Students are still talking about ex-PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat almost a week after he delivered his anti-fundamentalist Islam message at the University of California - Santa Barbara. The school held a workshop called “By the Well of Hagar and Sarah” to give students the opportunity to share their feelings. Jessica Mullen covers the continuing dialogue in The Daily Nexus, where some students continued to offer their two cents.
During the past few days, debate regarding Shoebat’s portrayal of Muslims has swelled in the Daily Nexus opinion page and various Facebook groups supporting or opposing the self-proclaimed former Palestine Liberation Organization terrorist. Event organizer Alan Levine said he has personally received several negative responses from students, but maintains that he and other organizers merely wanted to bring another perspective to campus to encourage thoughtful and balanced debate.
“I was just trying to express a different point of view and that is what universities are about,” Levine said. “There are professors on campus that are just as liberal as [Shoebat] is conservative, but people are reacting very negatively and intensely.”
[…]
[Islamic Society of Santa Barbara Vice President Hussam] Mousa said he felt the speaker’s dangerous message generalized Muslims and only served to inspire hate.
“It is very important we all make a distinction between Muslims who denounce violence and extremists like Bin Laden,” Mousa said. “Hate speech is very dangerous and Shoebat’s message is a form of hate speech.”
He was also a hot topic at UC Davis where the MSA tried to prevent him from speaking by calling on the FBI to investigate him as a terrorist.
http://www.jewdicial.com/2007/02/msa-calls-fbi-to-report-terrorist-sort.html
calling Walid Shoebat’s speech at UCSB an anti-Fundamentalist Islam speech is a blatant stretch of the truth; a lie. This man made no separation between Islam and radical Islamists, no separation between Palestinians and terrorists. I’m ashamed.
What about the possibility of pulling out of Iraq, letting Iran invade and lose resources fighting their own kind,
and then come in and mop up the dregs?
Other than you saying you want Walid to separate palestinian and terrorist, or islam and radical islamists. How would you seperate the two? Will you tell me flat out that radical islamists are not following the teachings of the Koran? Are they not doing what they have been taught to do and believe mohammed and ala has called them to? Instead of simply trying to disregard what Walid Shoebat has said by saying his speech is hate filled, and that he should be ashamed. Why don’t you answer the questions I have just laid out. Perhaps you yourself have no desire to be a martyr, but then you have no guarantee of salvation. How do you choose to seperate yourself from those who chant “Death to America” “Death to Israel”? Are you willing to say that the people involved in those marches, and gatherings, and attacks who believe those things and carry out actions based on those are not muslims? Are you willing to acknowledge that? If not, then you have to look at the fundamentals of your religion and decide if you are actually following the things that you claim to believe and that these fundamentalists also claim to. What is so different about their interpretation and obedience of Islam and yours? Or is it possible that you choose to simply look over or look past some of the Koran that they choose to take to heart and follow through with.