Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Dr.Daniel Pipes talk disrupted at UC Irvine by Islamist goons from university funded Muslim Student Union Dr.Daniel Pipes talk disrupted at UC Irvine by Islamist goons from university funded Muslim Student UnionFebruary 8, 2007
Calls For Jihad Follow Disruption Of Address By Dr. Daniel Pipes At UC Irvine
By Beila Rabinowitz and William A. Mayer February 7, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The Islamist thugs who disrupted the January 31 talk by Dr. Daniel Pipes at the University of California Irvine Campus [entitled "The Threat To Israel's Existence Why It's Back - What It Means"] served to highlight how college campuses across the United States have become hotbeds of Islamist ferment. The event also underscored the degree to which American college and university administrators have abdicated their supervisory roles, allowing radical Muslim rage to suppress the free exchange of ideas. In a blog entry about the event [sponsored by the Jewish student group, Hillel] Dr. Pipes noted that he had "front loaded" his comments in order to give "the Islamist contingent a stiff dose of my thinking" as a pre-emptive strike against the disturbance he knew had been planned. Dr. Pipes told the audience that appeasement and compromise with the Palestinians had been a mistake and there were only two scenarios:
"Either the Israeli side gives up and there will be no more Israel" or "The enemies of Israel reluctantly but steadily come to the conclusion that they cannot eliminate Israel and stop fighting." Pipes added, "My conclusion is that the Palestinians must have their will crushed so that they will no longer try to eliminate Israel," in which case "they will tend to their own affairs and leave Israel alone...There is no alternative I wish there were but there is none to have the Palestinians will crushed requires that they go through the bitter crucible of war-of -loss-of-despair..." As if on cue about 70 "goons of the Islamist persuasion" [as Dr. Pipes later referred to them] stood up and a beefy Muslim student draped in a keffiyah shouted "Daniel Pipes! Daniel Pipes!" and the room erupted into catcalls and surprised laughter. A video of the event shows the Muslim students being escorted out of the auditorium by school administrators while shouting anti-Israel slogans. Jewish students responded by singing "Am Yisroel Chai" [The People of Israel Lives]. According to one of the organizers, the Muslim students had shown up early for the event and seated themselves strategically in the auditorium so as to be better able to disrupt Pipes' talk. The fact that the hall was completely unsecured and that 70 radicalized Muslim students were allowed to enter the hall unsearched before the event took place is evidence of an alarming breach of security, one which could have had disastrous consequences. One attendee wrote:
"Upon entering the 448 seat auditorium, I immediately noticed about forty to fifty Islamist students monopolizing the center area in the steep seating area. Most wore black, blue, and red Keffiyehs that Islamists and faux revolutionaries have taken to wearing, ostensibly in support of the Palestinians against the "oppressive" Israelis." During the disturbance Dr. Pipes calmly stood his ground at the podium, arms folded, awaiting the commotion to subside. The conclusion of the address was greeted by a standing ovation. Outside the venue a group of potential jihadists gathered:
"Justice will be restored...Those people who are there legitimately...the people there will rule...and there will be no alternative for anyone there injustice anymore there...so we will keep on doing what we are doing...our weapon...our jihad...our way of struggling in this country is with our tongues...We speak out and we deflate their morale...and this is the best we can do right now...And our brothers and sisters on the other side of the world are handling business in their own way...Takbir, Allahu Akhbar!" Allahu Akhbar - God is great - being one of the battle cries that Muslim armies have used throughout history. The student's remarks demonstrate the now well established trend of Muslim Student Associations and Muslim Student Unions finding common cause with radical Islam's war against the West. The videotape showing UC Irvine students calling for jihad and the elimination of Israel reveals a degree of radicalization which should alert UCI administrators to the presence of a potential terrorist threat. Unfortunately this type of hateful incitement has become so commonplace on American campuses that it is now the norm. The intimidation engendered by this tactic has served the Islamists well, cowing multiculturally bound college administrations into silence. The MSU and MSAs are part of an interlocking radical Muslim directorate [which includes but is not limited to ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America, ICNA the Islamic Circle of North America and NAIT the North American Islamic Trust an organization which holds the majority of American mosques in a waqf or Islamic trust] much of which is funded by Saudi Wahhabist interests and an integral part of the religiously mandated practice called da'wa which aims to promote the extreme fundamentalism of Wahhabism while recruiting converts to Islam. Zahra Billoo, the Muslimah advisor to the MSA of Cal State University Long Beach [CSULB] published the call to disrupt the address, "Daniel Pipes is coming to Irvine! Come and help the UCI Muslim Student Union protest this racist Islamophobe." The contact person for the protest was Omar Zarka, a UCI engineering graduate who is on the editorial board of the MSU magazine, Alkalima which put out a glossy flyer prior to Dr.Pipes talk headlined "Exposing Daniel Pipes: The Truth Behind His Lies." The Alkalima website format is identical to that of many hard core jihadist sites, offering polemics such as, "For Justice We Fight-Fight for Palestine." MSU's flyer even specified that all correspondence to Alkalima should be directed to the Office of the Dean of Students at UCI, giving both the group and its magazine official imprimatur. Biloo's attempts to deny others the freedom to express opposing viewpoints demonstrates the authoritarian nature of the radical Islamists. Such efforts are almost always accompanied and/or justified through a process of demonization, casting opponents as enemies and setting the stage for false claims of victimization, i.e. Islamophobia. Although the UC media director issued a statement regarding the disruption as a result of media inquires, the school neither mentioned nor did it condemn the MSU's actions. Rather it took the role of Islamist apologist, emphasizing that the disruption was short and minimizing it as commonplace. Such a response entirely misses the point that while the denial of basic constitutional rights has become endemic on American university campuses - due primarily to spineless administrators - it's hardly acceptable. We are calling upon UC Irvine to withdraw university funding to the Muslim Student Union on the grounds that the organization is anti-democratic and stokes ethnic and religious hatred. We ask for a full inquiry into campus security practices which allowed a radical Muslim group unfettered access to a public lecture hall creating the obvious potential for violence. We ask UCI's administrators to consider whether such a laissez-faire attitude would be extended to a white supremacist organization conducting similar disruptive behavior? Until this matter is addressed UCI's administration including President Robert C. Dynes are guilty of aiding and abetting the MSU's efforts to spread Islamism. Through its inaction UCI is fostering an atmosphere of hate from which it is only a matter of time when the calls for jihad heard outside Dr. Pipes talk will be transformed into action. --------------------------- MIM: UCI students ridicule the Muslim Student Union attacks for their absurd charge of racism. Last time we checked Islam was not a race, but that minor technical point does not seem to bother MSU students, who promoted their Islamo supremacist version of multi culturalism, tolerance and diversity by disrupting a Jewish student event, calling for jihad and for Israel to be wiped off the face of the of the earth. Letters to the EditorMSU Protest of Pipes HypocriticalI found myself completely cracking up reading the New University last week. The Muslim Student Union member in charge of public relations, Marya Bangee, wrote what appeared to be a scathing article ("Racist Speaker Welcomed by Hillel," Feb. 5) condemning both Hillel, a campus club, and Daniel Pipes, a speaker whom Hillel brought to speak on campus. The obvious question now is why would I be laughing when a club that I proudly belong to, and the speaker we brought, were being attacked? The answer is because of the historical nature of the claims that Bangee has made. She called Daniel Pipes, an intellectual speaker who was speaking to a lecture hall with 300 students and community members about the threats to the existence of the state of Israel, a racist, and said that the decision made by Hillel to bring him to campus makes our organization racist, while using quotes taken out of context (some of which weren't even properly quoted) to do so. I find it laughingly hypocritical for her, in her official MSU PR position to be making this claim, when just eight short months ago, it was the MSU who was getting international condemnation for their racist week of hatred, "Holocaust in the Holy Land." When the MSU brings a speaker, Hillel students raise their objections during the Q-and-A session (if MSU allows one) after the speaker finishes. However, members of the "polarized audience" that Bangee refers to, wearing shirts emblazoned with "UC Intifada," struck a new low at Pipes' lecture. Rather than behaving as one commonly does at an academic lecture, they stood up and yelled and screamed and did whatever they could to disrupt Pipes' speech. I'm no psychologist, but this sort of acting out may be evidence of some students' need for attention and love. I think that the right to freedom of speech is important, and I have shown my support for the university's free-speech policies. However, my support of protesting is limited to when it is done civilly, and within the confines of common sense and decency. Generally, if someone is going to protest a speaker, they stand in the designated protest zone and do it; once inside the room, you are expected to act with a common civility that has become the social norm of collegiate life. If one has a disagreement with the speaker, there are many ways to go about expressing this displeasure—for example, asking a question during the allotted time or quietly leaving the lecture to join the protestors who are outside. Throwing a tantrum inside a lecture hall while an academic is speaking is not an acceptable form of protest, although it is becoming increasingly popular at UCI (it happened to Yossi Olmert last spring). Maybe Bangee has forgotten the racist anti-Semitic speeches delivered by MSU-sponsored speakers, but chances are she will tell you that they are not racist, and they are merely speakers using their First Amendment rights. In my opinion, it is now time for the administration to use their First Amendment rights. Maybe instead of sitting idly by and just ushering the student protestors out of the room, they can make a public statement regarding civility and respect, and how when one is protesting, they must do it with these principles in mind. This is an academic environment, but these sorts of childish actions do not allow for a free and fair exchange of ideas. How can we, as students, expect to hear speakers, especially those who may be controversial, if this is how they are treated? By allowing this sort of protest to continue without punishment, the university is going to start to lose out on speakers coming to Irvine, which will only hurt us, the students. Alex Chazen |