Who is steering America’s ship of state?

I admit it. I’m tired of writing the same piece again and again, weary of documenting the same willful and dangerous blindness on the part of the left-liberal Western media and the intelligentsia which has empowered them—on the subject of Islam, Islamic Jew hatred, and Islamist Jihad. I’ve been doing so for twenty years—perhaps for fifty years. I’ve written at least a thousand articles or more as well as two books: The New Antisemitism (2003, 2014) and Living History: On the Front Lines for Israel and the Jews (2003-2015).

It is not enough. And I am hardly alone. Others have been draining this swamp even as quickly as it fills up again or, as my esteemed colleague Richard Landes has phrased it, we are cleaning out the Augean Stables—truly, a Herculean task. Our names are legion (Khaled Abu Toameh, Andrew D. Bostom, Steve Emerson, David Hirsh, Charles Jacobs, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Nidra Poller, Charles Small, Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye’or), and we have been joined by younger, wonderful people (Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Dovid Efune, Daniel Gordis, Elder of Zion, Matti Friedman, Dara Horn, Zuhdi Jasser, Asra Nomani, Andrew Pessin, Bari Weiss), who should be here long after we are gone.

Hopefully, they will not find themselves having to perform this same task over and over.

But, until I’m gone, I cannot refrain from the work at hand. So, from time to time, I write another such article. Can’t help myself. Here goes.

On Sunday, 1/16, the hard copy of the New York Times, my home-town newspaper, buried the 1/15 hostage-taking story at the Texas synagogue on page 19. The article did not use the word “Jihad,” “anti-semitism,” “Jew hatred,” “Pakistani” or “Muslim” except to note once, rather parenthetically, that “the suspect claimed that he and his sister would be “going to Jannah (Muslim belief of heaven) after he saw her.”

At this point in time, the Paper of Record does not seem to know who his “sister” is, although this same gunman called her by her name and could have been quoted. She is Aafia Siddiqui, aka Lady Al Qaeda, a known Jihadist, who once lived and studied in America, then moved to Pakistan, and was arrested in Afghanistan carrying “documents that discussed the construction of weapons, referenced a ‘mass casualty attack’ and listed a number of New York City landmarks. These documents were in her handwriting and had her fingerprints on them.”

While in captivity in Bagram, Sididqui also picked up an M4 rifle and opened fire on US soldiers. She was eventually convicted for trying to kill U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. At her trial, she wanted the jury genetically tested to see if they were Jews. Siddiqui was convicted, sentenced to 86 years, and thereafter, supported by Islamist groups everywhere (CAIR, AMP, MAS, Linda Sarsour) as proof that her arrest and conviction were “actually part of a war waged on Islam.”

Failing to identify Siddiqui, this same NYT 1/16 article nevertheless managed to note that Colleyville, where the congregation is located, is an “upper class suburb of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.”

Rich Jews deserve to die—is that it? We control the world’s wealth and, as the unnamed hostage-taker believed, surely rich Jews have the power to free Siddiqui.

Imagine if the “gunman” had been a Christian white supremacist! Imagine how the paper of record might have handled such an attack.

There are no surprises here. The Pakistani Muslim Jihadist hostage-taker is one in a long line of such Islamist attackers. The left-liberal Western media coverage/cover-up is also, alas, more of same. The Jihadists are all misidentified or unidentified in the left-liberal Western press—but when identification is absolutely known, they are quickly seen as “lone jihadists” and/or as “mentally ill.”

There’s no network of Islamist terrorism here, nothing to see, no camel in the room, just loose individual screws rolling around the universe. When will they learn?.

On Monday, 1/17, the New York Times published a 1,476 word article on the Texas incident. Their hardcopy headlines reveals nothing of substance and consists of: “Texas Synagogue Hostage Taker Flew From the U.K., Authorities Say” (this time on page 1, but at the very bottom of the page, even a bit lower than their piece on “As Attendance Falls, Now is the Winter of Broadway’s Discontent.”)

The article continues on page A17 with a headline of: “Man Killed After Taking Synagogue Hostage Flew From U.K., Authorities Say.” Once again, the article does not use the words: “Jihadist,” “terrorist,’” or “Muslim.” Malik Faisal Akram is named but identified as a “British national.” The word “antisemitism” is used but only to refer to the “antisemitic attacker (who) killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.”

And someone at the Colleyville synagogue let Akram in, offered him a cup of tea, thought he was homeless and looking for shelter. My people are crazy—my people are wonderful. About this—I have no depth-level comment except to quote the sages (R. Elazar, Maimonides), who noted that “He who is compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate/the innocent.”

It wasn’t only the New York Times that got it wrong. So did the FBI. Special Agent Matthew De Sarno said that this incident “was not specifically related to the Jewish community.”

Say what? A Jihadist walks into a synagogue and takes hostages in order to free a known Jew hater and Jihadist and it has nothing to do with the Jews as a people?

Then there is our elected President Biden who can be seen, on video, saying: “I don’t think there is sufficient information to know why he targeted that synagogue…why he was using antisemitic and anti-Israeli comments. We just don’t have enough facts.”

Who is steering our ship of state? Where are we headed?