The Brown & White

The Muslim Student Association, a national student group that has chapters at many colleges, including Lehigh, is linked to Islamic terrorist groups, a speaker said Thursday evening in Packard Auditorium.

"My concern is that organizations like the MSA pretend to be religious and cultural organizations that are really political organizations," said David Horowitz, a conservative writer and activist.

"Just as there are good Christians and bad Christians and good Jews and bad Jews, there are also good Muslims as well as bad ones," Horowitz said. "The good ones outnumber the bad ones, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about the bad ones."

Horowitz said the national Muslim Student Association is a part of the Muslim Brotherhoodm, an organization that, according to Horowitz, also created al-Qaida and Hamas. Horowitz said the plan of the Muslim Brotherhood is to infiltrate America and take down Western civilization.

Horowitz said he does not know much about the Muslim Student Association at Lehigh, except that they would not sign a petition to reform a hadith, a record of the teachings of Muhammad, that says Muslims should kill Jewish people. This petition is endorsed by the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and sponsored by the Terrorist Awareness Project. Chapters of the Muslim Student Association at other colleges did not sign the petition either, Horowitz said.

During his lecture, Horowitz also spoke about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The Palestinian cause is a genocidal campaign against the Jews," said Horowitz, who is Jewish. "The Israelis are civil, democratic people and the Arab people are not. They are barbaric," he said.

"This is a very sick culture - the Palestinian culture," Horowitz said. "On YouTube you can see little 3-year-old children being taught to strap pretend bombs to themselves."

Horowitz also said that for the Palestinians, "It's all about destroying Israel. There's nothing positive in this. They don't want the land-they want to destroy the Jews."

Horowitz spoke about his beliefs regarding American pride.

"America is just an incredibly great country, and you need to be proud of it because otherwise, you cannot defend yourself," he said. "When your country is under attack, you should be more judicious in your attitudes toward your country."

Horowitz said professors who attack America for it flaws regarding racist or sexist beliefs undermine American pride and beliefs Americans have in their own cause.

Darius Callier, '11, said, "I definitely disagree with the notion that it's un-American to criticize America for being racist, sexist, homophobic, classicist and elitist."

Bruce Whitehouse, a professor of anthropology, said in an e-mail that he disagreed with Horowitz's opinions.

"What I found most interesting about Horowitz's talk was his outlook depicting human beings as naturally war-like and implying that conflict, racism, hatred and injustice are inevitable and eternal.," Whitehouse said. "My study of anthropology doesn't support such a world view at all, and I suspect this fact alone is enough to land me on Horowitz's list of anti-American leftist/jihadist scholars."

Yousef Jahajri, '11, a member of the Muslim Student Association at Lehigh, attended the lecture. To Horowitz's claim that the Muslim Student Association is tied to terrorists, Jahajri said, "He's very wrong."

"I understand the pain Palestine is going through," he said. Jahajri said the American media usually only portrays the Israeli losses and not the Palestinian ones.

"There's always going to be hate in this world. I don't think it's going to end," said Jahajri. "You have to continue to educate yourself in order to reduce the hate caused by ignorance. If you can't empathize, then you don't understand."

"If he's making a career out of these types of lectures, then he could have more facts, but overall, his main message was strong," Marc Palmer, '10, said. "I think it was good that he prefaced his thoughts by saying most Muslims are good, but some are bad. I agree with that," Palmer said.

Palmer said he attended the lecture because he likes to hear different viewpoints.

"That's the only way you can formulate your own opinions," he said, "by listening to what other people have to say."