Melanie Phillips
Melanie Phillips Substack, Jan. 18, 2022
The observation by an FBI officer that the gunman who took four Jews hostage in a Texas synagogue on Saturday was “singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community” has produced an understandable torrent of ridicule and derision.
Obviously, the notion that taking hostage a rabbi and three Jewish worshippers in a synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath was some kind of random event unconnected with the gunman’s attitude to Jews was beyond absurd.
The reason the FBI agent said this, however, reveals something broader about the blindness of the west towards Muslim antisemitism and the crucial role this plays in Islamic extremism. Indeed, even some of those who found the agent’s comment grotesque don’t get this point either.
Let’s unravel all this. The gunman, a British Islamist called Malik Faisal Akram, was reportedly motivated by his wish to free Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist linked to al Qaeda. In 2010, she was jailed for 86 years for attempted murder and is being held in Fort Worth, Texas.
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