Robert Stacy McCain blogging at The Washington Time’s Fishwrap sends this update on Nonie Darwish.
Nonie Darwish is an Arab-American writer and public speaker. She is the author of the book Now they Call Me Infidel; Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror. Nonie’s message is not about disloyalty but love for her culture of origin. She blames Arab leadership and the media for the endless rage and violence of the Arab street.
Phyllis Chesler describes how Nonie Darwish was treated by the the crowd at Wellesley College last week during her talk at Pajamas Media:
Last week, on October 18, 2007, our hero Darwish spoke at the all-female Wellesley College as the guest of Hillel on campus. She was not treated as a hero; then again, maybe she was, maybe her treatment is precisely how heroes are greeted on American campuses today.
About 80-100 students came. Far more Muslim than Jewish students came and “so many” of the Muslim girls were wearing head-scarves.
According to Darwish, the female students in head-scarves did the following: As she spoke, they made exaggerated, “mean girl” faces at her. They rolled their eyes, practiced “disbelieving” facial expressions—did everything but stick out their tongues. And they continued to talk to each other in loud whispers while Darwish spoke: “How can she tell such lies!” “I was never, ever indoctrinated against Jews!” “Can you believe what she is saying?” “We do not call Jews pigs and apes, how can she lie about her own people?”
In addition to the “mean girl” faces and the continual loud whispering, one by one, at least four to five head-scarved girls, got up to leave the room during Darwish’s speech. This meant that each girl took two minutes to move to the end of her row, physically causing the other students to get up or twist aside, causing the entire room to look at the departing student, not at their invited guest—and then each girl did precisely the same thing when she returned two minutes later, presumably from a bathroom break.
They quadruple-teamed Darwish and did not stop until Darwish ended her lecture. Twenty to thirty minutes of soft-core, well-choreographed, goon squad behavior. “They are Hamas-trained” says Darwish.
“And all the while,” Darwish says, “the Jewish students cringed and cowered, so afraid that they might have hurt Muslim feelings. (Or rather, that the Muslims might physically hurt them afterwards. According to Darwish, one Jewish student told her that “she “was locking her door. I am scared.”)
She is probably right to be. During the Question and Answer period, many of the head-scarved students expressed calculated, injured outrage. “How dare (Hillel) bring this woman to our campus? How dare she insult Islam, tell lies about Islam” etc. “We are free under Islam, how can she deny this?”
…Darwish concludes: “Muslim girls like these are like gangsters. They know more about their rights in America than the Jewish girls do. The Muslim girls all have a chip on their shoulders.”
And then she is silent. Softly, she says: “We are fighting an avalanche. We are too few. I am frightened by my culture of origin. I am scared of my own people.”
Nonie Darwish is speaking tonight at UC Berkeley. Andrew Marcus is filming the event and blogger Megan Sego from California Patriot Blog is in attendance.
This is cross-posted at Incorrect U.
