Brandeis reneged on an honorary degree to Ayan Hersi Ali because she has asserted that her former religion, Islam, has a real problem that goes beyond bigotry to abuse of women, slavery, and terrorism against non muslims.
Ayan’s story might be read in comparison to the story of Yousef Al-Khattab. Born Joseph Leonard Cohen and raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, Al-Khattab was sentenced to two and a half years in prison Friday for posting violent and threatening posts on his Islamic group’s Web site intended to incite violence against those who he believed were offensive to his Islamic beliefs.
Khattab posted pictures of Chabad Jewish headquarters in Brooklyn with a map showing readers how to get there when the synagogue was was full of people praying. He also has relations with Colleen LaRose, aka JihadJane, and Samir Khan, who allegedly founded the al-Qaeda magazine “Inspire.”
Of course, radical liberals will say this is an outlier, that it is not fair to worry about Islam because of a few extremists. What they fail to see is that Ayan Ali is also an extremist, a Muslim woman with the great courage to speak out. Can one call a convert like Al Khattab an exception when his compatriots rule so much of the Muslim world?