Commonly sponsors events and guest speakers with rabidly anti-American, anti-Israel hatred
The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) chapter of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) was formed "to meet the specific needs of the underrepresented Muslim community on campus and create a sense of unity while developing Muslims to be leaders within the community." In practice, this organization is rife with hatred for Jews and for the State of Israel.
MSA UCLA operates both on campus and off -- organizing events that feature militant guest speakers, co-sponsoring events and conferences with radical Islamic groups, and co-sponsoring fundraisers on behalf of the same. In addition, the organization uses its publication, Al-Talib, to disseminate its anti-Semitic, anti-Israel views.
On May 3, 2000, MSA UCLA and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) co-sponsored a protest against an Israeli Independence celebration at the Hollywood Palladium.
When the Staples Center in Los Angeles was the site of the Democratic National Convention on August 17, 2000, Ghaith Mahmoud of MSA UCLA spoke at a rally just outside the stadium, protesting the United Nations sanctions against Iraq. Lining a narrow sidewalk through which the thousands of Democrat delegates had to pass to return to their hotels, the demonstrators chanted slogans denouncing presidential candidates Al Gore (for allegedly having perpetrated genocide in Iraq during the Bill Clinton administration) and George W. Bush (for having overseen the "racist" executions of convicted murderers in Texas).
On October 22, 2000 at the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles, MSA UCLA members Arif Shaikh and Ahmed Shama (who was then the President of the organization) led a demonstration protesting "Israeli aggression" against Palestinians. On the official rally notification e-mail disseminated by CAIR, the email addresses of both students were listed as contacts for further information.
This October 22 rally featured repeated chants of "Death to Israel!" and "Death to Jews!" emanating from the crowd. Ahmed Shama shouted "Victory to Islam! Death to the Jews." "Our solution is simple," he told those in attendance. "We are not simply anarchists. … Our solution is the establishment of justice by Islamic means. That is the only solution to this Israeli apartheid." Criticizing Israeli/Palestinian peace talks, Shama added:
"When we see negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who is a racist Zionist, and on the other side is Yasser Arafat, who used to be a so-called 'Arab activist,' but is now a racist Zionist, being mediated by Bill Clinton, who is a racist Zionist. And Hosni Mubarak … the President of Egypt, who is a racist Zionist. And King Hussein II of Jordan, who is a racist Zionist. When we see that a peace process is being negotiated between Zionists, mediated by Zionists, controlled by Zionists, and being portrayed in the media by Zionists, we come and we condemn all of you. ... Because you are racist Zionists. And we will not accept their definition of peace. I will not accept their definition of Islam. We will define Islam the way that the Prophet, peace be upon him, defined it."
Shama also burned an Israeli flag while a jubilant crowd chanted "Khaibar, Khaibar, O Jews, the army of Mohammed is coming for you," and "Death to Israel, victory to Islam."
Guest speaker Sohail Shakry, President of MSA West, stepped to the podium and quoted the following words of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah: "If we look at the situation the past 52 years, the biggest impediment to peace has been the existence of the Zionist State of Israel. Since the existence of this state, we have had wars, conflicts, killings, massacres. If we really want true peace then we must see that it goes with the elimination of the Zionist entity in the middle of the Muslim world."
Another featured speaker was Hussam Ayloush, a member of CAIR-Southern California region, who complained about the "racist" practices of Israel, and about the American "tax dollars used to kill the innocents of Palestine." Pleading for the rally participants to help Palestinian "victims and orphans," he suggested sending money on their behalf to a charity named the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) -- which in December 2001 would be shut down by the U.S. government because of its financial ties to Hamas.
On January 21, 2001, MSA UCLA sponsored an event titled "Shaping Our Perspective: Our Role in a Changing World." Guest speaker Abdul-Alim Musa (Imam of Masjid al-Islam in Washington, D.C.) told the crowd: "If you were to say that the Soviet Union was wiped off the face of the earth . . . people would have thought you were crazy, right? The people of Afghanistan didn't have the intellect or historical knowledge to know that they wasn't supposed to wipe out the Soviet Union, is that right? . . . We saw the fall of one so-called superpower, Old [Uncle] Sam is next." Hatem Bazian also spoke at this event.
On February 10, 2001, MSA UCLA co-sponsored a fundraiser for the Defense Fund of Ahmad Chaudhry, who had been charged with the attempted murder of two of his college roommates in San Bernardino County. (Chaudhry would eventually be convicted.) Among the speakers at this event was CAIR's Hussam Ayloush.
In April 2001, MSA UCLA hosted the MSA West annual conference, which featured guest speaker Imam Muhammad al-Asi, an anti-Semitic Shiite cleric who supports the Iranian regime and the militant Islamic movement in general. Al-Asi's speech included the following remarks:
"You have the Jews who are blind and deaf and dumb, who cannot see the same forms of racism, or discrimination, of oppression that is institutionalized and implemented by one of their own; and that is the Israeli, Zionist government in Tel Aviv… Discrimination, if it is against a gentile, is not objectionable; but anything that happens against a Jew becomes a Holocaust…Where is the courageous Jew who can come out and say Israel is as fascist as the most fascist of Europe? Israel is as racist as Apartheid could ever be.
"… In the meantime, the Zionist-Israeli lobby ... is taking the United States government and the United States people to the abyss. We have a psychosis in the Jewish community that is unable to co-exist equally and brotherly [sic] with other human beings. You can take a Jew out of the ghetto, but you cannot take the ghetto out of the Jew."
In May 2001, MSA UCLA co-sponsored a conference called "The Israeli Palestinian Crisis: New Conversations for a Pluralist Future." Among the participating organizations were CAIR and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. At this conference, Israel was smeared as a terrorist state and a practitioner of racist apartheid. Guest speaker Salam al-Marayati decried America's financial and military aid to Israel. Abdel Karim (a member of CAIR) equated Zionism with South African apartheid. Professor Rashid Khalidi defended the Palestinian Intifada. And Mahmoud Ibrahim, a professor at Cal Poly Pomona, likened the actions of the Israeli army to those of the Nazis during the Holocaust.
At an Undergraduate Student Association Council (USAC) meeting in May 2001, MSA UCLA proposed a resolution condemning the Israeli government's alleged violations of Palestinian human rights. The resolution included requests that USAC: (a) "condemn political Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination"; and (b) "condemn the institutionalized discrimination and oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli government."
At the Seventh Annual MSA West Conference held at the University of Southern California in January 2005, former MSA UCLA member Ahmed Shama said: "We want to restore Islam to the leadership of society. … In short, we want to make the word of Allah supreme in every single aspect of life. … The end goal of everything that we're talking about is the reestablishment of the Islamic form of government. … We have an obligation to make sure that our MSAs are part of the global Islamic movement."
