Over a four-week span, 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 MSA at UCLA," click
here, "The MSA at Berkeley, click
here, "The MSU at UC Irvine," click
here, "The MSA at Brown," click
here, "The MSA at Columbia," click
here, and "The MSA at Michigan State," click
here, "The MSA at Ohio State," click
here, "The MSA at Penn State," click
here, "The MSA at Queensborough Community College," click
here, "The MSA at Temple," click
here, "The MSA at UC Santa Barbara," click
here, and "The MSA at Michigan," click here. – The Editors
In
early October 2003, MSA-UPenn’s annual “Islam Awareness Week” was keynoted by
William W. Baker, founder/director of Christians and Muslims for Peace.101
Baker
had made headlines a year earlier when he was fired by the Reverend Robert
Schuller of Crystal Cathedral Ministries,
following an Orange County Weekly exposé
of Baker’s neo-Nazi ties and his anti-Semitic writings.102
In
a 1983 speech to the Christian Patriot Defense League in Missouri, Baker referred
to the Reverend Jerry Falwell as “Jerry Jewry” (for his friendliness to Jews),
and expressed his contempt for the “pushy, belligerent American Jews” of New
York City. Baker’s 1998 book, More in Common Than You Think,
claims to map “the common ground between Islam and Christianity. Islam expert
Stephen Schwartz described the book as being “intended to bring together fringe
Christians and extremist Muslims.”103
In
his October 2003 address to MSA-UPenn, Baker said, “Terror, murder -- that’s
not what Islam teaches.… It wasn’t Muslims crashing into the World Trade
Center; it was haters and
extremists.” In an obvious reference to Jews, he said: “Non-Christians and
non-Muslims are fomenting hatred for political purposes.” He condemned
pro-Israel Christian preachers Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham
for having criticized Muslims and the prophet Muhammad.104
When
Daily Pennsylvanian reporter
Margherita Ghiselli asked MSA UP President Muhammad Mekki about Baker’s neo-Nazi
connections, Mekki replied that “the speaker’s alleged anti-Semitic position”
was “irrelevant to the discussion.105
In
September 2005, MSA-UPenn provided a forum for the British journalist and
Muslim convert Yvonne Ridley, who supports the elimination of Israel and has
expressed her admiration for Muslim terrorists, to address U Penn students on
the topic of Islam.106
MSA-UPenn’s
Islam Awareness Week events included such presentations as:
• Jihad, Terrorism and Reconciling
Muslim Identity in the West: MSA- UPenn explained that this forum
would “discuss the issue of a collective Islamic identity, and the need for
adaptation to the misconceptions about jihad and terrorism in Islam, with
contrast to Western Society.” The objective was to characterize jihad as chiefly
an internal, spiritual battle that Muslims wage against their own unholy
inclinations.
• Don't Believe the Hype: How the
Media and Hollywood Portray Muslims and their Faith:
Characterizing America as a nation rife with anti-Muslim bigotry and prejudice,
this event was designed to “address the way Western media has created an
unwarranted sense of fear towards Muslims”; “address the heavy-hitting issue of
Islamophobia as a form of racism towards Muslims”; “reflect upon the many
negative images painted about Islam in today’s media”; “reach a stronger understanding
of Islamophobia and how Americans can respond to counteract this negative
force”; and “uncover the truth behind the misconceptions people have about the
religion itself.”107
MSA-UPenn
opposes the Patriot Act anti-terrorism legislation. At one MSA rally on the University of Pennsylvania campus, the co-chair of
Muslims for Justice declared, “The Patriot Act is sending us in a backwards spiral,
where the destination is chaos.”108
NOTES:
101
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/
Readaspx?GUID=%7b575F2D36-491B-45FA-B076-
85083925AF99%7d
102
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?
GUID=%7b575F2D36-491B-45FA-B076-85083925AF99%7d
103
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?
GUID=575F2D36-491B-45FA-B076-85083925AF99
104
http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/Read.aspx? GUID
=%7b300CB2DA-0678-4997-8838-67AE7551661A%7d
105
Ibid.
106
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/2005_09.php
107
http://www.upennmsa.org/subcommittees/islamic-education/islamawareness-
week-2007.html
108
http://www.meforum.org/article/603