The far-left and Islamist alliance on campus
By: Reut R. Cohen
August 6, 2008
It is a seemingly absurd alliance: why would the far-left make common cause with Islamists who are diametrically opposed to the values the leftists purport to hold dear? Since the far-left lives by the standard that America is immoral and anything or anyone opposed to it must therefore be good, this union evidently works and is obvious at public demonstrations and college campuses where Islamists make common cause with groups like the Workers Student Alliance and the International Socialist Organization.
Far-left groups will happily work with and create alliances with radical, pro-terror and homophobic student groups like the Muslim Student Association on college campuses throughout the United States and Canada.
In May 2008 the Muslim Student Union hosted a series of events at UC Irvine during their annual “anti-Israel” hate-fest that featured a slew of anti-Semitic and anti-American speakers. One of their sponsored speakers was James Lafferty, Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles Chapter.
While other more flamboyant speakers featured more prominently during the week, Lafferty’s presence, which was sponsored by the Workers Student Alliance and Students for Peace and Justice, should not escape unnoticed. In 1937 the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) was founded by attorneys for the Communist Party USA. The NLG's earliest precursor organization was MOPR, a Russian acronym for International Class War Prisoners Aid Society, founded in 1922 under the auspices of the Communist International (Comintern).
During the period of the Cold War, the organization consistently allied itself with the pro-Soviet agenda. It labels itself as a "progressive" legal body of lawyers and activists that involves itself in issues of civil rights and human rights. While this agenda appears laudable on the surface, it is critical to note that this organization over the years has allied itself with virtually every far-left cause.
Critics of the NLG, moreover, have understandably accused the organization of being little more than a communist front group. In recent years, this group has taken up the banner for people like Lynne Stewart, the convicted attorney for the "Blind Sheikh", Omar Abdul Rahman who passed terrorist communications from Rahman to his terrorist associates and Mumia Abu Jamal, the convicted Philadelphia cop killer on death row, Sami al-Arian, and ex-terrorist fugitive Sara Jane Olsen and Leonard Peltier of the American Indian Movement (AIM) who were imprisoned for the murder of two FBI agents. In 2005, the NLG floated a resolution equating Zionism with racism.
During his UCI speech, Lafferty condemned Israel, the US Government and the Bush Administration for all the problems of the world. In answer to a question about the solution to the Middle East problems, he stated that "Jews should leave Palestine." Lafferty also made an ominous statement: He said that just prior to his talk, someone (presumably at UCI) had informed him that there was not a level playing field at UCI for those expressing their opinions about the Palestinian cause. Lafferty expressed that his organization would attempt to rectify the situation.
These coalitions that Muslim Student Associations make with far-left organizations who purport to be bastions of human rights need to be properly examined. As one faculty member at UCI sardonically remarked after attending the program, perhaps the National Lawyers Guild and CAIR can file a lawsuit on behalf of the Muslim Student Union forcing Americans not to view them with so much suspicion.
But this alliance, which has a pervasive presence on college campuses, is also evident beyond the college environment, particularly at anti-war rallies and community grassroots movements.
In January 2004 forty-one Muslim-American organizations, including the Muslim Student Association, issued an open letter that supported a massive protest in opposition to any US presence in Iraq, calling the presence of American troops “colonial occupation.” The letter and movement, interestingly enough, was a collaborative effort on the part of Islamic organizations in the United States and socialist organizations, including the National Lawyers Guild, the International Socialist Organization and A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism). A.N.S.W.E.R., a notoriously leftist organization, organized major antiwar demonstrations in New York City and San Francisco.
A North American Conference on the Palestinian Solidarity Movement that was held at Rutgers University during October 2003 included the sponsorship of the Muslim Student Association, Students for Palestine, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Revolution Youth, the Internationalist Socialist Organization and the USA’s Communist Party. The events included workshops designed to assist student and community leaders with furthering divestment from Israel and giving student tips on “Palestine” advocacy.
The Muslim Student Association and other Islamic organizations in the United States have found allies in the radical leftist movement of the United States. Far-left groups have the tendency to speak more optimistically about people who coordinate events that condone terrorism against them and their own country, a country that affords more freedom and opportunity than anywhere else in the world. Although Islamists repress women, gays and minorities, it is clear that the far-left, which claims these kinds of behaviors are distasteful, will overlook this since their hatred for America must take precedence. And since Islamists and the far-left are opposed to the security of America and western nations, perhaps for different reasons, their intent is to weaken western democracies and their war on Islamic terrorism.