News > April 17, 2008

David Horowitz, founder of the David Horowtiz Freedom Center and a controversial conservative writer and activist, spoke at 9 p.m. on April 16 at the university in Pugh Auditorium. His speech concerned Islamo-Fascism awareness week and Islamic relations with other religions. Assistant news editor Natalie Ranck recently spoke over the phone with Horowitz about his goals, ideas and views on radical Islam.

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Writer and activist David Horowitz spoke on April 16 in Pugh Auditorium. (Photo courtesy www.scribandscroll.com)

What exactly are you going to speak about?

This is Islamo-Fascism awareness week and the theme is “Stop the Genocide.”

The jihad against the west is genocidal, in that the radical element in Islam, which is responsible for the war against us, and has declared this genocidal war. The al-Quaeda blew up two statues of the Buddha that were 2,500 years old.

Why? Because they want to obliterate all other religions.

So you want to spread these sentiments among universities?

We have asked student groups to sign a declaration against genocide, which is all up on our Web site, terrorismawareness.org.

The declaration asks students to condemn the Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah, which are sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state and the Jews and to repudiate the Hadith.

The book is a collection of sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, in which the Prophet says, “Redemption will only come when Muslims fight Jews and kill them, when the trees and the rocks cry out, ‘all Muslims there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him!’”

So you’re saying that radicals are able to take certain Hadith passages out of context and manipulate them for their advantage.

You’re not saying that all Islamic people do that, are you?

No, not all, because we have Muslim groups who have repudiated this Hadith, though it is very hard to get them to do it.

This is the only religion that calls for the extermination of an ethnic group.

If the late Jerry Falwell or Pat Robinson were calling saying the redemption will only come when the Jews are killed, do you think there would be an outrage? Of course there would.

There’s a horrific double standard here and that’s what Islamo-Fascism week is designed to help make students aware of.

Have you spoken at other universities about this?

Well personally, I’ve been to Montana State and University of Michigan and in addition to speaking at Wake Forest.

I’m going to speak at Duke, but we have around 30 speakers out there.

Has the response been positive overall?

Well it’s always the usual. Most students are bright young people who want to learn and are willing to listen even if they disagree.

My audience so far has been well-behaved, but there always has to be a campus police present.

What is the response of the professors? Are they less open do you think?

Professors are divided into two groups. One group hates me and doesn’t want students to hear anything I have to say, and the other group is intimidated by the first group and they don’t want to be called names. So I don’t get invitations from faculty.