Tom".
Toward the end, Malik veered off course and talked about the drug epidemic that plagues black neighborhoods. He implied the old canard that the government planted crack into the black community. (As a retired DEA agent, I could have reminded him that no black crack addict gets his or her crack from any white person-only black crack dealers, but i had a more pertinent question in mind.)
At the conclusion of his speech, I raised my hand and got the first question:
I asked him simply-which he hated more, Israel- or America.
His answer: "I hate imperialism."
He went on to expound on that, but I wasn't really listening. I wanted to pin him down on my question. I followed up by asking if he loved his country, America.
Again, he started on a long answer that started out with why a rape victim should love her rapist. I then finished by concluding that he hated America-as the student moderator cut me off in order to move on to the next questioner.
Before the program started, I looked around to see if Cindy and Craig Corrie (whose daughter was killed in Israel trying to block an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing a house) were present since they had stayed around to watch yesterday's program-which was relatively tame. They were apparently not present. I had hoped that they would hear Malik Ali's words. It might have given them pause.
gary fouse
adjunct teacher, uci-ext
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