Controversy grew from an already controversial topic Thursday night.

Speakers were invited to express their views on the ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel, however only one speaker attended. The lecture, Palestine: Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth, presented by the Muslim Student Association, featured elected Imam at the Islamic Center in D.C. Muhammad al-Asi and his personal views on the topic. He stressed that the views were his and not representative of everyone of the Islamic faith.

“The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is just not going away,” he said. “The conflict in the holy land [of Jerusalem] is not showing a potential or a possibility of resolution and this has to do with an obvious clash of two mentalities or two ways of life.”

According to al-Asi, one side of the argument is presented by Zionism and imperialism, while the other side is presented by native populations of Islamic character that go beyond being just a religion but as an ideology and a political program for people of that faith. In 1948, when the United Nations made Resolution 194, it called for the immediate return of all Palestinians to their homeland, which had been taken over by underground militias that chased Palestinians out by burning their villages.

“The resolution never took place,” al-Asi said. “From then on there was a solidification of, and these are not my words,” he said, “what was called a ‘Jewish homeland.’”

Al-Asi said the Jewish homeland was established according to Zionist ideology, and in its building block elements is a racist, an exclusivist, discriminatory and oppressive system that has victimized the Palestinian population. He went on to say that there are so many things in common between Jews and Muslims, but “Muslims are not the ones who are building fences saying that they do not want to encounter the other people [the Israelis], they do not want to see them, and they do not want to associate with them.”

According to al-Asi, those who belong to the Jewish faith have to realize how Zionism is a “disease that is in their body,” and they have to purge their body of this disease and of this political toxin.

“Get it out of you, so that we can resume a normal life,” he said.

“For as long as this Zionism is going to continue, if you think you had a problem, you who are affiliated with Zionism, if you think you had a problem with Palestinians and Arabs with 10 million or 200 million people, now you have 1.6 billion people that you have to have a problem with. You’re not solving, you’re not diminishing the problem, but you are contributing to it and you are inflaming it. And this is not the way I want the future to go.”

While some members of the audience either agreed or disagreed with al-Asi’s views, others attended for the excitement of a hotly debated topic. “I knew that the discussion would be controversial going in and that’s exactly what I came to see,” senior English major Isaac McDuffie said. “I figured it would be an interesting spectacle and I came in to see the spectacle unfold.” He added that in some ways al-Asi was revealing a little bit and being polarized. “What I expected was a viewpoint from someone who is not often heard from in the mainstream press and that’s what he brought,” he said.

Other attendees’ main concern was the fact that there was no other viewpoint on this topic. “His misuse of words was astronomical. In his mind the only resolution there seems to be an Islamic resistance and Islamic war against Zionism,” part-time math professor Doris Cowl said.

According to Cowl, MSA only contacted one professor to speak in contrast to al-Asi’s views. Unfortunately, professor Nitza Nachmias of the political science department was out of town that day. “Hillel and [Jewish studies and English professor] Evelyn Avery had already offered names and none of those names were followed up on,” she said.

MSA vice president Hadear Abdou disagreed and said that they invite everyone to all of their events.

“We send out massive e-mails to all student leaders to come to our events and we e-mail professors and have them talk to their students to come to our events,” she said. “For an event like this, you have to be open-minded and not come in here hot tempered. You have to be outspoken and just friendly for us to get this problem solved because it’s a big problem.”