Zionists are responsible for the global financial meltdown, and President Barack Obama is a puppet for powerful white people who are gearing up for full-scale military conflict to colonize Africa.
Those kernels of wisdom were imparted by Imam Abdel Malik Ali at the University of California, Irvine last week. He spoke as part of the Muslim Student Union (MSU)'s "Palestine Liberation Week" on campus, an annual event that routinely features radical ideology and hate speech.
Malik Ali, described as a "hilarious hater" by a local newspaper, earned a reputation for "repeatedly cross[ing] the line from lambasting Israeli policy to promoting bizarre anti-Jewish conspiracy theories of the sort typically favored by neo-Nazis, as well as by giving voice to loathing for all Jews as a people."
The MSU, therefore, was well aware of what it was getting when it invited Malik Ali to speak, and he did not disappoint. He repeatedly dismissed Israel as an apartheid state, adding that any supporter of the Jewish state was inherently immoral. He derided what he saw as an American imperialism that is driven by racist power brokers and "Zionist Jews."
"The current financial crisis and collapse, the architects of it are Zionists," he told a crowd of more than 150 people. "Whether you're talking about [Alan] Greenspan or whether you're talking about [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner or whether you're talking about [former White House economic adviser Lawrence [Summers] or whether you're talking about [Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd] Blankfein, or whether you're talking about [JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie] Dimon – I'm saying Zionism corrupts you, Zionism corrupts you.
"These are not righteous Jews who are doing this. These are not righteous practitioners of the Jewish faith who are doing this," he said. In fact, not all those named are Jews. But Malik Ali said they drive animosity toward Muslims in order to divert attention from their bad deeds.
"These are them who would mix injustice with their religion. And so in order for the American people not to realize that, again Islam and Muslims must be vilified."
That vilification apparently extends to the heart of the war on terror, which Malik Ali argued is made up of whole cloth.
"There's no such thing as al-Qaida," he said. "That's another okeydokey – that's another deception. There is no such thing as al-Qaida. Like no such thing as al-Qaida. No, no such thing at all."
President Obama is a mere pawn doing the bidding of powerful, colonial interests, Malik Ali said. They need a black face in power to mask their true objectives.
"Barack Obama is already in brothers and sisters, because the next theater of operations is Africa. Black Africa. That's the next theater of operations. That's why the troops are coming out of Iraq. That's why the troops are coming out of Afghanistan," he said. American forces already have been used in Somalia and Libya, and a few have been sent to Uganda.
"And check this out. They cannot have a white man in the White House bombing black Africa. You can't do it. Because if you have a white man in the White House bombing black Africa, it's gonna wake black people up all over this world ... But if a black man is doing this, a black man with a Muslim name is doing it. And then they have the US-African command, which is designed to remilitarize and recolonize Africa. The head of the US-African command is an African-American general. Be very careful of just using color."
Malik Ali first warned people not to be excited about Obama within weeks of his election. The incoming president was "a very dangerous, dangerous deception" because Jews like Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod were key advisers.
America's first black president, Malik Ali said last week, has proven to be a tool for racists.
"The justification for empire has always been white supremacy. We have to do this to you. It's the white man's burden. How come they sit there in Iraq? They sit there in Iraq to teach the people how to govern themselves. Iraq has been here for like 5,000 years. But they have to teach the Iraqis how to govern themselves. It's the white man's burden. See the corrupting influence of empire at the root of it is the justification for empire. And that is white supremacy."
It would be easy to dismiss Malik Ali as a crackpot. In 2010, he endorsed terrorist groups Hamas and Hizballah. Speaking at San Francisco State University months after the 9/11 attacks, he insisted that Palestinian suicide bombers are not terrorists, but heroic martyrs who make their mothers proud. "And once you go up against a people who love death, more than you love life, you in trouble man! You in serious trouble!"
It is significant, though, that the MSU – considered among the most radical chapters of the national Muslim Students Association – continues to invite him to rant at its events, while still claiming to be a serious campus organization.
A California jury convicted 10 students from Irvine and UC, Riverside of misdemeanor charges stemming from an MSU plot to silence a 2010 speech on campus by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. Prosecutors argued that the group could not use free speech rights to deprive others of the right to speak. Internal MSU emails, obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, made it clear that the students did not want Oren to be able to complete his talk.
Its opposition to Oren's speech was rooted in a passionate opposition to Israeli actions, they say. But the consistent presence of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist like Malik Ali at MSU events calls that motivation into question.
Still, supposedly mainstream Islamist groups and their allies hailed the students as martyrs for free speech, prosecuted solely for their faith and political beliefs. In his remarks, Malik Ali praised the "beautiful brothers" involved in the plot, saying "that what the Irvine 11 did was right, what the Irvine 11 did was righteous, what the Irvine 11 did was good, and there was nothing wrong with what the Irvine 11 did especially in the respect of being in the United States of America."
But his commitment to free speech stops when Muslims are offended.
He compared reaction to a campus incident in which the university president cited an incident in which a swastika was drawn on a Jewish student's door as an act of intolerance. But nothing was said when other students posted images that were supposed to be of the prophet Muhammad.
"How come that [swastika] shouldn't be tolerated and that is injurious and not the pictures of the prophet, peace be upon him, that they show him being disrespected? How come that wasn't put on the list? How come that wasn't cited as an act of intolerance? Why not? But no, at that time I'm told that the students the MSU were simply told that it is their right to free speech. What? Right to free speech? They have a right to put that type of information out there that is inflammatory; they have a right to do that? Okay, I see."
Muslims are convenient scapegoats for racist, colonialist powers to usurp American civil liberties and kill enemies, he said, warning, "It's gonna go beyond us and it's gonna hit other Americans."
This is protected speech, and MSU is free to choose its speakers no matter how extreme their message. It also provides compelling evidence that the MSU's judgment is driven by a hatred, not just of Israeli policy, but of Jews and others who support the state.