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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

NYPD monitoring of Muslim students sparks pledges to work more closely with law enforcement against jihadis — no, wait…

Feb 22, 2012 8:34 am By Robert Spencer

Does the NYPD have any reason to be concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Muslim Students Association? Check this out from Discover the Networks:

  • On October 22, 2000, Ahmed Shama, then-president of the UCLA Muslim Students Association, led a crowd of demonstrators at the Israeli consulate in chants of “Death to Israel!” and “Death to the Jews!” One guest speaker at the event was Hussam Ayloush, a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which co-sponsored the rally. In his speech, Ayloush solicited contributions for the Holy Land Foundation, which was a supporter and fundraiser for Hamas.
  • MSA members at UCLA have raised money for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists at their annual “Anti-Zionist Week.”
  • In March 2003, guest speaker Muhammad Faheed told an MSA meeting at Queensborough Community College in New York, “The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it!”
  • At its Annual Conference in 2003, the Iowa MSA invited, as a guest speaker, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, who had previously, proudly identified himself as “a supporter of the Hamas movement.”
  • The University of Southern California MSA invited Taliban ambassador Sayyid Hashimi to speak on campus six months before 9/11.
  • The MSA chapter at California State University-Northridge held a fundraiser for Islamic Relief Worldwide, an organization that received a $50,000 contribution from a pro-Osama bin Laden front group based in Canada.
  • In 2002, James Madison University”s MSA sponsored a “Jihad” panel that included Dr. Abdulrahman Hijazi, who had previously extolled an Islamic suicide bomber as a “martyr” whose actions were animated by hopes of securing “the mercy of Allah” by way of “one of the greatest good deeds, which is jihad.”
  • In 2003, University of Idaho MSA president Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, who had sought access to a chemical lab containing nuclear material, was ordered deported because he worked for the al Qaeda-tied Islamic Assembly of North America.
  • At the 7th 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.”¦ The goal “¦ is the reestablishment of the Islamic form of government.” Shama praised Hamas and Hezbollah for being “uncompromising” on their principles, and for refusing to “shake hands with the other side.” He lauded the terrorist leader Muqtada al-Sadr for “legitimately fighting against [U.S.] occupation” in Iraq. He identified Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood as part of the “mainstream Islamic movement.” And he praised Hamas” resolve that “the only solution to the current [Israeli] occupation is military resistance.”
  • At the February 2006 MSA West Conference at Sacramento State University, guest speaker Abdel Malik-Ali praised the late Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin and rejoiced at Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s failing health. He also said, “Last week, we were all feeling so good — we were all feeling so good — because of what happened with Hamas” — a reference to the fact that the terrorist group had just won a large percentage of seats in the Palestinian Authority (PA) elections.
  • At MSA’s West Zone Conference on the UC-Berkeley campus in April 2007, MSA West president Amir Mertaban delivered a speech in which he emphasized the importance of unwavering loyalty to all fellow Muslims, regardless of what transgressions they may have committed: “Don’t ever compromise on Islam! And don’t ever compromise on your Muslim brothers and sisters in which you have no evidence. Osama bin Laden – I don’t know this guy. I don’t know what he did. I don’t know what he said. I don’t know what happened. But we defend Muslim brothers and we defend our Muslim sisters to the end…. In every aspect of Islam you are confident. Four wives? Yes men are allowed to have four wives within this context. Jihad? Yes Jihad! Jihad is the tightest thing in Islam. Don’t compromise on these little things. Be proud of it. Why? Because Islam is a perfect religion.–
  • Each year since 2005, MSA and many of its campus chapters have participated in “Israeli Apartheid Week,” a series of events designed “to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns” against the Jewish state. 

In a sane world, the revelation that the NYPD was monitoring members of this group would bring media focus onto the MSA’s Muslim Brotherhood ties and the material above. Sincere Muslims of conscience would be assuring the NYPD of their loyalty, and working with police to root jihadists out of the Muslim community. Instead, get the predictable and manipulative reaction: outrage. All Constitutional protections should be honored, and any program that contravenes them should be ended. At the same time, should the NYPD apologize or retreat from trying to prevent jihad attacks? Absolutely not. If those who are claiming victim status in this piece get their way, many initiatives designed to prevent jihad attacks will be ended, and we will all be less safe. That doesn’t seem to trouble them at all. Now, why is that?

“NYPD monitoring of Muslim students sparks outrage,” by David B. Caruso and John Christoffersen for the Associated Press, February 21 (thanks to all who sent this in):

NEW YORK (AP) – The mayor faced off with the president of Yale University on Tuesday over an effort by the city’s police department to monitor Muslim student groups for any signs that their members harbored terrorist sympathies.

The Associated Press revealed over the weekend that in recent years the New York Police Department has kept close watch on Muslim student associations across the Northeast. The effort included daily tracking of student websites and blogs, monitoring who was speaking to the groups and sending an undercover officer on a whitewater rafting trip with students from the City College of New York.

Yale President Richard Levin was among a number of academics who condemned the effort in a statement Monday, while Rutgers University and leaders of student Muslim groups elsewhere called for investigations into the monitoring.

“I am writing to state, in the strongest possible terms, that police surveillance based on religion, nationality, or peacefully expressed political opinions is antithetical to the values of Yale, the academic community, and the United States,” Levin wrote.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaking to reporters on Tuesday, dismissed those criticisms as baseless.

What? He isn’t issuing an apology that rivals General Allen’s for abjectness and self-defeating stupidity? Oh, Mike, Mike, what will Imam Rauf say?

“I don’t know why keeping the country safe is antithetical to the values of Yale,” he said.

He said it was “ridiculous” to argue that there was anything wrong with officers keeping an eye on websites that are available to the general public.

“Of course we’re going to look at anything that’s publicly available in the public domain,” he said. “We have an obligation to do so, and it is to protect the very things that let Yale survive.”

Asked by a reporter if he thought it was a “step too far” to send undercover investigators to accompany students on rafting vacations, Bloomberg said: “No. We have to keep this country safe.”

“It’s very cute to go and blame everybody and say we should stay away from anything that smacks of intelligence gathering,” he said. “The job of our law enforcement is to make sure that they prevent things. And you only do that by being proactive.”

Bloomberg, an independent, added that he believed that police officers had respected people’s privacy and obeyed the law.

The campus monitoring program was part of a broad effort by the NYPD, initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, to try to spot any burgeoning terror cells in the U.S. before they had a chance to act. The NYPD monitoring of college campuses included schools far beyond the city limits.

Police talked with local authorities about professors 300 miles away in upstate Buffalo. The undercover agent who attended the City College rafting trip recorded students’ names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed. Detectives trawled Muslim student websites every day and, although professors and students had not been accused of any wrongdoing, their names were recorded in reports prepared for police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Officers kept tabs on student groups at Yale; Columbia; The University of Pennsylvania; Syracuse; Rutgers; New York University; Clarkson University; the State University of New York campuses in Buffalo, Albany, Stony Brook and Potsdam; Queens College, Baruch College, Brooklyn College and La Guardia Community College.

Levin said Yale’s police department did not participate in any monitoring by the NYPD and was unaware of it.

An NYPD spokesman, Paul Browne, explained the effort as an attempt to learn more about student organizations that could be ripe for infiltration by terror recruiters. He cited 12 people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the United States and abroad who had once been members of Muslim student associations, or MSAs.

He acknowledged that police monitored student websites and collected publicly available information but said law-abiding students have nothing to fear.

Indeed.

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