The Somali-born Ali, 49, grew up being told that Jews were evil and reflexively hated them, even though she had never met one. In her teens, she joined the Muslim Brotherhood, in which she was indoctrinated to believe that Jews were a sub-human enemy and that their state occupies Muslim lands and must be destroyed.

After fleeing to avoid a forced marriage, Ali found refuge in the Netherlands, where her views were transformed. She became an activist for Muslim women’s rights and was elected to the Dutch parliament. She wrote the short, but incendiary, 2004 film Submission, a critique of Islam’s subjugation of women, whose director, Theo van Gogh, was murdered by a Muslim fundamentalist. Ali’s 2007 memoir is called Infidel and her most recent book is Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now.

Today, she lives in the United States, is married to British historian Niall Ferguson and is a fellow of the Washington, D.C.-based American Enterprise Institute. She was introduced at the JPL as living with constant security, due to the threats against her. No photos were allowed at the event. Ali described “Islamist-driven anti-Semitism as the reigning anti-Semitism of the day,” and said that it’s distinct from the “classic” European variety, or today’s white supremacy movement.

“Little attention is paid (to it) and that is a pity because it is the most zealous, most potent Jew hatred,” she said. “It both condemns Jews wholesale and seeks to destroy the State of Israel.”