DECATUR - When Nonie Darwish was a young girl, she was invited to be a jihadist to join the holy war against Israel.

Her father was head of Egyptian military intelligence and a terrorist group that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians. When he was assassinated in 1956, government officials asked Darwish and her siblings which one would avenge her father by killing Jews.

Darwish later questioned the anti-Semitic messages that had been drummed into her in the public schools in Gaza. She wondered why her family preferred to take her critically ill brother to a Jewish doctor, if all Jews were subhuman.

"The way a Jew is portrayed in the Muslim world is extremely cruel," Darwish said. "They dehumanize them, almost like they're monsters. These (messages) are coming within the mosque. Many Muslim preachers accused that 9/11 is a Jewish conspiracy. This is widespread believed in the Muslim world."

Darwish, a former Egyptian journalist who moved to the United States in 1978, decided after 9/11 that the non-Muslim world should understand radical Islam.

She said radical Islam is interested in conquering nations, including America. She was told at U.S. mosques that she was not to assimilate with Americans, because Muslims are here to Islamicize this nation.

The author of "Now They Call me Infidel: Why I renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror," Darwish will deliver a lecture tonight at the University of Illinois.

Darwish was in the news recently when leaders of a Jewish group, Hillel, at Brown University, Providence, R.I., retracted their speaking invitation under pressure from Muslims. She later spoke to a large group at the school.

Dani Klein of StandWithUs, an Israel advocacy group that books speaking engagements for Darwish, said she is a courageous woman who advocates peace between Arabs and Jews, despite frequent opposition from Muslims.

Huey Freeman can be reached at hfreeman@herald-review.com or 421-6985.