by Amil Imani
Across our great nation, there are hotspots of Islamist hatred. Beautiful Boca Raton happens to be one of them. The starting point is at Florida Atlantic University (FAU).
It was there that the Muslim Student Organization (MSO) decided to establish two Islamic centers, each appropriately within arms length of the school. Three FAU professors would take key roles in the creation process. Imad Mahgoub would become president of the Assalam Center, and Khalid Hamza and Bassem Alhalabi would be co-founders of the Islamic Center of Boca Raton (ICBR). Today, both Islamic centers are looking to expand and have purchased large tracts of land to this effect.
If they get what they want, they will have two multi-faceted mosques, in the heart of Boca Raton, within blocks of each other… and of course, the university. One will be a huge 27 thousand square foot facility; the other will be built to resemble the Al-Aqsa mosque which sits on top of Judaism’s holiest site in Jerusalem, a city that the ICBR says on its website Jews have no right to and prays Allah will cleanse it of its Jewish inhabitants immediately.Local residents have questioned why there is a need for two mosques of near identical backgrounds in such close vicinity to one another.
That’s certainly a good question, but when you look at several of the people involved in the undertaking of these centers, and when you look at some of the individuals that they have associated with, this question becomes one of many.Khalid Hamza, who was an advisor to the Muslim Student Organization at FAU, not too long ago used a Texas A & M University internet forum to defend Sami Al Arian, a Tampa professor that was recently taken into custody for his involvement as a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
I used the term “was an advisor to the MSO,” because FAU has told him that they don’t want him to return to his teaching duties, and because the Islamic Center of Boca Raton sent out an e-mail announcing that he was leaving the South Florida community.Aside from his involvement with the Islamic Center of Boca Raton and the Muslim Student Organization, Khalid Hamza is also an author. He recently wrote a novel entitled ‘The Veil,’ which is being promoted on the MSO’s website, www.msofau.org.
The book is about a Muslim family living in Boca Raton. The first member of the family, as listed in the forward, is fittingly named Jihad. While Hamza was with the MSO, the student group brought a couple of key radicals to speak at the university. On April 21, 2001, the MSO’s second annual Scholars’ Night featured Rafil Dhafir, a man that now sits behind bars for raising millions of dollars for terrorist organizations in the guise of an Iraqi children’s charity called ‘Help the Needy.’