Students protest

Elia Powers

Osman Umarji made his presence felt Monday at UC Irvine’s

“anti-terror” rally without giving a formal speech.

Standing 100 feet away from the podium, the Muslim Student Union

president weaved through the crowd and distributed hundreds of fliers

that advertised an alternate campus event.

On Wednesday, Umarji had the stage to himself. And he took time to

share his take on the rally.

“[Student] organizations brought a bus to campus Monday to depict

Palestinians as terrorists,” said Umarji, a fifth-year student and

electrical engineering major. “But there’s another side of the

story.”

Umarji said he was upset by what he called an attempt by Zionist

campus groups to play the emotional card in order to silence

pro-Palestinian viewpoints at UCI.

“We felt, no, this is just going to make us stronger,” he said.

“Bringing the bus to campus made us act faster and provide a

response.”

Student groups such as Anteaters for Israel, College Republicans

and the Irvine Conservative Student Union helped facilitate the

earlier campus arrival of a Jerusalem public bus that was attacked by

a suicide bomber in January 2004.

Umarji said the Muslim Student Union event wasn’t intended to be

purely reactionary. His organization plans public events and meetings

multiple times a year. Once Umarji heard news of the bus appearance,

he said he accelerated the process of scheduling his group’s event.

With advertising help from UCI groups Students for Peace and

Justice, Society of Arab Students and the African Student Union,

Umarji said details were finalized on Monday.

Titled “Desperation of the Zionist Lobby,” the event attracted a

crowd of at least 250 students to a courtyard outside the UCI Student

Center. Some in attendance wore black or green armbands in support of

Palestinians worldwide.

Audience members spent most of the 90 minutes listening to Imam

Abdel Malik Ali’s remarks, which covered topics from the media’s role

in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the current situation in Iraq.

Ali urged those in attendance to remain vocal on campus.

“Everyone knows Muslim students aren’t afraid of standing up for

themselves here,” he said. “We aren’t going to accept myths.

“Palestinians are not criminals.”

UCI junior Sulaiman Arain, a Muslim Student Union member, said he

was glad to hear Ali mention Palestinian oppression as one cause of

violence in the Middle East.

“The point of today was to reach people who wouldn’t otherwise be

involved in this discussion,” Arain said. “We felt it was good to

present another perspective.”

Umarji said events this week show there is an ongoing

“intellectual struggle between pro-Palestinian and pro-Zionist

students.”

He said he is willing to help facilitate future debates at UCI.

* ELIA POWERS is the enterprise and general assignment reporter.

He may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or by e-mail at

[email protected].