By Brendan O’Reilly

Video clips of Muslim clerics and crowds calling for jihad and “death to America.” Interviews with Arab children describing how they would like President Bush to die. It may not be as famous as “Fahrenheit: 9/11,” but a documentary that is spreading across college campuses is just as, if not more, controversial.

“Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” a film about Islamist terrorism, was screened at over 30 campuses last semester. It spurred protests at the University of California, and at SUNY Stony Brook and Pace Universities screenings were canceled or postponed.

Many showings have gone on without serious incident. Last October, at the University, when the College Republicans and Education for Middle Eastern Truth (EMET) hosted the documentary, students did not protest, but some who went to the screening were upset by the content.

“The documentary is very inflammatory, because it creates a perception of Islam as a fundamentally flawed, violence-promoting religion,” said Hamza Ahmad, a former president of the University Muslim Students Association, who attended the event last November with other MSA members.

Ahmad went on to say, “The truth is, that Islam itself promotes peace. We argued this at the event and we pointed out how the documentary is not unbiased and even at times tries to compare Islam with Nazi Germany. Ahmad said he felt the comparison to Nazis was an attempt to stir Jewish hatred of Muslims. “The purpose of the documentary is to attack Islam, and any such video that incites such hatred should be banned from doing so. There’s no argument or questioning to it.”

The filmmakers say the documentary is not an indictment of all Muslims, but just those who use Islam to stir hate of Western civilization.

“The goal of a message like ‘Obsession”s, from a Jewish organizational perspective, is to shore up support among Jews, get other groups on-board, and potentially influence some Muslims to speak out,” said Steven Weiss, the editor and publisher of CampusJ.com, a Web site dedicated to Jewish news on college campuses. Weiss said the documentary is a “vanilla” take on radical Islam. “It’s certainly no more controversial than most of what you’ll see on The History Channel.”

“‘Obsession’ is a film that discusses a reality of our times – a reality that radical Islam is a threat to Christians, Muslims and Jews,” said Nathan Yadgar, the former president of EMET, a group he started for the purpose of advocacy for Israel.

He continued, “The film doesn’t really target Islam in general, it targets a radical interpretation of Islam that is really the threat.” Yadgar also said the comparison to Nazi Germany in the film was considering the propaganda tools radicals use, rather than comparing Nazi ideology with that of Islam.

“It’s a very unfortunate fact that universities are not showing this because whether or not the film is agreed upon, I think that it should be discussed,” Yadgar said. “People will always be offended, but the scary thing is, sometimes people will take away the right to have a discussion.”

A screening planned at Pace during Judaism Awareness Week last November never happened, after the Pace MSA asked the school administration to cancel the event.

“This was never about MSA,” said Michael Abdurakhmanov, the president of Pace Hillel, “or trying to incite violence or anger in anybody. It was done with good intentions. We notified MSA and asked them to work with us and they rejected our offer.”

Abdurakhmanov said he wanted to show the film on campus because he felt academia is critical of Israel without speaking about what happens on the other side of the Arab-Israeli conflict. “The film showed what is going on in the Middle East from the radical-Islamic side. How they’re manipulating children. How they are spreading hate across the Western world – causing Muslims to turn radical and hate the Western world,” Abdurakhmanov said.

“It’s not all Muslims, or it’s not all Arabs,” he added. “It is just a specific few that are twisting a perfectly fine religion into something that is now being hated and wars are being fought against.”

A showing at Pace is now scheduled for April. “I don’t think any pressure will come from the administration to not show the film,” he said, citing the attention the first cancellation brought to the school. “Dozens and dozens of Jewish organizations and non-Jewish organizations have shown their support [for Hillel].”

Zeina Berjaoui, the president of the Muslim Students Association at Pace, is still in opposition to showing the film. Berjaoui cited anti-Muslim hate crimes that had occurred on Pace’s campus as one of her reasons. “It is evident from these hate crimes that there is some sort of hatred toward the Islamic faith on campus,” Berjaoui, a senior speech pathology major, said. On separate occasions, copies of the Quran were found in toilet bowls. “From this, it is very evident that a movie like this is not something the Pace community should be showing.”

Though the MSA declined Pace Hillel’s offer to participate in the screening by bringing in a speaker to respond to the film, Berjaoui said she would cooperate with Hillel in other ways. “There [are] enough factors in the outside world that provoke those of the Muslim faith and Jewish faith to build walls against each other. I think organizations like MSA and Hillel should be working together to promote just the opposite of this.” Pace never intended to cancel the screening, according to Christopher Cory, a Pace spokesperson, but only to postpone it to a time when tension was not as high.

“The bottom line issue for us was one of tact and sensitivity,” Cory said. “We had all these hate crimes in the fall.”

In addition to the flushing of copies of the Quran, Cory said there was a theft from a Muslim prayer room and swastika graffiti on campus.

“We don’t believe in canceling controversial properties or ideas. That’s not in the genes around here,” he said. “We were just afraid that in that atmosphere the showing of a film like this – which is provocative – would be better postponed,” Cory added. “When it does take place in the spring semester – it may still be controversial and provocative – but less likely to create disruptions.”