PUT THIS ON YOUR FRONT PAGE, HOROWITZ! TEMPLE U. COMMUNITY REJECTS ANTI-MUSLIM HATEMONGERS

We used this quote in the article, but we want to repeat it here: “Within our political culture there is a range of acceptable opinion. This should not be a controversial observation. There are certain people whose views are so way out there that they cannot be integrated into the debate. There’s no reason to tolerate anti-Semites, crackpot conspiracists, and totalitarians at the table of respectable discussion. We could not even if we wanted to. Some people operate from a mental state that is so fundamentally different – so warped – that it’s all but impossible for constructive dialogue to take place.” Such is what you will find if you go to David Horowitz’s Newsreal blog. It was basically him and his people patting themselves on the back for getting Prof. Marc Lamont Hill fired from Fox News for his political views – which by the way we doubt is causing anyone, especially Prof. Hill to shed any tears. What makes this passage particularly curious is the fact that this does not seem to translate to when Horowitz and those he supports are the ones whose views cannot be intergrated into the debate. No, despite his lack of concern for Prof. Hill’s free speech, we should all be about his – and Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who is so much about free speech, he wants to ban the Koran from the Netherlands. Well, they heard a lot of free speech when they came out to Temple University on Tuesday, and they didn’t like it. It was students and a community pissed off that they came there without any warning or concern for the students they were pretty much going to attack, courtesy of a student group no one heard of until this day.

One People’s Project

PHILADELPHIA-Most Temple University students found out about the speaking engagement two days ago via an email. Most Philadelphians learned about it that morning. Virtually no one heard of the student group that sponsored the event. So when a Dutch politician who called for banning the Koran joined with a conservative activist who last week lobbied to get a black Fox News commentator fired for his liberal political views came to the university’s Anderson Hall to lecture the student body about – ironically enough – defending free speech, most in the room as well as those protesting outside were genuinely upset.

Students and community members came out to protest the appearance of Geert Wilders, who has been making a name for himself as an anti-Islamist politician in the Netherlands, and Frontpagemag.org’s David Horowitz, who has had a decades-long career of promoting hatred against Muslims and people of color, often using college campuses as the vehicle for such promotions. Through Horowitz, Wilders attempted to speak at Temple last week, but was turned away because he was not being sponsored by a student organization. That’s when a group called TUPurchase stepped forward. Reportedly the organization was formed this year, although this was the first effort anyone on campus can remember from them. TUPurchase spokesperson Lisa Haggerty told the Metro newspaper prior to the event that they were prompted to do so in the name of defending free speech. “The biggest reason to have him is freedom of speech, the mission for our group is to welcome political views whether we agree or disagree,” Haggerty said. “We’re the first school he asked to come to. It’s an honor for Temple.”

Wilders was elected to the Dutch Parliament in 2002, and worked to prevent Turkey from entering the European Union. Disagreeing with his party on that stance, he started his own, the Party for Freedom. In 2008, he produced a 17-minute short film “Fitna” that many saw as an anti-Islamic hate film, prompting protests and condemnation throughout Europe. He has also called to ban the Koran in the Netherlands, calling it “the Mein Kampf of a religion which has always aimed to eliminate the others”. Instead, Wilders himself has found himself banned from the Denmark and the United Kingdom. The UK recently lifed the ban on Wilders.

The Muslim Students Association (MSA) were among the first to respond to the news that Wilders was going to speak there, and unsuccessfully called for administrators to cancel the event. During the speech, flyers were passed out noting Wilders’ past vitriolic comments towards Islam. The flyers were produced by Temple All Sides, Temple Students for Justice in Palestine, Temple Feminist Majority and Temple Democratic Socialists, who also produced a flyer seen around campus alerting students to the event.

Horowitz, who also spoke, responded to the controversy with a flyer attacking the MSA as one of the groups who “support the jihad against the west and are part of the network created by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the parent organization of the terrorist groups al-Qaeda and Hamas.” In the flyer, titled “Free Speech Endangered at Temple” Horowitz attempted to frame the MSA’s concerns as an attack on liberty and freedom, and called for the Temple community to reject the MSA’s call to oppose Wilders’ appearance. “The Temple community should reject the call by the MSA to censor free speech on the Temple campus, and should recongnize it for what it is – an assault on the right of all Americans to have a democracy that is inclusive, tolerant and respectful of the rights of others,” he wrote.

Horowitz’s defense of free speech however, has not prevented him from engaging in the same tactics he has accused the MSA of participating in. Last week, he was successful in encouraging Fox News to fire Columbia University Professor Marc Lamont Hill, who was a regular commentator at the right-leaning television outlet, because of his left-leaning political views. That campaign started last month when Horowitz responded in two over-the-top racist columns to Hill’s appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s television program where he discussed Iran in which he referred to Prof. Hill as “Fox’s Affirmative Action Baby” and said that bringing him on to discuss Iran – even though he has lived in the Middle East and speaks fluent Arabic – was an “insult” to O’Reilly’s viewers, and to African Americans. “If O’Reilly wants to bring Hill on to defend Ludacris or some other morally-challenged rapper then fine,” Horowitz wrote. “If he is the best defender that ACORN can get, then fine too. But spectacles like tonight’s segment are like circus sideshows that reflect poorly on the judgment of the Factor’s producers and are unworthy of the Factor itself.” In an opinion piece by David Swindle on Horowitz’s “Newsreal” blog, he cheered on Hill’s firing as him being held accountable” for his views.

“Within our political culture there is a range of acceptable opinion,” Swindle wrote “This should not be a controversial observation. There are certain people whose views are so way out there that they cannot be integrated into the debate. There’s no reason to tolerate anti-Semites, crackpot conspiracists, and totalitarians at the table of respectable discussion. We could not even if we wanted to. Some people operate from a mental state that is so fundamentally different – so warped – that it’s all but impossible for constructive dialogue to take place.”

That opinion was shared by those who came out to oppose Wilders who, in the words of one student attendee was “destroyed” when he came out after showing his documentary. He spoke for only thirty minutes, and his question-and-answer session was cut short by angry students who prompted security to escort him out of the hall. Outside, approximately fifty protestors, many of them Muslim, stood outside., such as Khalid who came with his family. “I’m here because I’m Muslim,” he said, “and I figured that the best thing was that someone was on the inside of saying bad things about Islam, and as a Muslim, the best thing I can do is be on the outside trying to say something positive about Islam. It’s my duty as a Muslim.”

“I’m definitely not behind anything they have to say,” Martin from the group Educate and Liberate said. “There definitely needs to be a counter voice here to show people what they’re really talking about in there.”

Wilders’ Philadelphia visit does not end with Temple University. On Thursday he is also going to speak downtown at the historic Union League, which was formed to promote loyalty to the Union during the Civil War, but is best known as a conservative institution in the city. The event will be held at noon, and protests are expected to take place there as well. On Wednesday, he spoke at Columbia University in New York, where Marc Lamont Hill teaches.