An appearance by Malik Shabazz at Carnegie Mellon University last week has infuriated Jewish students, who say he not only devoted a university lecture to attacking them, but broke university rules and asked that Jewish students identify themselves as Jews before a hostile audience.

A columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who managed to stay at the appearance when many other journalists were forced to leave, wrote: "Shabazz travels with a retinue of young men and women in jackboots, arm patches and berets. One wandered about with a nightstick. Another snapped photos of white people in the audience.... Try to imagine Farrakhan in Nuremberg."

Shabazz could not be reached for comment Monday. Nor could members of the black student group that organized the appearance. Carnegie Mellon officials said that they tried to persuade the students not to invite Shabazz, who has been criticized as an anti-Semite not only by Jewish organizations but by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center. But the university decided that its commitment to free expression meant that the students were given the final say.

Michael C. Murphy, dean of student affairs, said in an interview Monday that the "tenor of hurtfulness and hatefulness" by Shabazz had upset many students at the university. Murphy was preparing for a town meeting to discuss student reactions, and for many private meetings with students and others who are concerned.

"This was hate," said Aaron Weil, executive director of the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh. "At one point, he asked all the Jews in the room to raise their hands and say who is a Jew and then he asked who is a Zionist and the people with him told these students, 'I'm watching you.' One of our students was in tears."

Weil stressed that Hillel had not asked that the speech be banned, or tried to disrupt the appearance. But he said that Jewish students feel threatened by the fact that Carnegie Mellon let Shabazz and his entourage violate university rules about weapons during an appearance in which he repeatedly criticized Jews. Among other things, Shabazz suggested that Jewish people aren't really Jewish.

In terms of violations, Weil noted that people were searched for weapons going into the lecture. But members of Shabazz's group had nightsticks visible during the appearance. Murphy, the Carnegie Mellon dean, acknowledged that university rules bar private individuals from bringing nightsticks to campus events. He said that he knew of only one nightstick that was present, and that campus police officers made a "discretionary judgment" not to remove it. Murphy added that the officers "kept a close eye" on the person with the nightstick and that it was never used to threaten anyone...

...Murphy said that when he discussed the Shabazz speech with the students who planned it, they said that they had asked Shabazz to talk about the importance of education and the responsibilities of black students, not about his views on Jewish people. He said that the students "believed" Shabazz would "give a different speech than the one he gave."...

As anger grew at Carnegie Mellon University over a speech by Malik Shabazz last week, there was a constant refrain from university officials: No university funds were used.

Students report that they were told this again and again. Reporters were told this repeatedly. The university let a student group host the speaker -- who used his appearance to attack Jews -- out of a commitment to free speech, but university officials said it would never have helped bring him to campus.

Except maybe it did.

Students heard rumors that a university research center had paid for part of Shabazz's appearance, and sent an e-mail message to the head of the Center for African-American Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE) to ask if it had supported the Shabazz visit. Joe Trotter, director of the center and chairman of the history department at Carnegie Mellon, wrote back that CAUSE had "contributed" to the visit, but that the amount was "quite small."...

Jared L. Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon, sent a letter Tuesday to all students and faculty members about the controversy. He quoted from the university's policy on controversial speakers: "When so-called controversial speakers are invited to the campus by a recognized campus organization, they speak not because they have a right to be heard but because the students have a right to hear. It is the students' right to hear that the university must defend if it is to serve its high function in society."

The fireworks started simultaneous with the questions and answers. Some, of course, were pretty standard stuff - regular questions, regular answers. The one identifiably Muslim gentleman who stood up was just that - a gentleman. He was impeccably polite, although he took issue with what Spencer was saying, insisting that what he was hearing did not describe the Islam he had been trained in and he suffered form the same malady that the others who stood up to protest - he was really there to make some statements, not ask questions, and didn't want to relinquish the floor. But, it should be emphasized, he had a mild case of the problem.

On December 22, 2000, MPAC's Mahdi Bray organized a rally in Lafayette Park outside the White House to celebrate a "Worldwide Day for Jerusalem." In Arabic, the crowd responsively chanted with the emcee, "Khaybar, Khaybar oh Jews, the Army of Muhammad is coming for you!" Posters calling for "Death to Israel" and equating the Star of David with the Nazi swastika were openly displayed and anti-Semitic literature calling for the destruction of the Jews and Israel was distributed. Members of the crowd burned the Israeli flag while marching from the White House to the State Department.

Bray spoke at this rally, along with Imam Mohammed al-Asi, former director of the Islamic Education Center in Potomac, Maryland, who exhorted the crowd to violence in the name of Islam. Al-Asi said, "Now, all our khatibs (speakers), our imams, our public speakers, should be concentrating on militarizing the Muslim public. This is not a time to make a speaking issue out of this ... Muslims have to familiarize themselves with every means possible ... Rhetoric is not going to liberate Al Quds and Al Aqsa. Only carrying arms will do this task. And it's not going to be someone else who is going to carry arms for you and for me. It is you and me who are going to have to carry these arms."

...Of course, when the MPAC report charges that “Emerson’s lack of precision leads him to conflate legitimate organizations that can help America and secure the homeland with others that are neither genuinely American nor transparent,” it becomes clear why MPAC is in such a froth about Emerson: because of what he knows about MPAC itself. In American Jihad, Emerson notes that when Abdurrahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council, who is now serving a 23-year prison sentence for a terrorism financing conviction, encouraged the Muslim crowd at an October 2000 rally cosponsored by MPAC to declare their support of the jihad terror groups Hamas and Hizballah, “MPAC’s Political Advisor, Mahdi Bray, stood directly behind Alamoudi and was seen jubilantly exclaiming his support for these two deadly terrorist organizations.” This was just three weeks after Bray “coordinated and led a rally where approximately 2,000 people congregated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.” Emerson reports that “at one point during the rally, Mahdi Bray played the tambourine as one of the speakers sang, while the crowd repeated: ‘Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is calling us, let’s all go into jihad, and throw stones at the face of the Jews [sic].’”[18]...

More than 100 supporters of Abu Ali crowded the courtroom Tuesday and laughed when the charge was read aloud alleging that he conspired to assassinate Bush...

...Ahmed Abu-Ali’s family and MAS Freedom Foundation have been informed by the United States government that Abu-Ali has returned to the U.S. and will appear Tuesday, February 22, 2005 before a magistrate at the Eastern District 4th Circuit Federal Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia at 9:00 AM.

The Freedom Foundation will post any new developments concerning Abu-Ali on its website immediately.

MAS FREEDOM FOUNDATION URGES EVERYONE TO ATTEND THE ARRAINGMENT.

“We’re deeply grateful to the Almighty for the return of Abu-Ali the United States of America,” said Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation Executive Director Mahdi Bray. “However, I am still greatly troubled and concerned about the manner in which our government has dealt with Abu Ali and his family.

”Nothing short of his release and return to his family is acceptable to us," stated Bray.