Florida Atlantic Terror University

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Introduction

In the summer of 2002, a flyer vilifying Jews and Christians and threatening “confrontation and conflict” was circulated around the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) campus. It stated: “When we Arab-Muslim students came to America for study, we had no idea that we would be forced to mingle with Jew students and take instruction from Jew teachers. This is offensive to us since it is well known that the Jews are the most corrupt and violent people on Earth.”

The flyer, which was put out by a group calling itself the Islamic-Arab Students Defense Committee, went on to list a series of demands addressed to the FAU administration:

• “Separate Jew students from Muslim students. Jews should be taught only by Jew professors and instructors. Muslim students should not be forced to take education from Jews.”
• “Require Jew students to wear some sort of identification so Muslim students can avoid them socially. Indicate Jew professors in the university course listings.”
• “Remove Jew names from college buildings, such as the Friedberg Center.”
• “Refuse to accept donations from Jew sources for scholarships, programs, buildings, etc.”
• “Cease Jew-Zionist and Christian activities in the Breezeway, such as the Hillel desk, the Rabbi and the ministries. It is offensive to Muslims to be solicited by other faiths.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which looked into the matter, deemed the flyer a “hoax,” as no one admitted to having any knowledge of the offending group. [What’s amusing (and foreboding) is that the ADL web page that discusses the matter, instead of being titled “Flier,” was accidentally titled “lier Found at Florida Atlantic University a Hoax.”]

According to the ADL, representatives of the FAU Muslim Student Organization (MSO) “strongly condemned the flyer and distanced themselves from its message” and said that “the message [ran] counter to everything the group [had] worked toward.” But did it?

Part 1: Florida Atlantic Islamic Jihad

The website of the Muslim Student Organization (MSO) at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) is, at the moment, barren. All that’s left is one line on the bottom of the page paying tribute to a past when the school could get away with overlooking that which threatens us all. The line reads, “founded by Drs Hamza & Alhalabi as a window to an innovative world of possibilities and imagination.” But this window is now shattered with shards of glass that cut into the hearts of everyone that has ever suffered the effects of terrorism.

Mohammad Khalid Hamza and Bassem Abdo Alhalabi, while being the founders of FAU’s MSO, also co-founded (through the MSO) the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR). Numerous reports have since come out exposing the ICBR’s connection to extremism and hate, including having a website that featured links to terrorist charities and an essay that stated Jews “are known for their treachery and corruption throughout the world"… words eerily similar to the FAU hate flyer that stated “Jews are the most corrupt and violent people on Earth.” (see above)

The radical connections of the ICBR have not skipped over either Hamza, Alhalabi or the MSO.

Recently, Khalid Hamza was one of the main speakers at the Texas Dawah Annual Conference, an event featuring “addresses broadcast from Riyadh by clerics who have praised holy war and Osama bin Laden.”

Khalid Hamza used a Texas A & M University internet forum to defend Sami Al Arian. Al-Arian was taken into custody by the United States government for his role as the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, was found to have aided in the murder of Americans, and has in the past screamed “Death to Israel.”

Hamza wrote (complete with anti-Jewish imagery), "[sic] technology advances were used but they weren’t the reason behind the poisoning of people’s minds, it is the power behind the media, the power that controls the american media and had been controlling it since early 1900s. for example, what happened to Dr. Sami Alaryan just recently… is unheard of in the 3rd world, but it can only happen now in US and only to the ones who do not belong to the power line.”

Hamza was the author of a novel entitled The Veil, which was being heavily promoted on the FAU MSO website. The book is about a Muslim family living in Boca Raton. The first member of the family, as listed in the forward, is fittingly named Jihad.

Prior to being denied tenure from FAU for “misstating his qualifications on his resume and behaving unprofessionally in the classroom,” Hamza was an advisor to the MSO. He took over for FAU Professor Imadeldin “Imad” Mahgoub, who served from ’93 till ‘99.

Mahgoub, the President of Boca’s Assalam Center, was featured on a panel discussion with Alhalabi and Raed Awad, the former fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas charity that was closed down by the United States government. Awad is also said to be the imam responsible for dirty bomber Jose Padilla’s conversion to Islam. The video of this panel event is found at FAU.

Under Khalid Hamza’s “leadership and guidance,” the group brought numerous radicals to speak at the university. This normally happened under the guise of an annual event called “Scholars’ Night,” which was originally founded by Hamza, in his words, “to help our community of learners to come together to better the world they live in.”

On April 21, 2001, the MSO had its second annual Scholars’ Night, an affair the MSO touted as featuring “several scholars, heroes and heroines.” Of this event, Hamza declared, “Let us build in solidarity a world of peace and harmony; a world of humanity!”

One of the speakers representing that “peace, harmony and humanity” was the Vice Chairman of the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA) Rafil Dhafir, a man that now sits behind bars for raising money for terrorist organizations in the guise of an Iraqi children’s charity called ‘Help the Needy.’ [On November 16, 2002, Dhafir was also a featured speaker at a fundraiser for the ICBR.] He is quoted as saying, “The United States and England are vicious in their war with Iraq.”

In a lecture entitled ‘Dealing with Non-Muslims,’ Dhafir unequivocally states that “Muslims must not befriend Jews and Christians.” In addition, Dhafir has said, “Islam has permitted female circumcision… and none has the right to forbid that what Allah, the Creator, has permitted.” He claimed that those that call female circumcision “a form of genital mutilation” are practicing “misinformation.”

Also speaking at this event was Kathy Kelly, the co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, an anti-war organization that fervently denounces the U.S. government, while cavorting with the enemy (including those that America has imprisoned). She describes the war on Iraq as “unjust, illegal, and immoral.” Kelly is, herself, currently serving a three-month term in federal prison for trespassing onto the Ft. Benning military base in Georgia.

The contact for this event was David “Da’ud” Johnson, who at the time was the President of the FAU MSO. According to the FAU website, Johnson and Alvira Khan, the registrant and technical contact for the MSO website, make up the two highest ranking offices of the Boca Raton student government. Johnson as the Boca Raton Campus Senate Speaker, and Kahn as the Boca Raton Campus Governor.

Khan caused “outrage” on the campus, when she used her position -- with the help of her Chief of Staff Farid Hamidzadeh -- to appoint her political friends to university positions. This included the position of associate director of the campus trained escort service, which accompanies students around campus late at night. This action took away prior input into the position from the police department.

The MSO’s fourth annual Scholars’ Night was held on April 21, 2003. Khalid Hamza was listed as the contact for the event, and he acted as moderator for it.

One of the “scholars” was Siraj Wahhaj, a man named by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White as a possible co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Wahhaj, who is the Imam of Masjid Al-Taqwa in Brookyn and an advisory board member for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), testified as a character witness for convicted terror mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. Wahhaj has been called “the ‘spiritual leader’ of the Islamist Sudanese in America.” (Yossef Bodansky, TERROR! The Inside Story of the Terrorist Conspiracy in America, 1994)

The next “scholar” was William Baker. Described by many as a neo-Nazi, Baker was the past Chairman of the racist and antisemitic organization, the Populist Party.

As Jonathan Calt Harris, in his October 2003 expose in Frontpage Magazine, explains it: “Baker has a long record of anti-Semitism; for example, his self-published 1982 diatribe, ‘Theft of a Nation,’ called for the dismantling of the ‘Zionist State.’ In a 1983 speech to the racist Christian Patriot Defense League in Missouri, Baker referred to the Reverend Jerry Falwell as ‘Jerry Jewry’ (for his friendliness to Jews), and his disgust at traveling to New York City, getting off the plane to meet, ‘pushy, belligerent American Jews.’”

Another speaker was Al-Haaj Ghazi Khankan, the Executive Director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. As a Board Member of the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), Khankan renounced his group’s support for then Senatorial Candidate Hillary Clinton, after she refused to accept the endorsement, and sent out a press release calling her opponent, Congressman Rick Lazio, a “racist” and “bigot.”

Khankan has declared that “‘Jihad’ is known in the West as waging holy war, which is utter nonsense.” Yet, at an anti-war rally held in Washington, D.C., where a previous speaker “called for the overthrow of the U.S. government,” Khankan addressed the protesters by stating, “I bring you salaams and greetings from the Mujahadeen at CAIR.” In Yossef Bodansky’s book, BIN LADEN: THE MAN WHO DECLARED WAR ON AMERICA, Mujahadeen is defined as “Those who wage the jihad; Islam’s holy warriors.” At another anti-war rally, Khankan was a featured speaker along with Sami Al Arian.

On numerous occasions, Khankan has refused to acknowledge that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attacks on 9/11. And on a live chat hosted by ABC News, when asked the question, “What happened that these terrorists hate us so much?” Khankan answered that it was the United States’ own fault. He stated, “I believe that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Look at what our government has done overseas to other countries.”

In the November 15, 2001 edition of The Advocate, Ghazi Khankan stated the following: “We don’t support Hamas and Hezbollah just to support them. I look at the issues. The reason there is a Hamas and a Hezbollah is that the Israelis have terrorized the poor Palestinian people for the last 53 years.” When discussing possible Hamas targets, Khankan is quoted as saying, “Those who are below 18 should not be attacked.”

Through CAIR, Khankan helped set up the Emergency Family Fund to raise finances, including legal funds, for families of possible terrorist detainees, whom the United States has taken into custody. This was done in association with other groups, including the Islamic Circle of North American (ICNA), which “openly supports militant Islamic fundamentalist organizations, praises terrorist attacks, issues incendiary attacks on Western values and policies, and supports the imposition of the shar’ia.” (Steven Emerson, American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, 2002)

The Scholars’ Night events took place right inside the university, in the Barry and Florence Friedberg Lifelong Learning Center Auditorium on FAU’s Boca Raton campus. [Interesting that the only building mentioned in the FAU hate flyer is the Friedberg Center.]

Bassem Alhalabi, the other co-founder of the MSO, was charged with exporting a $13,000 thermal imaging camera to Syria. The Department of Commerce (DOC) restricts the export of the camera to foreign countries. The device is used to produce heat-sensitive images of buildings, landscapes and ground areas. According to the DOC report, “thermal imaging cameras are controlled for export to Syria for national security, regional stability, and anti-terrorism reasons.” Alhalabi claimed his brother wanted it, so that he could search for gold. The sentence he received was a one-year denial of export privileges.

Alhalabi was a colleague of Sami Al Arian’s at the University of South Florida, and according to his resume, wrote various publications with Al Arian around the time that Al Arian was beginning to set the groundwork for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in America. Alhalabi gave Al Arian as a reference, when he sought employment at FAU.

Another person that Bassem Alhalabi wrote publications with is Hussam Jubara. Along with Al Arian, Jubara co-founded the ICP (Islamic Committee for Palestine a.k.a. Islamic Concern Project), a think tank that solicited funds for the express purpose of assisting families of suicide bombers. Alhalabi admits to having worked for Jubara and states that he is a “close friend.” Jubara was indicted by a federal grand jury on three counts of lying on immigration forms.

FAU’s connection to the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad should raise suspicions. The school’s relationship to Hamas should raise hell.

Part 2: Florida Atlantic Hamas

The year was 1998. A charity was set up, through the Florida Department of Corporations, using the designation Health Resource Center for Palestine (HRCP). The corporation transmittal letter was written in the name of Lamyaa M. Hashim, a well-traveled poet, journalist and all-around Islam activist who was to be the Chairman of the group. On January 14, 1999, the letter was amended as “Health Resource Center for Palestine, Inc. C/O SYED AHMAD.”

Syed Khawer Ahmad, prior to getting involved with the HRCP, was taking courses at FAU. He was so proud of this fact that he created (and preserved) a web page on his personal website dedicated to his school. The link to the page (www.gate.net/~sahmad/fau.htm) states, “Visit FAU – Yep, My School in South Florida.” But that wasn’t the only page he made for his site.

Another page he created was devoted to the Islamic Society (Al Jamiya Al Islamiya) a.k.a. Islamic Association, the largest charitable foundation in the Gaza Strip. Ahmad’s page (www.gate.net/~sahmad/islamic_association.htm) was, at the time, the official website to the organization.

The content on the page, at first glance, looks very amiable, if not commendable. It discusses a summer youth camp run by the foundation that includes “Educational activity, Sports, Arts, Fun & Entertainment, Scout & Civil [sic] defence, Field trips and even Marine trips…" And it gives details about Islamic Society orphan sponsorship and kindergartens.

There are messages on the page from the Director of the Islamic Society, Ahmad Bahar. He states that the goal of the camp “is to prepare an intellectual future generation,” and the kindergartens “open for the child horizons of [sic] bright and flourishing future.”

The page contains things that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, warm enough to make the donations they’re asking for (“We greatly appreciate your cooperation and generosity.”) Then you lift the veil and find out what evil lies behind!

In the beginning of 2001, the Islamic Society created two new websites, one for its main headquarters in Gaza City (www.jislamia.org), which replaced Syed Ahmad’s site, and one for its Nusirat location (www.islam-society.org).

On the main site, before it was shut down in June of 2002 [the Nusirat site is still up at its new location www.islamso.org], it contained on its homepage a picture of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. Yassin founded the Islamic Society in 1976. That’s eleven years before he founded the Hamas terror organization, to which he is currently the spiritual leader.

The current head of the Islamic Society is, as stated previously, Ahmad Bahar. Bahar is also a leader in Hamas. It is not surprising then to find out that he, “along with masked armed men affiliated with the Qassam Brigades,” the military wing of Hamas, “took part in the funeral procession of Reem Saleh Al-Rayashi who blew herself up at the Erez crossing to the north of Gaza Strip,” killing four and wounding ten others. The camps and kindergartens that Bahar runs are, in reality, training grounds for future suicide bombers.

On the Islamic Society website, one finds various pictures of disturbing images taken from their 2001 kindergarten graduation ceremony. They include children dressed in military fatigues brandishing and aiming rifles and burning Israeli flags. One picture is of a child made to resemble Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, while reciting a speech made by the terrorist leader. And another is of a girl raising her red ink stained hands, “in imitation of the terrorist murderer who raised his bloodstained hands after the lynch of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers in Ramallah.”

At the graduation, the children acted out a series of plays, one of which had the children pledge their “duty to revenge the blood of the shahids (martyrs) and to continue the resistance and the Intifada.”

The ceremony ended with a speech made by Bahar. In the speech, he praised suicide bombers, including Mahmud Marmash, a member of Hamas who blew himself up in the Sharon Mall in Netanya, killing five and wounding 74. In Bahar’s words, Marmash “blew up the conquerors in Netanya.”

On the Islamic Society website, you will find a link to what was then the official website of Hamas (www.palestine-info.org). You will find a photo (in the site’s “Sport” section) of a soccer team posing for a team picture, holding a painting of a martyr. You will find how much money it takes for the Islamic Society to carry out “goat sacrifices.” And you will find a summary of the foundation’s activities, which include:

• “Distributing about $60,000 to injury and martyrs families and some food boxes”
• “Making fast breaking meals for martyrs families”
• “Making Respecting party for martyrs families in beach camp… and other areas in Gaza… every martyrs family was given $1000 and gave some prizes as martyrs picture”

In February of 2002, Syed Ahmad removed two pages from his website. One was the Islamic Society page noted previously and one was the homepage for a non-profit organization established by the Islamic Society called Dar-ul-Qur’an Al-Karim (www.gate.net/~sahmad/daralquran/).

However, one page Ahmad did not remove was the homepage for the Sanabel Asthma-Allergy Society a.k.a. Sanabel Charitable Society (www.gate.net/~sahmad/sanabel.htm). According to the page, Sanabel was established in 1992 as “the first and only allergy-asthma society in Gaza.”

Listed on the page as the “Representative in the USA” is Lamyaa Hashim, the Chairman of the Health Resource Center for Palestine (HRCP), and the center’s name, address and e-mail is given as the “USA contact” for the Gaza charity.

In a report published in October 2003, the HRCP is said to have closed down due to its ties to the terrorist organization Hamas, which probably includes the HRCP’s past affiliation with the Hamas front Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). The HRCP website, which has in the past admitted to raising money for “shuhada” (martyrs), states that it was closed down for “unforeseen reasons.”

Of course, none of this would matter much to someone who was creating Hamas related websites. While Syed Ahmad was with the HRCP, he took on many tasks, including that of Secretary, Treasurer and Webmaster. In May of 2002, Ahmad gave up his jobs as Secretary and Treasurer to Karina “K.A.” Rahim, who also was a student at FAU.

On October 14, 2000, Rahim found herself at a rally in Miami where Israeli flags were burned and where “pro-jihadi slogans” were chanted, “such as ‘We don’t want negotiation, with jihad we’ll claim our nation,’ and ‘With jihad we’ll claim our land, Zionist blood will wet the sand.’”

In addition, the Imam of the ICBR, Ibrahim Dremali, told the crowd “not to be sad for those who were martyred and to not be afraid to die for what they believe in.” Rahim, herself, had what to say at the rally. She stated, “I think what the Israeli Jews are doing is a crime against humanity. They [the Israelis] need to get out of that land [Palestine].”

This information is found in an article written for www.islamonline.net, a site that “publishes religious/legal opinions in support of suicide bombings” and a site that has sponsored a live internet chat with Hamas leader Ahmad Yassin. After negative press, some of the material found in the article was deleted. The piece was written by Lamyaa Hashim (under her alter ego “Um Ahmad”).

Syed Ahmad was a Director for the HRCP, up until the charity’s dissolution on April 18, 2003. And Syed Ahmad was also a Director for the Islamic Center of Boca Raton, from its inception in 1998 till April 30, 2002.

Question: What has come of Syed Ahmad, following his departure from the HRCP and ICBR?

Soon all was quiet at FAU. Talk about Professors Hamza and Alhalabi (see Florida Atlantic Terror University Part 1) had died down, and Syed Ahmad was little more than an afterthought. But something happened to change all that.

On October 3, 2003, Matty Cohen, the Deputy Consul General of Israel stationed in Miami, sent out a letter conveying the fact that one of FAU’s professors was tied to Hamas. It stated, “I can confirm to you that Dr. Abu Sway is known as an activist in the framework of the Hamas organization.”

The information reached Middle East expert Daniel Pipes, who promptly followed it up with an article exposing the professor to the public. Indeed, there was and is much to expose.

In 1998, Mustafa Mahmoud Abu Sway was the co-editor of the book ‘Islam in Focus,’ which is distributed by Amana Publications, a company that publishes a Koran -- whose editor was raided by the FBI -- that describes Jews and Christians with such incendiary terms as “arrogant,” “illiterate,” “cursed” and “treacherous.”

Abu Sway is not only an editor, but an author as well. In a recent essay he wrote, entitled ‘Said Nursi and the People of the Book,’ Abu Sway works diligently to explain and expound upon the statements made by “religious scholar” Bediuzzaman Said Nursi.

Abu Sway undoubtedly holds a fondness for Said Nursi, stating in the introduction that Said Nursi’s ideas are “attractive.” And Abu Sway describes him as being like that of a prophet, where his ideas “hold up a light to the future.”

Some of Said Nursi’s “attractive” and “futuristic” ideas that Abu Sway chose to highlight in his essay are as follows:

• “The Dajjal (Islamic Anti-Christ) will draw his main strength from the Jews. The Jews will follow him willingly… both Dajjals will win the assistance of a secret Jewish society which nurtures a terrible desire for revenge on Islam and Christianity…"
• “And there is no question, after it [Judaism] has been purified of corruptions, of Judaism acting together with Christianity in the future… As for the second group [Christians], being overcome by the power of anger they become aggressive, and abandoning the precepts of religion they fall into sin and wrongdoing. Like the Jews in their obduracy.”
• “It is because of these fearsome rules governing the destiny and character of this nation [Jews] that the Qur’an acts so severely against them. It deals them awesomely punishing slaps.”
• “These two statements of the Qur’an directed at the Jews, comprise the two fearsome general rules, that that nation hatches plots in human social life with their trickery, which shake human society… and through usury and compounded interest, made the poor clash with the rich, and caused the banks to be founded, and amassed wealth through wiles and fraud; so it was again that nation who, in order to take its revenge on the victors and governments under which it always suffered deprivation and oppression, was involved in every sort of corrupting covert organization and had a finger in every sort of revolution.”
• “For the Jews, who have been persecuted by every state, gathered in large numbers in Germany in order to take their revenge. Then, due to the important role he played in the founding of the revolutionary communist party, the terrible Trotsky, who was a Jew, took over the leadership of the Russian Army, then the government after the famous Lenin, who had trained him, and they [the Jews] set fire to Russia and laid waste whatever it had achieved over a thousand years.”
• “In the human kingdom, the Jews have clung to the world more greedily and have loved its life with more passion than any other people, but the usurious wealth they have gained with great efforts is merely illicit property over which they exercise temporary stewardship, and it benefits them little. It earns them, on the contrary, the blows of abjection and humiliation, of death and insult, that are rained down on them by all peoples.”
• “He it is Who sent His Messenger with guidance and the Religion of Truth, to proclaim it over all religion predicts with complete certainty that ‘the religion which the Noble Messenger brought would triumph over all religions'… The future confirmed this prediction, with the sword of Islam extending from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west... It is Islam that will be the true, and spiritual, ruler over the future.”

In the course of the essay, Abu Sway, who seems in agreement with everything Bediuzzaman Said Nursi states, makes his own opinions known:

• “The Qur’an addresses the People of the Book [Jews and Christians] saying: ‘O People of the Book! O People of the Book!’ Bediuzzaman did the same. It seems that the Qur’an addresses the People of the Book in this way because they are the people who are in most need of its guidance.”
• “If considered analytically, it is seen that Said Nursi expressed views similar to those of other Islamic scholars, for he believes that the Jews have been the object of Divine wrath and chastisement because of the corruption they have caused on the face of the earth. As for their stand on the Palestine question, it is tied to Zionist ideology. In reality this is corruption of another sort. For which reason most people are expecting the Jews to again be chastised. For up to the present, Divine wisdom has never delayed in meting out chastisement. In the above passage, Said Nursi is indirectly criticizing the Jews, because the Arabs are more numerous and possess more land. However, in my opinion, while referring to the future of the Muslim Umma, these words hint that he wants Muslims to make wide preparations in order to foil the enemies’ plans.”

In 2001, Abu Sway co-wrote a seventh-grade school textbook for the Palestinian Authority entitled ‘Kitab Al-Tarbiyah Al-Islamiyyah, whereby Jews are portrayed as the enemy. He writes, “The Jews adopted a position of hostility and deception towards the new religion. They called Muhammad a liar and denied him, they fought against his religion in all ways and by all means, a war that has not yet ended until today, and they conspired with the hypocrites and the idolaters against him and they are still behaving in the same way.” (Kenneth R. Timmerman, PREACHERS OF HATE: Islam and the War on America, 2003)

Furthermore, in the textbook, Abu Sway states a fundamental position of Hamas: “If the enemy has conquered part of its land and those fighting for it are unable to repel the enemy, then Jihad becomes the individual religious duty of every man and woman, until the attack is successfully repulsed and the land liberated from conquest...” In another passage, he writes: “These noble verses prove the virtue of jihad... and warn against evading a jihad in the path of G-d… and warn Muslims not to defy His word nor refrain from jihad.” And “This religion will defeat all other religions and it will be disseminated, by Allah’s will, through the Muslim Jihad fighters.” And “Martyrdom is when a Muslim is killed in the path of G-d... A person who dies thus is called a ‘martyr’... Martyrdom for G-d is the hope of all those who believe in G-d and have trust in His promises... The martyr rejoices in the paradise that G-d has prepared for him.”

In a debate concerning the motives of suicide bombers held on September 17, 2001, Abu Sway said that there are verses in the Koran which “clearly state that there is a place in heaven for… martyrs.”

On April 28, 2000, Abu Sway participated in a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event, entitled ‘The Evolution of Islamic Movements in the Arab World,’ along with Jordanian Abdul Latif Arabiyat. Arabiyat is the president of the Shura Council (the legislative body) of the Islamic Action Front (IAF). According to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the IAF is “an Islamist party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas” and “articulates support for terrorism vocally and actively.” The IAF “hailed the June 1, 2001 Tel Aviv suicide bombing that killed 20 Israelis, most of them teens, as a ‘heroic martyrdom operation.’” About the videotape the Bush Administration released showing Osama bin Laden gloating over the September 11^th attacks, Arabiyat flippantly asks, “Do the Americans really think the world is that stupid to think that it would believe that this tape is evidence?”

From 1997 till 2002, Abu Sway is documented as participating in a series of PASSIA dialogues and roundtable discussions with various terrorists, including Hamas leaders Sheikh Jamil Hamami and Sheikh Hassan Yousef (who is currently in prison). Others that Abu Sway participated with included:

• Muzaffar Iqbal (“These Jews are absolutely devoid of any respect for the faith and religion of others. But it should not surprise anyone, since they learn such abusive and dirty tricks from their own SCRIPTURES, which are filled with shameless stories of incest and pornography…")
• Fatah leader Hatem Abdel-Qader (“If we have the choice of an Israeli presence or Hamas in Gaza, of course we would choose Hamas or any other Palestinian faction.”)
• Grand Mufti Ekrima Sabri (“The younger the martyr, the greater and the more I respect him… I talked to a young man who said, ‘I want to marry the black-eyed women of heaven.’ The next day he became a martyr. I am sure his mother was filled with joy about his heavenly marriage. Such a son must have such a mother.”)
• Waqf director Adnan Husseini (“We’ll not let Jews, Christians on Temple Mount.”)
• Al Aqsa mosque director Mohammed Hussein (“We, as Moslems, are serious about protecting the Haram as-Sharif. We will not allow any non-Moslems here.”)
• Mahdi Abdul Hadi (“If we do not want to lose everything, we must send a message to the Israeli public that we are in favor of a peaceful solution. If this does not happen, we will all become Hamas…")

On June 5, 2002, ABC News Nightline held a forum in which Abu Sway acknowledged that there is an acceptable “darker interpretation” of the term “jihad,” a definition “used by militant Muslims to justify everything from the battles against the crusaders to the mujahideens’ first Afghanistan war against the Soviets.” Abu Sway stated, “We have to admit that at one point it is permitted for Muslims to have self-defense and this is the equivalent of a ‘Just War’ in Christian theology.”

At a 2002 interfaith conference, Abu Sway “remarked, to audible gasps from Jews in the audience, that he wished the state of Israel ‘would disappear’” and that “Islamic law proscribes war against any nation in dar-el-islam, land once occupied by Moslems, including Spain and Israel.”

In a report published in September 2003 by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) entitled ‘Healing the Holy Land,’ Abu Sway is quoted as saying, “When traditional Muslims find themselves as a minority in society [in Israel or Western countries], their aspiration is to restore or establish sovereign majority status. To imagine shared sovereignty or dual sovereignty is not being faithful to Islamic tradition.” The report goes on to say, “For Abu Sway, the idea of two states existing side by side is unrealistic… He advocates a single state, governed in accordance with Islamic principles…" Abu Sway calls this a “utopian position.”

This position is not out of the ordinary for someone like Abu Sway who, in a March 2003 interview with the Islamic Broadcasting Network, claimed that Al Jezeera, also known as “Jihad-TV,” was more “fair” in its coverage of the ‘war on terrorism’ than Fox News!

In December of 2003, Abu Sway participated in a Chicago conference that was organized by the Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), two organizations said to have ties to Hamas.

In a July 2003 interview of Abu Sway done by the MAS – an interview where he admits that he was at the al Aqsa mosque “the first day of the new Intifada” – Abu Sway again discusses his dream of an annihilated Israel. He states that he “wishes to reclaim the holiness of the land” and that even though the Arab gambling casino in Jericho “almost exclusively destroys the lives of Jewish families,” even then he “cannot accept it Islamically.” He declares that it is his belief that “the future rule has to be a post-Zionist entity.”

In the same interview, Abu Sway described Israeli self defense as “state terrorism” and then touted the Hamas line that “ultimately, if one targets the military forces of the occupier, then I don’t think that it is terrorism.” In an interview with Islam Online, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, stated, “My brother, certainly we don’t target women, children or the elderly in our operations. But the ‘Mujahed’ goes out to find a concentration of soldiers and military men, whether in civilian or military clothes and attack them. This is our first and last target…"

And in the interview, Abu Sway repeated an often told lie that Arabs were driven out of Israel in 1948. He states, “What I hope for the future is to see the Palestinians going back to their homes from which they have been uprooted, from which they were driven by force in 1948.” From BATTLEGROUND: FACT & FANTASY IN PALESTINE, by Samuel Katz, “The Arab refugees were not driven from Palestine by anyone. The vast majority left, whether of their own free will or at the orders or exhortations of their leaders, always with the same reassurance – that their departure would help in the war against Israel… Their victory was certain, they claimed, but it would be speeded and made easier if the local Arab population got out of the way. The refugees would come back in the wake of the victorious Arab armies and not only recover their own property but also inherit the houses and farms of the vanquished and annihilated Jews.”

This was certainly a big lie… but not as big as the one Abu Sway would later tell when he made the claim that he has “no connection to Hamas.”

As reported by Daniel Pipes and Asaf Romirowsky in January of 2004, according to Israeli sources, Abu Sway:

• was a board member and raised funds for two Jerusalem-based Hamas-related organizations shut down by the Israeli government, the Heritage Committee and the Foundation for the Development of Society.
• has worked with the Palestinian “Charity Coalition” that includes such organizations as Al-Aqsa Foundation of South Africa and France’s Comité de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens, both known Hamas fund-raisers which have had their assets frozen by the American government.
• is connected to Sheik Ra’ed Salah’s Islamic Movement in Um al-Fahm, Israel, 14 members of which were arrested in May 2003 for Hamas fundraising.

Florida Atlantic University has claimed that it has not ignored the situation concerning Mustafa Abu Sway. The school insists that it has asked the State Department to investigate the matter, and it cannot be said enough just how serious this matter truly is. However, with all the radicals that have either been hired by FAU or have passed through the school, one would think that FAU itself should not be ignored.

Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate. You can visit the group’s website, at www.americansagainsthate.com. And you can view all of Joe’s archived articles, at www.joe4rep.com.