[The following is a speech given by Nonie Darwish, the founder of Arabs for Israel, at last night’s kickoff event at UC Berkeley for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. It is preceded by a short intro written by Nonie Darwish regarding her impressions of the events surrounding her speech.]

Intro:

The atmosphere required extensive security — which made me feel that without it I would have been physically hurt at UC Berkeley. The first statement from the Al-Jazeera representative to me was: “You are the most hated woman in the Arab world.” The hatred was also felt from the far leftist American audience. My response to the Al-Jazeera statement was: “Arab media spread a hate campaign against me after my book came out. Egyptian media, without reading the book, called me a traitor to my father because I support Israel. I love my father and I believe that if he had lived he would have been part of the peace treaty that Sadat had singed with Israel.” I believe Arab media is trying to misrepresent my views in order to silence me.

A man was sitting in the audience with a black sheer bag covering his head to protest ‘Abu Greib’ when the discussion had nothing to do with Iraq. There were screams from the audience: “Fascist,” then “racist” then “Osama Bin Laden is a CIA agent.” The noise was getting louder and I could not speak any more. I felt that even in America I am being silenced. My response was: “Who will speak for women who are stoned and for Muslims terrorized in radical Muslim countries? It is sad that I left oppressive Sharia Muslim culture, where I had no freedom of speech, only to find myself silenced in America, by groups who claim they are for free speech.”

The sad thing about this whole event was the feeling that radical Muslims and their far Left supporters would rather never criticize Islamic culture than stand up against the culture that flogs, stones, beheads and amputates limbs. Not offending a religion has become more important to the far Left (unless it is Christianity or Judaism) than human rights of Muslims and victims of terror. Honor killing and female genital mutilation can be tolerated — but noone better dare utter the word “Islamo-fascism.”

American universities are becoming tyrannical when it comes to Conservative values and to Arab Americans who dare to speak out against the culture of jihad. It does not matter how many people in my early life in Egypt suffered from honor killing, female genital mutilation and oppression of women, I must shut up on American campuses.

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