British universities have become centers of jihad recruitment

Over here they're centers for Leftist recruitment, and then the products of the two work neatly hand-in-hand. "British universities: seats of learning - and loathing," by Ruth Dudley Edwards in the Telegraph, January 2

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab "never gave his tutors any cause for concern, and was a well-mannered, quietly spoken, polite and able young man", explained University College London, as it busily seemed to wash its hands of any responsibility for fostering a suicide bomber who attempted to down a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day.

While of course, said Provost Malcolm Grant, the authorities would be reflecting very carefully, students were admitted on merit and there could be no vetting "of their political, racial or religious background or beliefs"....

Did no tutor talk to him about his life outside engineering? Did it concern no one that this lonely boy had taken to wearing Islamic dress?

Wasn't anyone worried about the radicalism of the "War on Terror Week" Abdulmutallab organised as president? Did anyone know he had asked a "hate-preacher" to address the society? Or did UCL think their job was simply to teach the boy engineering in exchange for his father's large cheques?...

Good questions!

It's not that universities haven't had enough warnings. Sheikh Musa Admani, an imam at London Metropolitan University, pleaded with both the Home Office and academic leaders to supervise and control Islamic societies.

He spoke eloquently of vulnerable, friendless first-year students, confused about the conflict between Islam and hedonistic secular values, who are natural prey for Islamist evangelists offering companionship, brotherly love and a clear sense of identity.

Admani's common-sense advice - for instance, that prayer rooms should be open to all, not just Muslims, and that speakers should be vetted - were seemingly ignored by most academics and officials.

So what he had observed continued: university after university provided Muslim prayer rooms that were all too often taken over by extremists who changed the locks, showed innocent freshers heavy-duty propaganda films of Muslim suffering at the hands of wicked Jews, Americans and Brits, and brought to the campus inspirational speakers who encouraged the young to sacrifice themselves for Allah.

Then there was Professor Anthony Glees who, four years ago in his book When Students Turn to Terror, named more than 30 universities where "extremist and/or terror groups" were to be found.

He was denounced by the National Union of Students and met with hostility from the academic establishment.

The following year, when an all-party parliamentary commission reported on the rise in anti-Semitism that was accompanying increasing support for Islamism on campuses, in the words of its chairman, the respected Denis MacShane, "university vice-chancellors and the university lecturers' union pooh-poohed our concerns".

And when the Government finally became alarmed, its suggestion that academics should keep an eye on their students and report signs of extremism was angrily rejected by the same union (University and College Union), which boasts a substantial minority who want an academic boycott against Israel....

Read it all at the Telegraph

With thanks to JihadWatch.