Organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Terrorism Awareness Project, the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (IFAW) campaign was first introduced on 114 college campuses across the United States during the week of October 22-26, 2007, making it the largest conservative student protest in American history. Its goals were as follows:
To Explain Who the Enemy Is: The enemy is not “terror,” but a fanatical religious movement associated with the Muslim Brotherhood; it is a movement that includes al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- whose common goal is the defeat of the American military in the Middle East, to be followed by the creation of a global Muslim empire ruled by an Islamic “pope” or caliphate.
To Counter the Left's Big Lie -- that “George Bush created the war on terror” -- and to do this by means of campus demonstrations, guest speakers, and documentary films. The speakers included, among others, former Senator Rick Santorum, Christopher Hitchens, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, David Horowitz, Steve Emerson, Ann Coulter, Dennis Prager, Frank Gaffney, Cliff May, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Phyllis Chessler, and Ibn Warraq. The films included Obsession; Suicide Killers; Border; Islam vs. Islam; and Islam: What the West Needs to Know.
To Protest Islam's Violent Oppression of Women -- the "honor killings,” arranged marriages, child brides, and second-class citizenship of Muslim women.
To Strengthen Those on Campus Who Reject the Anti-American Curriculum of the Tenured Left, which teaches that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic, imperialist “Great Satan” whose "little Eichmanns" deserve what they get at the hands of Medieval religious fanatics armed with the latest technologies of death.
To Teach an Alternative Curriculum that Will Arm America against the Radical Jihad: This curriculum will teach that Islam, as currently practiced in Muslim states, oppresses women, gays, Christians, Jews, and atheists. It will teach that “Islamo-fascists hate us not because we are oppressors but because we are Christians, Jews, atheists, gays, and liberated women, and because we are tolerant, generous and free."
In a related measure calling upon “all campus political, cultural, ethnic and religious groups to [oppose] all forms of religious supremacism, violence and intimidation,” the David Horowitz Freedom Center drafted an Islamo-Fascism Petition affirming four major principles:
“the right of all people to live in freedom and dignity”
“the freedom of the individual conscience to change religions or have no religion at all”
“the equality of dignity of women and men”
“the right of all people to live free from violence, intimidation, and coercion”
A second IFAW was held on more than 100 college and university campuses during the week of April 7-11, 2008. Its centerpiece was a Declaration Against Genocide, which called on “student governments and Muslim groups” to condemn Hezbollah and Hamas, and to repudiate the prophet Mohammed's assertion that redemption will only come when Muslims fight Jews and kill them -- "when the rocks and trees cry out, 'Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.'"
The IFAW II Declaration also affirmed such notions as:
the right of all people to live in freedom and dignity;
the freedom of the individual conscience to change religions or have no religion at all;
the equal dignity of women and men; and
the right of all people to live free from violence, intimidation, and coercion
A third IFAW was held on 79 college and university campuses nationwide in October 2008. Promoting the theme of “Stop the Jihad on Campus,” the organizers of this campaign asked Muslims to repudiate a violent interpretation of their religion’s sacred texts. Participating students circulated a Petition for Hadith Reform, which asked signatories to deny any implication that Jews must be destroyed as a people, and to affirm the equality of all people -- both men and women.
