Home
In this issue

Oct. 10, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The limitations of scientific miracles

Caroline B. Glick: Lebanon on the brink --- and why it matters

Oct. 8, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: The day when the sane talk to themselves

Ana Veciana-Suarez: Many nonobservant Jews are finding religion

Oct. 7, 2008

Gary Rosenblatt: Of politics and prayer

Caroline B. Glick: The ironies of the West's collusion with the Arabs and Iran

Oct. 6, 2008

Rabbi Yitzchok R. Rubin: Mamma to the masses

Jonathan Tobin: Ahmadinejad Isn't Too Impressed

Oct. 3, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The 'living dead' are all around us

Caroline B. Glick: Olmert's parting blows

Oct. 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Often customers looking for our competitor accidentally enter our store. Can we just serve them without comment?

Jonathan Tobin: Jewish pundit quiz on next year's news

Sept. 29, 2008

Rabbi Eli Gewirtz: Lehman Brothers and the Day of Judgment

Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Apples, Honey and You

Sept. 26, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The shofar and the Echo of Sinai

Caroline B. Glick: A road paved on reality

Sept. 24, 2008

Greg Crosby: Home for the Holy Days

Ethel G. Hofman: Rosh Hashanah Favorites: Old-fashioned taste, reduced calories

Sept. 23, 2008

Caroline Glick: Liberalism or lives!?

Michael Ledeen: Dear President Ahmadinejad

Sept. 22, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I gave a check to a local merchant, but it hasn't been cashed in months. Probably they lost it. Do I have to tell them?

Diana West: We are losing Europe to Islam

Sept. 19, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: On harvesting success

Caroline B. Glick: It is time to act

Sept. 18, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Is camping the panacea to save Jewry from self-destruction?

Craig Gordon: Was SNL hilarity too much for Hillary?

Sept. 17, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: The Whole World Is Watching

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: East meets Southwest in this quick meal: MEXICAN-ASIAN TOSTADOS

Sept. 16, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. : Into the fire

Everything's Relative : Your Official Jewish Guide to the 2008 USA Presidential Election

Sept. 15, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Enabling risky behavior

Diana West: A day that will live in ... accommodating Islam

Sept. 11, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The skeleton in my closet

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein: Persecution and systematic destruction of Christians in the Middle East must be stopped

Sept. 10, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: There's Something About Sarah

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Who needs Chili's when you have these? Recipes for Mexican that taste great and are dietetic! Our commitment to freedom

Sept. 9, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Must counterinsurgency wars fail?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.:

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

Sept. 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?

Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Sept. 1, 2006 / 8 Elul, 5766

Leaning over backwards indicates head not screwed on straight

By Mona Charen


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that two men are being sought in connection with an arson at a Minneapolis mosque — a crime that has attracted the attention of the FBI as a potential bias crime. Liberal City Council Member Gary Schiff arrived at the scene to pronounce: "There's no doubt this was clearly a hate crime. It was a very deliberate offense." Alan Silver, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council in Minneapolis, was also on hand to denounce the fire as "an attack on all of us."


One of the men captured on surveillance cameras was white, sporting a full beard. The other was black, with a beard closely cropped around the jaw line. There are signs that gasoline was used to set the fire. On this evidence, the FBI, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a number of community leaders in Minneapolis are certain a hate crime has been committed. Well, it's possible, of course, but how many multi-racial anti-Muslim hate groups exist in the United States? Twenty to one they'll discover it was just a plain old arson.


Meanwhile, in San Francisco, an immigrant from Afghanistan went on a rampage with his SUV, killing one man and wounding 18 others in hit-and-run attacks. Witnesses said he drove up onto curbs deliberately aiming at pedestrians. "Driver Called Unstable," read the headline in the Washington Times. Yes, but according to the San Jose Mercury News, he was also a product of a certain culture. Omeed Popal was 29 years old, but apparently totally sheltered and controlled by his parents, who, according to the paper, "believed they needed to protect him from America's 'evil society.'" He had recently traveled to Afghanistan to be married to a woman his family picked out for him.


Perhaps there was nothing more to the story than mental instability and cultural rigidity bordering on the pathological. But the rampage ended at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, where two of the victims were struck. It also happens to echo a hit-and-run attack in North Carolina last spring. Iranian born Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar used a rented Jeep to plow into a crowd at the University of North Carolina. As Investor's Business Daily reported, he told police that he ran down nine people with his SUV to "punish the government of the United States for its actions around the world." He further explained to the judge that he was "thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah." No one has yet accused him of a hate crime, but news reports in that case as well stressed his mental instability. Students at UNC were deeply divided about whether the attack should be called terrorism.


When Naveed Haq invaded the Seattle Jewish Federation in Seattle last month and methodically shot six women, killing one, the coverage was quiet. The stories tended to focus on Haq's (you guessed it) history of mental instability, and while officials did not hesitate to call it a hate crime, there was a good deal of reassurance about an "isolated act" and all that.


A few years before that, an Egyptian-born immigrant shot up the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport. No significance, we were instructed. Isolated act.


"Beltway snipers" and Muslim converts John Allen Mohammed and Lee Malvo terrorized the Washington area for weeks when they went on a shooting spree. Their religious motivation (they admired the 9/11 hijackers) was soft-pedaled.


What is missing from the response to all of these attacks is some attention to the Muslim spirit of the day. Doubtless all of these criminals are mentally borderline types. But the environment in which they are nurtured affects their willingness to resort to violence as well as their choice of victims. In no case have Muslim leaders stepped forward to proclaim that an attack on a Jewish community center, for example, "is an attack on all of us." Nor do they condemn the assaults as contrary to the tenets of Islam.


CAIR's website offers a link to "Muslim condemnations of terrorism," but all of the quotes date from September 11, 2001. There has been an eerie silence since.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


Comment on JWR contributor Mona Charen's column by clicking here.

Mona Charen Archives

© 2006, Creators Syndicate

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Rod Dreher
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Michael Goodwin
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 James Klurfeld
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Jonathan Last
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 The Medicine Men
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Jonathan Tobin
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Jeff Stahler
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Know-It-All
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 Marybeth Hicks
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Nutrition Myths
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works