The Psychology of UCI’s Muslim Student Union
No modern phenomenon has impacted college campuses today more than the Muslim Student Association/Union. Founded in 1963 by the Muslim Brotherhood — the same radical Sunni organization that spawned the terror group Hamas — the MSU has since made headlines around the country due to its militant and controversial rhetoric. The MSU, especially that of University of California at Irvine, is infamous for attracting charges of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, as well as for sparking the 2007 investigation of UCI for anti-Semitism. The MSU is no stranger to the First Amendment. Come May every year, the organizations hides behind it so its members can spout anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic remarks on college campuses. And just last February, MSU members at UCI attempted to use their right to free speech in order to deny Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren his own free speech, as Pajamas Media’s Roger L. Simon documented when he interviewed Oren for PJTV.
Despite all this, the MSU continues to grow unhindered on college campuses around the world. The questions that I and many others ask is: why?
In order to understand someone, we must explore how that person thinks.
The following is based on three years (and counting) of experiencing firsthand and researching the MSU’s actions at UC Irvine. In fact, the following can also be applied to members of other MSUs and most anti-Israel activists as well; I’ve noticed little difference between how the two parties act.
Psychologically speaking, the MSU is a radical student organization before anything else, even before Islam. Its members have totally and completely fallen in love with the image of the rebel, of collecting the general populace to rise up and strike down an oppressor. Not necessarily all the causes they protest for are wrong, but there is certainly a pattern among them all. If there is a power to rebel against, if there is an authoritative figure to fight, if there is an oppressor to struggle against, you can count on the MSU to be there. For example, the MSU has passionately organized against the UC system budget cuts as well as the arrests of the 11 students who attempted to silence Ambassador Michael Oren.
Both situations involve a higher power (the UC Regents, the police) negatively impacting a lower one (UC students, the MSU). The MSU’s primary focus, though, is rallying against Israel, and it usually goes about it in the most controversial of ways. From tearing up, burning, and throwing red paint on an Israeli flag to putting a kaffiyeh on an image of Anne Frank (suggesting that, if alive today, she would be anti-Israel), the MSU has made it plain that they enjoy pushing and transgressing boundaries. This again falls in line with MSU members’ intense love of the rebel’s image, something which has warped their view of law and order. Since rebels break the rules in order to be heard, they act with no regard for university rules. Since rebels do not back down from anyone, they have fostered an enjoyment in disrespecting anyone who disagrees with them. It evidently makes them feel big to stand up and look down on people who disagree with them.
Speaking from personal experience, I have seen MSU members shout “F**k you,” “Go back to Israel,” and “We will wipe you off the map” to pro-Israel and Jewish people. A few of my female friends have told me that when they got into discussions with male MSU members, they were told their opinions didn’t matter “because they were girls.” And on March 2, one MSU member at an anti-Israel rally took it upon himself to inform me I was a “faggot homo” for holding an Israeli flag. He remarked: “I didn’t know Israel was full of homos.” That same day, I saw at least two pro-Israel girls crying because they didn’t understand why the MSU was acting so hateful to them.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
We must consider what drives these students to such egregious acts of disrespect and hostility. What causes a person to get up in front of the school and rail against Jews?
Probably the most stupid article I have ever read. Your lack of intelligence stems from the obvious boring lies that you talk about – at least make them somewhat interesting.
The traditions the MSU aspire to where espoused by a very famous Muslim before WW2, one who cheerfully cheered and aided the Nazis. His efforts to form a Muslim element in the Wehrmacht enabled the SS to recruit Bosnian and Armenian Muslims into the SS organizations “Prinz Eugen ” and “Handschar”. The units were of poor quality to the point that the “Prinz Eugen” was disbanded . . . the troops were too busy raping, stealing and murdering to fight. The Muslim brotherhoods have done much to live up to the Mufti’s high standards of ethics . . . and as an offspring of the Brotherhood I’m sure the MSU is just as full of weak Jubaan.
Don, what does any of that have to do with the article in question? Have you given any thought to the social conditions present in each case before you decided to “prove” the notion that Muslims are somehow evil? Just a thought.
Sorry, ALBANIAN Muslims, not Armenian . . .Was writing too fast.
The last refuge of a coward is ad hominem attacks. You call the article stupid despite that some of it was written in the first person (i.e. the guy has seen with his own eyes). Sadly, many American campi are littered with hateful, colossally ignorant youngsters, be they Muslim or otherwise. Grow up.
Interesting. If you would care to expound on what you consider lies, you might consider doing so. There is ample opportunity for just that, and might provide a deeper understanding of your position on this, other than the fact that you found it “boring”. Unlike your masters’ own lies, I suppose, which are much more to your liking given how grandiose and downright entertaining they may be.
Is the sin here the dry nature of the point being made?
Ahhh UCI Student
I see UCI students are still stuck at the bottom of the education barrel. Your post is incoherent and unintelligent blather. You failed to address any points or ‘lies’ as you call them, in the article to substantiate your blathering nonsense. Get a refund on your tuition buddy, because all the education in the world won’t help you……….
Dear Aaron,
A few weeks ago I had occasion to exchange e-mails with a female Jewish UCI
student who was a member and organizer for the MSU. I got her e-mail address from another anti Israel site, and I though I might learn something about this group and it’s anti Israel message from this woman.
She turned out to be a surprisingly nice and sweet girl, although she was incredibly misinformed about Israel, and seems to have gotten most of her information about the Middle East from Hamas and Hizballah pamphlets. She was very polite, but also very adamant about Israel as evil incarnate, everything from stealing Palestinian body parts for sale abroad, Israeli racial discrimination towards Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jewish apartheid towards the Palestinians, to Israeli massacres of innocent and unarmed Palestinian civilians. She did however agree with me that Israel was not committing genocide against the Palestinians, a point you might say in my favor.
As I said she at least claimed to be Jewish, and since her name was a pretty common Jewish one, I took her at her word. As an American Jew I asked her had she ever actually visited Israel, to see first hand the abuses she alleged, well she hadn’t. I asked her if she was familiar with the pro Arab and pro Palestinian Israeli Jewish groups which actually fight for Palestinian rights even though we are at war with them. She wasn’t. She was also an American, presumably familiar with the Bill of Rights, especially the one about freedom of expression and speech. I pointed out to her that the abusive and immoral behavior of her and her comrades in shouting down the Oren speech was inconsistent with her alleged respect for the First Amendment, but she argued that when anyone confronts pure evil, the Constitution was basically irrelevant.
Well we parted on pretty good terms, I told her I had enjoyed speaking with her and hearing her side, asked God to bless her and protect her, and asked her to consider a trip here to Israel and see for herself if the MSU she was associating with was trafficing in truth and justice, or simply venting their deep and abiding hatred of Jews.
She herself seemed to me to be fully convinced of the righteousness of her cause and the decency of the Moslems she was involved with. Thus, as one who has seen and experienced Arab Moslem violence first hand, I also mentioned that some of the Moslems she was associating with could be physically or sexually dangerous to her since she was a Jewish woman and that she might want to keep that in the back of her mind whenever she was around these people, especially the Moslem men.
All the best and פסח שמח
It has been said that the state of mind of PC, MC left wing moonbats and Mohammedans are remarkable alike and they both resemble that of a severe PMT suffering woman and you know I must agree that is a very good analogy.
Severe PMT sufferers display overwhelming anger, without coherent reason or cause , and complete lack of logical thinking are liable to outburst of screaming and violence for IMAGINED slights and insults and are incapable of reasoned debate.
Think about it and you will see that this describes both the PC, MC, left wing, moonbat Liberal and the illogical Rage Boy Mohammedan temperament to a ‘T’.
This solution is silly…are we going to wait until they show up in suicide vests or perform their “honour killings” on campus? It amazes me that these lib campuses have all these speech codes, yet tolerate this type of BS all in one direction as if having a towel on your head somehow makes you a protected class.
The answer rests in all the video cameras that now rest in our society, fixed, cell phone etc. Just like they were used to disprove the racist charges in the Nancy Pelosi in Your Face Perp walk, so too they can record actions and speech that cross a line that must be drawn and enforced.
The rules must be uniform for student and faculty alike. All lectures need be recorded…for protection of faculty from false accusations. The technology is cheap and readily available. You want to conduct yourself in this manner, I am sure the Syrians, the Brits, the Pakistanis have lovely campuses, but don’t expect Pell grants for the taxpayer to fund it.
“So what can we do against this self-justifying, self-perpetuating ideology? How do we keep it from negatively impacting those of us who disagree with the MSU?”
One can start by imposing a cost for such behavior. To date, those who demonize, libel and slander, and who shout down those they disagree with suffer little or no cost. There’s no expulsion from the university, no deportation of foreign students, no jail time for those who engage in violence or vandalism.
If comment #1 is any indication of the level of scholarship of the Moslem MSU members at UCI, then that school has some very serious educational problems.
However it does go a long way towards illustrating the thuggish behavior of the Moslem students there.
students who are ignorant, undereducated, and in many cases (ask a professor) unteachable, are drawn to situations that won’t require a frontal cortex.
moslem “students” who rant and rave, just take one or two courses to get into the campus with their hate speech. fake history. and bullsh*t.
we have free speech. there were plenty of nazis crawling around in the 30′s just like these moslems.
the problem is that we have a deranged president, who has never met a jew hater he didn’t like, and feeds these nutjobs with his anti-israel anti-american vomit.
Canuck: They will never hurt other college students; they need their fertile and deluded minds to continue and justify their reason to be and the support of stupid white kids. Also they have found on campuses other like-minded anti-American groups such as MeCHA, La Raza, new Black Panthers, Communists, etc. So in order to remain sympatico with them they will never hurt other students.
The fix: Once we have a real president, sign an executive order stopping all federal monies going to colleges/univeristies who allow such groups and supportive college professors to exist. No grants, no Pell grants, no student loans, etc. Also tax them and their endowments. Tax their foundations.
One answer, let them be damned by their own history. Islam was at it’s greatest extant when it was most tolerant, when it became insular, suspicious of ideas and inbred of philosophy it started the long fall (the Ottoman empire’s fall ending it’s power). So the Muslim Brotherhoods and it’s inbred offspring represent that which has destroyed Islam. Treat them as what they are loudmouthed pinheads with no understanding of self worth, or the religion they claim to represent. Insult them and shame them for being part of the backsliding Salafist fringe that has hijacked a religious tradition . . .
A thumb in the eye might not be so bad either.
What about simply limiting Muslim immigration to the U.S. to avoid more and more problems such as occur at UC Irvine? Or does the false religion of “diversity” trump all? Do the majority of Muslim immigrants have such rare skills that we can’t survive without them as a nation?
In Pakistan they tolerated these hateful people. Now they have bombs going off in their cities. It can happen here.
This hatred does not go away by itself, it must be resisted. Thugs, especially religious thugs from the KKK to the Muslim Brotherhood must be resisted and shown that violence will not be tolerated and civility is the norm.
In a way, this is like ordinary ‘gang’ stuff. Call the police if necessary. Our institutions of ‘learning’ are at risk.
In a way, this is founding father stuff, and a violent attack on the 1st Amendment.
Looked at that way this could be pretty important.
Wars, sports, and clashes of ideologies are never won by defense.
Questions for Mr. Elias.
1. Did the MSU just arrive from outer space, or is our “open borders”** immigration policy responsible?
2. Since it is very likely that a lot more radical Islamics will be arriving quite soon, is this something that you yourself support?
3. Should you start actively writing about and supporting real immigration reform/control or do you just wish to continue whining about those impolite anti-semitic immigrant folks?
** I use the term “open borders” somewhat fallaciously, but since over 37 percent of the population of Los Angeles county were not born in the US I’d say it’s pretty accurate.
“What causes a person to get up in front of the school and rail against Jews?”
The certain knowledge they’ll never suffer a penalty, no matter how disgusting their rhetoric — and actions — become.
Tis is what comes of a half century of meekly allowing “the Left” (whatever that means any more) to dominate the narrative of virtually everything on college campuses. What does “Left” mean in these contexts. Little, it seems, except virulent hatred of America, Israel, capitalism and…whatever. All while accusing “the Right” of hate. These people must be exposed (thanks for this article,) shamed and made to understand that their hatred will not be indulged and deferred to, and that they will not be permitted to monopolize the public forum. These seem rather obvious and meek goals, but in today’s academy they can seem revolutionary.
These people, in reality, are not “liberal,” or “left wing” or, in any relevant way “Muslim” or aligned with certain views. they are thugs, bullies and hate-filled little petty criminals who simply hijack rhetoric or fragments of ideology to make them feel noble about their thuggery. They are rage-driven, developmentally arrested little adolescent punks who have seized on the tolerant traditions of our culture in order to undo it. They must be denied at every step. Otherwise, they might take over the government one day. Oh, wait….
Enough. Time to take back the government, the media (or at lest the narrative) and the universities. the bullies must be disgraced, ridiculed and shamed from any podium of respectability. Or, if that’s too much work, we can just submit to them.
When one thinks about it, it makes perfect sense. Colleges and Universities are peopled with children who are coming into their own, both intellectually and morally, they have no real guidance other than what they get from their professors. These professors are almost to a person, anti-Semitic and anti-American.
They fill the empty vessels with hate and misinformation and send them out to do what they will in the world. And we, as parents pay them for the privilege.
And the cycle repeats every ten years or so.
Sad, that.
Interesting article, and the psychology and sociology is doubtless right on, especially when it comes peace loving academe and administration. However, I’ve noticed that if people are allowed to step on your dick without any negative consequences, they will continue to step on your dick. Its human nature. It’s like handing out free condoms and free needle exchange programs to heroine addicts and expecting to see a behavior change in the wretched of the earth. So now that exporting “democracy” and advanced science and technology to the Muslim world is off the table as a viable social change strategy into the modern era, I’m curious as to what the back up plan is? Appeasement? Cultural convergence? It only takes a multicultural village to live happily ever after under imperial Islam? Going back to a law enforcement containment model, building more prisons, that allowed gang banging and gangs to proliferate over forty years and seriously expecting a different outcome with domestic Muslims on jihad is one definition of insanity. I’m sure Transactional Analysis and Gesthalt Therapy will to the trick at Asilomar.
We must consider what drives these students to such egregious acts of disrespect and hostility.
Imagine how one would feel if G-d chose a people other than yours. And he did.
Not only did these folks miss the Messiah, they missed Noah’s Ark as well.
Now they’re so bitter they can’t stand it.
Have you seen the lame professor who used to be (and may still be but he doesn’t claim it now) the Middle Eastern Studies Chair ?
Take a look. Note the name. He doesn’t devote half his web site to his heavy metal band anymore, either. Read the website, Have you ever seen a more confused person ?
My third book, Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance and the Story of Islam’s Generation-X, is forthcoming on Random House/Verso
Here is where the MSU got started. Confusion.
“I have seen MSU members shout “F**k you,” “Go back to Israel,” and “We will wipe you off the map” to pro-Israel and Jewish people.”
I have seen them shout…”Back to the ovens and we need another holocaust”.
“you will inevitably see its members posting their grievances about how the U.S. is murdering Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
But never about muslims murdering other muslims with wild, tribal abandon. Like here in the US where Lutherans kill Baptists and Baptists kill Presbyterians and they kill Methodists. Oh…and the Catholics always kill Jews.
“Their large numbers may also play a factor in bolstering their mindset that allows them to act and publicly speak in such outrageous and offensive manners; no matter what the public response is..”
Like the “righteousness” of the libbie, progressive loons when they fire bomb, destroy and torch buildings and cars during an WTO conference? better yet…like CNN or MSNBC when they demonize millions of Americans at a Tea Party rally with cries of racism and teabaggers?
“It is ok to attempt to shut down a pro-Israel event via constant interruption because the speaker represents an evil country that is guilty of the most heinous of crimes.
Yet…nothing about the Iranian mullahs murdering their own citizens during peaceful protests called ( like our Tea Party ) a Green movement? So much for blind obedience to the ideology of….Islam and all it’s POLITICAL conundrums. So much for the hollow and empty protestations that…muslims are peaceful.
“I have seen MSU members shout “F**k you,” “Go back to Israel,” and “We will wipe you off the map” to pro-Israel and Jewish people.”
I have seen them shout…”Back to the ovens and we need another holocaust”.
“you will inevitably see its members posting their grievances about how the U.S. is murdering Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
But never about muslims murdering other muslims with wild, tribal abandon. Like here in the US where Lutherans kill Baptists and Baptists kill Presbyterians and they kill Methodists. Oh…and the Catholics always kill Jews.
“Their large numbers may also play a factor in bolstering their mindset that allows them to act and publicly speak in such outrageous and offensive manners; no matter what the public response is..”
Like the “righteousness” of the libbie, progressive loons when they fire bomb, destroy and torch buildings and cars during an WTO conference? better yet…like CNN or MSNBC when they demonize millions of Americans at a Tea Party rally with cries of racism and teabaggers?
“It is ok to attempt to shut down a pro-Israel event via constant interruption because the speaker represents an evil country that is guilty of the most heinous of crimes.”
Yet…nothing about the Iranian mullahs murdering their own citizens during peaceful protests called ( like our Tea Party ) a Green movement? So much for blind obedience to the ideology of….Islam and all it’s POLITICAL conundrums. So much for the hollow and empty protestations that…muslims are peaceful.
“This passion stems from a stubborn mindset that they have been wronged in some way.”
Of course they have. Their grievance is that we have not already submitted to them, which their holy book tells them is our destiny. The Mohommedans *know* that they are the only people who matter in the eyes of their perverse deity, and they *know* that it is their right, their destiny, to rule us, enslave us, or kill us.
It’s all our fault. We deserve to be hated and attacked.
At least, that’s how things seem when you believe in a religion created by a sociopath.
Muslims are the world’s most backward people.
They use our strength against us. As America is founded on a set of ideas rather than an ethnic composition or a set of borders, accepting people from any place or group, so long as they would adopt our way of life. If you are Japanese you can simply forbid people of a certain religion or country to move in, because they “aren’t Japanese.” Finns don’t believe that being a Finn is something that should be made available to anyone who wants it – they get to choose who comes. But Americans believe that anyone might be made into a good American if they wish to.
The difficulty arises because their are groups in the world – Islamists are the most currently notable but not the only – who believe they should have a right to come and to then change who we are, rejecting core American principles. This is a conflict of values for Americans. We do not want to say “you can’t come here if you are from an Arab country” – though that certainly occurs to us as a simple solution. Neither do we want to tell anyone “once you come here there are certain opinions you can’t hold,” for that goes against core principles. But I fear we cannot fully keep both principles, for those who say “We wish to move to America but not embrace its core values” have found a loophole.
We consider loyalty oaths to be McCarthyite, but they date back much further. GK Chesterton wrote humorously about them in the early years of the 20th C and noted this same contradiction. As an Englishman offended by them at first, he thought about them and found he approved. BTW Western Europe, which is also increasingly a set of ideas rather than a region, is now encountering exactly the same conflict of values about its Muslim immigrants.
As long as we’re asking what motivates these people you can’t ignore that most Muslim rage is driven by their sense of impotency and envy of non-Muslims, especially Jews. Think about it for a minute. In spite of Muslims outnumbering Jews 100 to 1, Muslims have contributed nothing to human progress. No science, no technology, no medicine, no philosophy, no industry, no literature, no art. Who goes abroad to study at universities in the Islamic world? Where do they fit into the modern world? They don’t. They are the antithesis of the enlightenment. Meanwhile Jewish doctors, scientists, engineers and industrialists have made their mark all over the world. Hatred of the Jews is only one small component of the problem. Does anyone really believe that replacing Israel with another backwards Islamic state will bring an end to Islam’s destructive psychosis? I don’t think so. Beheadings, stoning, whipping and honor killings for blasphemy and adultery are still common in many Muslim countries today. The closest these people come to civilisation is to immigrate to it. And once they’re there they start making news. Moscow, Paris, London, New York, Nairobi, Buenos Aires, Malmo, Manchester, Beslan, the list goes on. Stirring up trouble on a university campus is child’s-play for barbarism this old and experienced.
Never mind that Arabs invented algebra, chemistry, hospitals, universities, water purifiers, coffee, toothpaste….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventions_in_medieval_Islam
BJ, understood your argument, but Julia has you on this one. Really it fits in quite well with my comment early in this string. Islam was most dynamic, creative and successful when it was MOST tolerant. When it turned into a vengeful cult bent on the submission of it’s followers (and those they dominated), it turned off the infusion of ideas, culture, art and science. It became corrupt and declined to a point where the inbred ideas of the most radical taint the name of the religion and obscure the greatness of what it once was.
Ahh Julia and Don how simplistic and uneducated you both are . Islam is as Islam does and has ALWAYS done. This MYTHICAL ‘Golden Age” you talk about was when Islam had INVADED and CONQUERED by the Sword many other far more advanced Civilizations and the ‘INVENTIONS’ and “DISCOVERIES’ you attribute to THEM were STOLEN from those ‘more advanced ‘Civilizations . Just think logically if ISLAM and MUSLIMS were so brilliant and clever then what happened??? Because Islamic Nations are the poorest most backward nations on the planet now. Apart from those with OIL of course which they lived on top of an NEVER EVEN KNEW WAS THERE until the wicked White man came and discovered it, recovered it, and invented things to use it for all of which Muslims were and are incapable of doing.
I see Julia uses WIKEPEDIA to confirm her nonsense . Nuff Said!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Most of the ‘inventions’ the Muslims claim they in fact borrowed from the Byzantines, Egyptians, Persians, Hindus or Chinese. And note this very important point- intellectual/technical advancement in the Islamic world came to a screeching halt in the 13th century, when the fundamentalists took over and never let go. Go ahead- try to find a Muslim ‘advance’ since 1300- there are none. Even the high-water mark of All-Conquering Islam, the fall of Constantinople, was only made possible by German siege engineers and their cannons.
Aaron,
I posted this on your blogger blog and I will post it again so the message is clear. What happened to the “Irvine 11″ (as we call them) was the attempt of the heads of UCI and the campus police to state the notion that Oren has more power than they do. If you examine the content of Oren’s presentation versus the things the MSU members shouted at him you would see that Oren’s speech promoting American complicity in Israeli war crimes was far more violent than anything said from the MSU. As the main purpose of the police is to do the bidding of the ruling elite, the main reason that I can see for arresting the eleven was to re-enforce this hierarchy; that Oren’s position as Israeli ambassador to the US gives him the platform to promote something completely contemptible while the eleven’s actions of pointing out why the content of his speech is unethical need to be silenced.
Now I will talk about the content of this article.
I wouldn’t doubt that the mindsets of the MSU members may be leftover from the things they were taught whilst living in their host countries. However, now that they are citizens of the US, I feel that it is their moral responsibility to raise awareness about US-Israeli crimes. As Americans, they share responsible for US-Israeli crimes and can do much more to prevent future US-Israeli crimes from taking place.
Using the “hateful” rhetoric of the MSU’s presentations as an attempt to discredit their overall message (that being, the suffering of the Palestinian people by Israel and the United States) is ridiculous. While I understand that the behaviors of certain activists do more to drive away potential allies than win them, I have to ask if the tactics used by the MSU members really matter. Would a zionist’s message that the Jews deserve a state of their own mean nothing if the zionist’s speech contained racist rhetoric to demonize Arabs? I personally do not believe that the much-coveted “one state solution” (and, as an anarchist, I am reluctant to use the words “state” and “solution” together) is feasible at the moment, and yet I would never discredit Palestinian activists whose goal is this solution if they were doing the brave task of standing up against the crimes committed by the government in which they live under.
Stated is, “They do not defend a cause. They attack other people’s causes.” I would like to know what lead you to that absurd conclusion – or whether or not that statement is just another attempt to discredit their message. As someone who is very active in the Palestinian cause myself – and as someone who attended a college where pro-Israel propaganda was very prevalent – I can say with all honesty that those who fight for the rights of the Palestinians stand on a much higher moral ground than those who spread PR for Israel. For one set of activists, the cause is human rights. For the other side, the cause is the image of a state – something which alone should reveal the arrogance and egotism of it all. For the nationalist (zionist in this case) the state is an extension of his/her ego. If the pro-Israel groups on American college campuses were truly concerned with human rights rather than their own nationalistic pride, they would acknowledge US-Israeli human rights abuses towards the Palestinian people just as often (if not more often) than Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis. After all, US-Israeli crimes are actions that these people fund with their tax dollars and are crimes in which they have the ability to prevent.
As for the “image of the rebel”, I do not believe it is the desire for the “image” that causes the behavior. I will leave you with a quote from one of my favorite philosophers to explain why:
“To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.” – Mikhail Bakunin
Peace.
Christ, what an astounding hodgepodge of leftover drivel circa 1968, Bakhunin quote and all! “Oren’s speech promoting American complicity in Israeli war crimes.” “As the main purpose of the police is to do the bidding of the ruling elite.” “the cause is the image of a state – something which alone should reveal the arrogance and egotism of it all.”
Thanks so much for illustrating the column so very, very well: Muslim fanatics and Leftist looneys really do have a very similar mindset- one which is, thankfully, not shared by sane people.
Julia, The only problem with your mentioning the suffering of the “Palestinians” is that you omitted the fact that it is totally self-inflicted.
Israel has no responsibility for their suffering. Israel just wants to be left alone but your beloved “Palestinians” refuse to cooperate. How long would a sane person tolerate someone poking her in the eye and stepping on her foot? The “Palestinians” are unruly children. Can you teach them that the meaning of life is not fighting for an illegitimate claim on land until the end of time. Let them emigrate to Egypt or Jordan or Syria.
Palestinian (or rather Arab) attacks on the Jews of that region predate 1948. This includes the Safat massacre and the Heron massacre. Also there is the infamous truck bombing in Jerusalem in 1946. This leaves out the countless other attacks and murders the Jews of the region endured. The Moslem rhetoric of the time is not any different than that of today. If you are really interested in justice and humanity, study a little history and not the history given you by the MSU. If you think these people are just shouting lingo, don’t delude yourself. They mean every word they say. Just think you could become complicit in another Holocaust.
excuse my typos
“We must consider what drives these students to such egregious acts of disrespect and hostility.”
Don’t over-think it – being dumb as stumps is probably sufficient.
You sound brainwashed Julia. And BTW, Wiki promotes so many PC, socialist falsehoods you’d think it’s main contributors were campus radicals.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the MSA are IslamoFascist organizations whose goals are the destruction of all kafirs through Jihad, both directly and indirectly.
The members of both organizations should be recognized for what they are, adherents to the Koran and followers of the words of Allah and Mohammed to kill kafirs when they will not submit. This being so they are intolerant of other religions or secular points of view and in fact are supporting the murder of and destruction of all non-believers in the world.
The solution to their pestilence is DEATH. Since they are taking advantage of our Nations’ laws and lying about EVERYTHING, including the history of Israel, Islam, and their religion of peace there is no other ultimate way of dealing with them.
The liberal, politically correct educrats at the Universities are cowed by IslamoFascists and fear them. They fear being called bigots and they are ignorant of the goals of Islam as taught in the Koran. Until other students actually get off their lazy asses and begin reading the Koran and questioning the activity of the Muslim Students’ organizations nothing will change.
There is no room for the Muslim Brotherhood, a known terrorist organization, in the United States and there should not be room for the thugs of the Muslim Student Association/s who rampage across college campuses threatening harm to other students. They are criminals who are getting away with it.
They are offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the known terrorist organization, and they are adherents to the literal belief of the KORAN that kafirs must “submit” or be killed. They are collegiate IslamoNazis who want to kill Jews, destroy Israel and all non-muslim political entities and ideas.
They are definitely not stupid, but are indeed dangerous and not as you think “dumb as stumps”. They are the modern day equivalent of Jew Hating Nazis but include all kafirs (non believers) as their targets. They’re just starting with the Jews because so many leftist, liberal wimps on campus put up with their thuggery.
Silly me for preferring to believe that the closely held beliefs of a billion (+) is not the same as the nihilist death cult that the Salafiyah are. My point is the traditions of the Muslim Brotherhood grew from the Mufti’s hate, his love of the NAZIs and his willingness to bathe his hands in the blood of innocents to further his own warped dreams of Islam triumphant. There is a direct link between the Nazi philosophy, the Mufti, the Muslim Brotherhood and it’s offshoots (AQ and MSU). The “educated” in the MSU should be willing (or be confronted with it) to look at the reality and conform to it, or reject it.
Reality sucks, especially when your politics denies it.
I can understand UCI having a students union for all students. But UCI having a Muslim Student Union? Now that’s just looking for trouble.
Considering that Islam is not compatible with democracy and free speech, and considering Islam breaches the Universal Declaration of Human Rights… I don’t think any more need be said about a Muslim Student Union!
Byzantium invented hospitals, algebra, the flame thrower, chemistry. the architectural dome and so forth and so on…., the evil Muzzlems stole Byzantine history and claimed Byzantine culture as their own. The Muzzlems with the help of western traitors erased Byzantine history from our collective memory. What you are currently witnessing at UC Irvine is akin to a prologue; The Destruction of Byzantium Part II.
“No modern phenomenon has impacted college campuses today more than the Muslim Student Association/Union.”
Not postmodernism? Not affirmative active? Not “hookup culture”? Not drugs? Not easy student loans? Not the Internet? Not the Baby Boom or the GI Bill?
The MSU is an easy and deserving target, but it’s not even close to the most important thing happening on campus.
“It’s no secret that the ratio of Muslim birthrates in the world compared to others is as high as 8 to 1.”
Actually, as high as millions to one: compare the birth rates of Saudi Arabia and Vatican City.
More seriously, yes, birth rates in most Moslem countries and communities are higher than most others, and probably in aggregate Moslem birth rates are above the world average. But in fact birth rates in nearly all Moslem countries have declined very substantially in the last generation: most over 40%, in the case of Iran over 70% to 1.72 (well below the replacement level of 2.1). Algeria and Turkey are also both below replacement level.
Several other Moslem countries are in the range of 2.3 to 4.0. Only Yemen and Afghanistan remain high (along with Africa south of the Sahara). 2.5 to 4.0 is of course much higher than the 1.3 to 1.7 of Europe (which includes Moslems there), but it isn’t 8 to 1. If trends hold, Moslem countries, other than the very poorest, will eventually come to match the low fertility of the West.
The lag will have immense and very dangerous demographic consequences, but the situation should not be exaggerated.
As an adjunct teacher at UCI for the past 12 years, I am aware of Aaron’s writings and have witnessed numerous MSU-speakers spout their venom at UCI. The typical speech is loaded with condemnations of not only Israel, but similar condemnations of the US as well. Often, anti-Semitic statements are suttered by MSU-spensored speakers.
I was also present at Oren’s speech, and the actions of the so-called Irvine Eleven were despicable.
Aaron’s words should be listened to.
Gary Fouse
adj teacher
UCI-Ext
“There will come a time when the MSU will carry out an action so offensive that it will only make sense in the eyes of the everyday observer to quell such behavior in the name of civilized society.”
You are quite naive to believe that. Even if an MSU student dons an explosive vest and blows himself up in the lecture hall, killing the speaker and scores of attendees, the radicals at UCI would cheer this “resistance to oppression” and after a memorial service complete with teddy bears, flowers and grief counselors, UCI would double down on diversity and tolerance.
Remember Fort Hood? Army diversity was deemed more important than a few dead soldiers.
There is more mollycoddling of Muslims after 9/11 than at any time before in American history. Just imagine: after the next most deadly attack by terrorists on US soil, we might just embrace sharia law.
Good essay. Aaron is correct on many points.
The MSU see themselves as rebels seeking justice and do think their cause is so important/worthy that it is okay to trample over other people’s rights. It is too bad they are so misguided.
The MSU appears more interested in attacking Israel than establishing a Palestinian state that would peacefully co-exist with Israel as its neighbor. Working towards establishing a Palestinian state would do more for the Palestinians than constantly trying to demonize and delegitimize Israel as some of the speakers the MSU invite on campus do.
Marches around campus with chants of “Zionism no, the State of Israel has to go” isn’t about Palestinian rights.
The MSU seems focused and disgusted with the fact that Jews have the right of self-determination. It is fine to be critical of Israel. But when a group continuously invites speaker on the campus who say things like there will never be peace until Muslims are in control and spews nonsense that glorifies death, the group loses a lot of credibility as moral leaders that they so much desire.
My question is what is the appropriate way to prostes against someone you believe is a War Criminal and responsible for mass deaths and human rights abuses?
Its not anti-jewish to report the horrors commited by the Israeli government.
If what they are doing is wrong? Why don’t you say what the right way is?
Furthermore Islamic Brotherhood did not create Hamas…sorry
And I think your exxagerating…every year for four years have I seen MSU do their Anti-Israel activities…and while I did see shouting matches and arguments, I never once seen someone hurl an insult or the works.
I did however see Pro-Israeli people silent when the Pro-Palestine guys asked why they(Israel) are violating International law
“Anonymous”:
I usually do not leave comments on my own articles except in cases of extreme nonsense.
Not one word in this article is made up or “exaggerated”. I have seen and heard firsthand the insults thrown by the MSU, as they targeted me. You were not there. Your opinion that I am “exaggerating” means nothing. What you “hear” means nothing. Go to the campus and experience it for yourself if you think I am lying.
Furthermore, you tell me I’m wrong about the Muslim Brotherhood creating Hamas and don’t offer any “correct” answer. Since you didn’t bother to offer an explanation, I’ll ask you: Who created Hamas, Anonymous?
@39. Anonymous
MSU members could have protested outside the event with signs to share their viewpoint. They could have handed out flyers with their perspective outside the event.
They could have posed challenging questions to Oren during the Q & A portion of the event. They could invite speakers to share their perspective at a different site at the university or on another date.
Suggested reading:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/18/opinion/la-oe-chemerinsky18-2010feb18
I am the mother of a religious Jewish high schooler and I resent the fact that UCI is not safe for my child to attend.
I pay taxes in California and I expected my child to have an opportunity to attend university here. UCI is one of the few UCs with a large enough Jewish population for kosher meals and a Shabbat environment, but a few idiots have decided that their desire to riot and threaten Jewish kids is more important than everyone else’s right to an education.
UCI ranks around the middle of the 9 UCs but these crazies bring down the school’s reputation every time they open their mouths. My husband is a professor at another UC and he says that UCI is becoming a laughingstock.
Shame on UCI’s administration for not expelling or arresting the whole lot of them. Every seat at that school should be filled by a truly deserving child who wants to go to college to actually get an education.
The problem with this article is is that I been to several MSU events at UCI and not once have I seen insults hurled at pro-israel people telling them their opinions don’t matter…I actually never saw anyone swearing.
I did however see Pro-Israelis attack MSU on religous grounds claiming they knew Islam was anti-jewish and all that nonsense….the closes to vicous behavior I saw was a Jewish woman getting laughed off by muslims b/c she was telling falsehoolds about Islamic theology and other things that later turned out to be a lie…..she claimed she read the qu’ran and knew the verse that mandated Jews be killed but when someone produced a qu’ran and told her to tell him where the verse was and she wouldn’t. She also claimed to been in Gaza but when questioned she revealed she couldn’t b/c Jews aren’t allowed in…then the muslims told her about Olive Tree and how some of them alongside jews went in there.
Based on what I saw…..despite arguments being heated the MSU are not as antagonistic as you paint them to be…true they need to dial down the fervor but I have not seen threats…Ihave not seen bullying from either side.
assalamu’alaikum wr.wb.
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