Muslim Student Union: A Well-Deserved Fisking

[OK, let's try this again. I just lost a half hour of work. Grr.]

My brother at UC Irvine just forwarded me an article by Mona Abdallah in the school paper, the New University. The article, MSU Speak Against Atrocities, is responding to a previous article by Adam Cooper, titled MSU Impedes Peaceful Talks. Read both to get the necessary background, but in brief, there was a pro-Israel rally at UCI featuring the bombed-out Bus 19, followed a few days later by a pro-Palestinian rally featuring the bomb-throwing Amir Abd al-Malik Ali.

I will only be quoting selected portions of the article, so if you should want to see the original, just click above. Let the fisking begin!

The MSU’s only aim is to speak out against and inform the student body of the horrors and atrocities carried out against the Palestinian people as a result of the Zionist movement and the state of Israel. The MSU is not anti-Jewish in any way, shape or form.

The MSU speaks out against Zionism which is, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a political movement aimed at creating a Jewish national state of Israel in Palestine through means of occupation.

It just so happens that we have this new invention called the "Internet." Using this "Internet," I can go over to Merriam-Webster's "website" and look up the "definition" myself. Here it is:

Main Entry: Zi·on·ism
Pronunciation: 'zI-&-"ni-z&m
Function: noun
: an international movement orig. for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel

Your "means of occupation" crack is your own invention, and just a way of injecting emotional language into the discussion under the assumed authority of a dictionary. How sad.

This does not mean that all Jews are Zionist, a point repeatedly made by Amir Abdel Malik Ali.

Why, how generous of you. Never mind that you are arguing that your people have a right to a state, but ours do not.

I was not aware that it is crime for a campus organization to speak out against oppression, occupation and humanitarian violations and stand up to the face of injustice carried out against the Palestinian people.

Or does it become a crime because the state spoken against is Israel?

Actions that you have just described are perfectly legitimate, and indeed necessary. Unfortunately, that's not all that went on there, is it?

Adam Cooper is wrong in calling MSU’s invited speaker a war rally. A war rally is not a man speaking the truth about the horrors of Israel against the defenseless Palestinian people.

Ummm... I wouldn't call them "defenseless," exactly. Unless you don't consider tens of thousands of assault rifles, thousands of mortars, antitank grenades, explosive belts, etc. to be defensive. In which case, they are offensive. Which is exactly the point of this whole situation, because we find them very offensive.

And why in the world would Amir-Abdel Malik and MSU be anti-Semitic when so many of the group’s members are Semites themselves?

Oh, boy. Like this tired line hasn't been trotted out for decades. Let's cut to the chase; we all know what people mean when they say "anti-Semetic." It's a legacy of the old "scientific" theories that sought to justify Jew-hatred on a racial basis.

Is it not appalling that our government is currently in the process of delivering a grand Mid-East peace solution, and as a response the Jerusalem Coalition drags an Israeli symbol of sympathy across the country to once again utilize public pity only to misinform the public as to why this bus was really destroyed.

And here we see the real you. "Why this bus was really destroyed"? In other words, why the murder of innocents was justified?

Now class, repeat after me: "Two wrongs don't make a right." Or in other words, there is no possible justification for the deliberate targeting of civilians!! Example: The Nazis murdered six million Jews. Would we then be justified in murdering six million German innocents in response? Hell, no! So sorry, young lady, but you aren't going to get a whole lot of credibility by supporting murderers.

If Jerusalem Coalition’s goal is to show what terrorism looks like, then why didn’t they bring the thousands of demolished refugee camps, decapitated children and the millions of bulldozed olive trees from Bethlehem along with them?

Thousands of refugee camps? I didn't even know there were thousands of refugee camps, much less thousands of demolished refugee camps. Maybe you should look at the aerial photos from Jenin to get a little rational thought going. (Hat tip: Little Green Footballs)

And why don't you ask yourself why the "refugee camps" still exist in the first place? Or how many other "refugee camps" have sewers, cable TV, and multiple-story buildings?

As far as the olive trees go, however, Ms. Abdallah has a point. The Torah expressly forbids cutting down fruit trees in wartime. This is one of several examples of immoral Israeli policies that would never happen if the state were not so militantly secular.

These intentions are not to create peace, but to continue to label the Palestinian people as non-negotiating terrorists by squashing hope for peace and igniting hate as well as animosity.

Aside from the fact that you don't know how to construct a good English sentence, you assume that we need to label you as anything. We don't, because Hamas and Islamic Jihad are doing a great job on their own.

Dragging Bus 19 to America now – after the first successful democratic Palestinian elections, when the Palestinians are burying their grief for the sake of peace and when Europe, America and the Palestinians are actually working toward peace with the Israelis – shows that the intentions of showcasing the bus are not to end terror, but to end the efforts for peace.

Europe, America and the Palestinians are working for peace with Israel!? Get it straight: Israel has been the only one making concessions ever since the beginning, and that hasn't changed yet. The only reason that anything new is going on is because Arafat finally croaked, and the Europeans are leaning on Abbas instead of pulling their usual shtick with Israel.

Now, more than ever, the terror groups must be delegitimized, or else Abbas won't be able to follow through on his end. (If he even intends to do so in the first place. I remain skeptical.)

The Coalition showed UCI students what happened to Bus 19, but they didn’t care to explain why this would happen.

Why? Because a mass-murderer decided to strap on explosives and blow the bus up, that's why! See above for further clarification.

It is not fair to claim that an Israeli solider who sits in an F-16 fighter jet dropping thousand-pound bombs on a Palestinian village, looking for one man but killing hundreds in the process, is an act of security. This seems like terrorism, as well.

If by "village" you mean "cramped metropolis," by "thousand-pound bombs" you mean "five-hundred-pound bombs, rarely, and most often Hellfire missiles," and by "hundreds" you mean "one or two, vary rarely" (except for one strike which killed, I believe, sixteen civilians), then you would be accurate.

And because they are indeed "looking for one man," it is emphatically not terrorism. The men in question are acting to murder Israelis.

Would the Palestinians be looked at any differently if they had a more sophisticated way of defending themselves against the gruesome Israeli occupation?

It's not the method that is the problem here. I have very little problem with suicide bombers who attack military targets, in Israel or Iraq. If you want to call this a war of resistance, then you should be attacking the occupying army, not innocent people trying to live out their lives without getting disembowelled by flying shrapnel.

But that would be asking too much. After all, the army shoots back, doesn't it? Far easier to attack those least capable of resisting, like school children.

I dare to ask all American citizens reading this, if our country was being attacked by a foreign invasion right now, and Americans stood up to say that they would use their bodies and all means possible to defend our land, would you call them terrorists or freedom fighters?

Oh. My. God.

If Americans tried to kill enemy soldiers, they would be freedom fighters.

If Americans tried to murder innocent people, in America or by crossing the border into the offending country and killing them there, they would be murderers and a disgrace to this land and its people.

And that is the difference. Americans and Israelis scorn and punish murderers. Palestinians, not all of them but enough, glorify and support murderers. And you want Israel to give you a state?

Not a chance. Not until you prove that you actually deserve one, by casting out the evildoers from your midst. And the first step in doing so is to acknowledge that, yes, murdering people is wrong, and has no "explanations," "mitigating factors," or "justifications."

If the Muslim Student Union is actually supporting these murderers, I see no reason why they should be permitted on a government-funded campus. Do you?