For the past several years, the Muslim Student Union (MSU), the Muslim student group at UC Irvine, has staged many anti-Israel events, including a large event every spring with some of the most anti-Semitic speakers participating regularly, including Mohammad al-Asi, and Imam Amir Abdul Malik Ali and Imam Abdul Alim Musa, the anti-Semitic leaders of the Sabiqun movement. MSU's annual events are often week-long and include lectures and outdoor displays. The titles of these events have included: "Israel: The Politics of Genocide," "Never Again? Palestinian Holocaust," "Israel: Apartheid Resurrected" and "Holocaust in the Holy Land."

May 5-21, 2009, "Israel: The Politics of Genocide"

MSU hosted a lectures series in May 2009 titled, "Israel: The Politics of Genocide." It included presentations by Malik Ali, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and British MP George Galloway. The event also included a screening of Occupation 101, an anti-Israel propaganda film.

• May 21, 2009: Galloway spoke about Viva Palestina at a student center on campus. During his presentation, Galloway denounced Israel as a racist state and compared its war against Hamas in Gaza to the Holocaust. While he denounced anti-Semitism, Galloway argued that Zionism has debased "the Jewish people." He denounced the founders of Israel as "European settlers" and called on "Jews in America today to stand up against the apartheid state of Israel." Galloway repeatedly drew parallels between Israel's treatment of the Palestinian and the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust, calling Gaza a "concentration camp" and blaming Israel for purposely killing Palestinians with phosphorus ammunition: "a weapon of gas; used by a country calling itself the Jewish state." He asked: "Why are you making the Palestinian people pay in 2009 for what European fascist did in 1941?" for which he received loud applauds. In his closing remarks, the outgoing MSU president, Omar Zarka, denied that the MSU was promoting anti-Semitism, declaring: "I love bagels, I eat kosher, and frankly I'm Semitic. I have no problem with the Jewish people, but I have to say that I have a huge problem with Zionism." 

• May 14, 2009: Malik Ali delivered a speech titled "Silence is Consent" at a lecture hall on campus. During his speech Malik Ali stated that "Zionists" are "the new Nazis" and "the party of Satan," and that "Zionism must be destroyed. Every aspect of them." He explained how Zionists display the character of Satan: "They operate behind closed doors in silence, they are whisperers. Satan gives suggestions and withdraws." He also alleged that if President Obama attempted to make serious policy changes he should "be ready to die because the Pentagon, the C.I.A. and the Zionists will be upset with him."

   

• May 14, 2009: Earlier that day Malik Ali delivered a speech titled "To Exist is to Resist" at an outdoor amphitheater in the center of campus. His presentation was dedicated to attacking the recent hate crimes legislation that was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, known also as the Matthew Shepard Act. Malik Ali claimed that it was in fact a conspiracy to consolidate Zionist control over the American people. He claimed that the legislation criminalized criticism of Israel and made questioning the historicity of the Nazi Holocaust illegal. Malik Ali claimed that "the Zionist Jewish community" wants to stifle freedom of speech as part of an attempt "to destroy your will to resist; not just in Palestine, they are trying to destroy the people's will to resist everywhere." He called for "civil disobedience as it relates to the Zionists."
  
  During his speech, Malik Ali made frequent references to the Holocaust, calling supporters of Israel "the new Nazis." He talked about the "disproportionate numbers of Jews, Zionist Jews, in the media, in finance and foreign policy." He also expressed support for Hamas, stating: "Hamas works in the interest of the Palestinian people, not in the interest of the Zionists."

• May 13, 2009: Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman from Georgia and the 2008 Green Party presidential candidate, gave two presentations titled: "Investing in Apartheid" and "Sailing to the Shores of Oppression." The first focused on U.S.-Israeli relations and the second on her involvement with the Free Gaza Movement's failed attempt to reach Gaza by boat in the midst of Israel's military operation against Hamas in Gaza in 2008-09. 

• May 11, 2009: MSU held a screening of Occupation 101, an anti-Israel propaganda film that denounces Zionism as an impediment for peaceful coexistence. The film includes a distorted historical overview of the Israeli-Arab conflict that omits major historical events and facts. It portrays Israel as the aggressor and the Palestinians as innocent victims of an ongoing project of "ethnic cleansing." One visual through which the film shows Palestinian victimhood is the incorporation of images of Jesus and the crucifixion. On the event's program, MSU organizers wrote that the film "presents an analysis of the facts surrounding the controversy and dispels long-perceived misconceptions."

• May 11, 2009: Jim Lafferty of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a left-wing civil liberties organization, spoke at an outdoor amphitheater in the center of campus. He recited a spoken word piece about the conflict in Gaza in which he blamed Israel for targeting babies and compared Israel to Nazi Germany, stating: "fascist scheming…they learned it from the masters. They went and made it worst by blowing up the caskets and babies in their baskets… choking little children with the rope that you were given from imperialist false hope of ending terrorism."

May 7-15, 2008, "Never Again? Palestinian Holocaust"

MSU held a week-long event titled "Never Again? Palestinian Holocaust" that featured several anti-Israel and anti-Semitic speakers, including Malik Ali, al-Asi and Ilan Pappe, a professor at the University of Exeter in the UK and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

During one of his presentations al-Asi referred to Israel as a "hateful and expansionist militant nation state" and spoke about how Jews left ghettos in Europe only to create a ghetto in Israel: "You began to build a wall, a barrier, around the country you are living in, isn't this a grand definition of a ghetto!" He claimed that the hostility of neighboring Arab countries toward Israel was "a reaction to all the misery and all the hostility" that Jews brought from Europe.

In his presentation Malik Ali argued that Israel is bound to be defeated because "Israelis have suffered major losses when they went up against Muslims…Every time we fought for Islam, we won."

During his speech, Pappe told the audience that "the real ambition of Israelis at large and Zionists is to get rid of all the Palestinians who live in Israel.  That is the Zionist formula – you get it from cradle to grave." He also charged that Zionists "used Europe's guilt after the Holocaust" and "used ethnic cleansing to get more of Palestine." According to a statement from the MSU Pappe, an Israeli, was invited to attend to "provide a balanced perspective that sheds light on both sides of the issue."

March 3-6, 2008, "Gears of War: Blood, Oil and University"

A four-day event commemorating the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq featured al-Asi and Malik Ali. The event was co-sponsored by MSU, Amnesty International, Worker Student Alliance and Students for Peace and Justice. 

February 7, 2008, "From Auschwitz to Gaza: The Politics of Genocide"

MSU hosted Mohammad al-Asi for an afternoon presentation at an outdoor space on campus grounds. During his speech, al-Asi claimed that "Zionists or what some people call the Jewish lobby" have made the U.S. a "second fiddle to the Israeli government." He further claimed that the war in Iraq was fought for Israeli interests "lurking behind the scenes," and that "the pro-Zionist, Israeli crowd" is pushing the U.S. into a war with Iran. "It is the Israelis who are benefiting from the American blood that is shed in those lands," al-Asi added.

May 14-18, 2007, "Israel: Apartheid Resurrected"

MSU hosted several anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist speakers, including key speeches by Malik Ali, al-Asi, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of the Neturei Karta and Lenni Brenner that were delivered at an outdoor amphitheater in the center of campus.

During his speech, al-Asi argued that the U.S. is fighting the war in Iraq on behalf of Israel, stating: "You can't differentiate between Washington and Tel Aviv any longer." He also alleged that the U.S. knew about the plan to attack the World Trade Center before September 11. He said his positions were not anti-Semitic; adding that Jews should take the stand that "Zionism is one thing and Judaism is another thing." Later in the day, al-Asi spoke about Hamas.

Lenni Brenner, a self-described "Trotskyist" and a staunch anti-Zionist, gave a speech entitled "Zio-Nazis," in which he claimed that all Zionists are racist and that the Zionist movement in the '30s and '40s made common cause with the Nazis. He claimed that contemporary supporters of Israel are hiding their racist origins from the Americans but that they are still racists. He contrasted it with the MSU activists who openly state their ideology.

Malik Ali said in a speech that Zionist Jews are working behind the scenes against the civil rights of African Americans while pretending to support the rights of oppressed minorities in the U.S. to get their support. Standing in front of a large banner that said "Death to Apartheid," he said: "the older Zionist Jewish leaders know what I'm talking about." He expressed support for Hamas and Hezbollah, saying that "Hamas are freedom fighters, not terrorists." Malik Ali also said: "The Zionist Jews, the Israelis, these are oppressors….we know that their time is coming to an end…. The Zionist Jew has only one fear… the ultimate fear of the Zionists are the Muslims." He said that despite the fact that the FBI and the people "who are running the system" are oppressing the Muslims, "we will not stop until we are either victorious or we are martyred."

During a second speech that Malik Ali gave that day, titled: "The UC Intifada: How You Can Help Palestine," he claimed that Zionist-Jews were behind September 11 attacks: "That's exactly what they do…they do things to make people think that it's Muslims when it is actually them behind the scenes [that is] how they do this in Palestine, how they did this with the World Trade Center, both of them: in 1993 and in 2001."      

May 8-10, 2007, "Holocaust Memorial Week"

The misleadingly named "Holocaust Memorial Week," organized by MSU, included an anti-Semitic speech by Alim Musa during which he said: "who ran the slave trade…who funded [it]? You'll study and you will find out: the Jews…It was the Jewish bankers…in Vienna, with pockets full of money, funding and insuring [sic], that's who did it…. you can't tell us about no Holocaust. Between the African Americans and the Native Americans, everybody else's stuff was small potatoes."

Also as part of the Holocaust week, Professor Ward Churchill gave a speech titled "Manifest Destiny and the American Holocaust" and Hedy Epstein, a Holocaust survivor and activist with the Wheels of Justice, talked about her experiences during the Holocaust. Her address was listed by organizers as: "Surviving the Nazis: Remembering is Not Enough."

October 5, 2006, Malik Ali Speech

Malik Ali spoke at UC Irvine about the war between Israel and Hezbollah. Ali accused "the Western Zionist controlled media" of covering up the truth about what happened in the war.  He praised Hezbollah and argued that every time Muslims fight Israel in the name of Islam they are victorious. In response to a question from the audience about peace between Israel and the Arab states, Malik Ali said: "If history is any indication, there'll be peace when you're gone and we are in control again."

May 15-18, 2006, "Holocaust in the Holy Land"

MSU hosted several anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist speakers for a week-long event, including al-Asi, Malik Ali, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss and Professor Norman Finkelstein. At the entrance to the venue where Finkelstein spoke, someone handed out literature by Holocaust denier Mark Weber. And during a protest the MSU held as part of the event, students chanted: "Judaism, yes, Zionism, no! The state of Israel has to go!"      

During a speech on May 18, Malik Ali praised Hamas and Hezbollah for fighting against Israel, saying: "The truth of the matter is your days are numbered. We will fight you until we are either martyred or we are victorious…It's about time that they [Israelis] live in fear." He claimed that Israel's defeat was imminent because unlike the Muslims, Israeli soldiers do not embrace death. During his speech, which was titled "Israel: The Fourth Reich," Malik Ali also claimed that the media in the U.S. is controlled by Jews, repeating several times: "Rupert Murdoch is a Zionist Jew!"

May 25, 2004, al-Asi Speech

Al-Asi gave a speech at an MSU event in which he blamed Israel for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, stating that: "the U.S. — lock, stock and barrel — is doing what Israelis want you to do." He urged the students to "tip the balance and recreate [America's] image-not in the image of Zionist Israel." Al-Asi also argued that "Many of our [Muslims] innocents have been killed when we all believe 'an eye for an eye' and 'a soul for a soul.' We're lagging behind, but we have plenty of time to catch up."

February 26, 2004, "America Under Siege: The Zionist Hidden Agenda"

Malik Ali gave a lecture in which he said that Zionism was a mixture of "chosen people-ness and white supremacy." He claimed that Zionists had "Congress, the media and the FBI in their back pocket" and blamed Israel for September 11, alleging that "the Israelis knew about and were in-control of 9-11" and that the attack "was staged to give an excuse to wage war against Muslims around the world."

September 9, 2001, Benefit dinner for Imam Jamil al-Amin

MSU held a benefit dinner for Imam Jamil al-Amin, a Muslim activist who has since been convicted for killing an Atlanta, GA, deputy sheriff. The dinner featured a speech by Alim Musa, in which he stated: "You think Zionism and Palestine is the only dictatorial power in the world. We're telling you about apartheid right here in America….When you fight Old Sam, you are fighting someone that is superior in criminality and Nazism." Another keynote speaker at the benefit, a popular speaker and Muslim activist, Hamza Yusuf, who at the time was on the board of advisors of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, added: "This country is facing a very terrible fate, and the reason for that is because this country stands condemned. It stands condemned like Europe stood condemned, because of what it did. And lest people forget that Europe suffered two world wars after conquering Muslim lands."

February 21, 2001, al-Asi Speech

During a speech at UC Irvine, al-Asi said: "You have the Jews who are blind and deaf and dumb [for whom] discrimination, if it is against a gentile, is not objectionable; but anything that happens against a Jew becomes a Holocaust…Where is the courageous Jew who can come out and say Israel is as fascist as the most fascist of Europe? Israel is a racist as Apartheid could ever be…. We have a psychosis in the Jewish community that is unable to co-exist equally and brotherly with other human beings."