The FBI is being fiercely hammered for saying the Texas synagogue hostage taker’s demands were “not specifically related to the Jewish community,” with some calling for the complete elimination of the bureau. This from thejewishvoice.com.
“The FBI is now an organization solely focused on destroying the domestic enemies of the Democratic Party,” conservative talk radio show Jesse Kelly tweeted Sunday morning.
“Any Republican Congress or Presidential candidate who doesn’t loudly proclaim his intention to massively reform or disband this organization should not be considered.”
Kelly was responding to a news tweet by the Associated Press indicating “the Texas synagogue hostage taker’s demands were specifically focused on issues not connected to the Jewish community.”
At a news conference, FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno said: “We do believe from our engaging with this subject that he was singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community. But we’re continuing to work to find motive.”
The hostage taker, British national Malik Faisal Akram, took four hostages at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.
The Jerusalem Post called DeSarno’s remarks “a truly baffling statement.”
The front page of the Jerusalem Post online on Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, indicates strong sentiment the hostage event in Collleyville, Texas, was directly aimed at Jews.
In an analysis titled, “Yes, the Colleyville synagogue attack was ‘specifically’ targeting Jews,” the Post reported:
The idea that any attack on a synagogue is “not specifically related to the Jewish community” is absurd enough.
Even with the broadest definition of who is considered Jewish, Jews make up only 2.4% of all American adults and only 0.6% of the population of Texas. It beggars belief, in most cases and in this one in particular, that someone outside the densest Jewish populations in America would have randomly stumbled upon a synagogue while looking for people to hold hostage.
Add to that the fact that the gunman entered Congregation Beth Israel on a Saturday morning, when Shabbat services are held. The timing was clearly intentional. …
We don’t know much about the hostage taker since the FBI is not releasing information. But we know that he targeted a synagogue to free a woman who did not hide her hatred of Jews. And we know a leading figure in the same organization that advocated Siddiqui’s cause put synagogues and other major Jewish organizations on a list of “enemies” who spark Islamophobia.
These seem like directions of inquiry the FBI ought to be taking seriously.
What more must it take for a crime to be viewed as “specifically related to the Jewish community?” What more needs to happen for antisemitic hate crimes to be viewed as such?
The gunman allegedly demanded the release of a Pakistani woman currently behind bars in Texas on charges of trying to kill members of the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
According to Fox News, “The FBI and Justice Department previously described the woman, Aafia Siddiqui, as an ‘al-Qaida operative and facilitator’ at a May 2004 news conference. She is serving an 86-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2010 on charges that she sought to shoot U.S. military members while in Afghanistan two years earlier.
She has a history of anti-Semitism, including demanding that jurors in her case be DNA tested and removed ‘if they have a Zionist or Israeli background.’”
Undated FBI photo shows Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year prison sentence after being convicted
in 2010 on charges that she sought to shoot U.S. military members while in Afghanistan two year earlier.
Dr. Sebastian Gorka, host of “America First,” tweeted: The FBI is a joke. A dangerous joke.”
Others on Twitter ferociously pummeled the FBI, with comments including:
- “The FBI is an irreparably corrupt and broken agency that needs to be defunded and eliminated. Recall: the FBI claimed the Ft. Hood terrorist attack was ‘workplace violence,’ and that a mass assassination attack on GOPers was a ‘suicide by cop’ incident. Corrupt and unfixable.”
- “This is the same FBI field office that executed the arrest of Stewart Rhodes last week. DOJ used no obfuscation in describing Rhodes and 11 others as seditionists. This agency is not salvageable, it’s irredeemably corrupt from the top down to every field office.”
- “I am sure the FBI will clean this up shortly, but until then, worth stating the obvious: The gunman did not travel thousands of miles to terrorize some Mormons. He sought out a synagogue and took it hostage over his grievances. That’s targeting Jews, and there’s a word for that.”
- “The guy took a synagogue hostage to try to get a notoriously anti-Semitic terrorist released from the prison down the road.”
- “Just a coincidence that he targeted a house of worship used by this one particular religious minority, a coincidence that seems to happen an awful lot throughout history.”
Thanks Obama. This is your “transformation” of the FBI and of the America We the People loved and respected and valued.
Much work must be accomplished to wipe your stain from our land and to restore America to its rightful state of being.
But first, as soon as Conservatism regains control of Our Nation, you, among many others, will be investigated, convicted, and hopefully executed. And your birth certificate must be revealed.
By definition, the charge of ‘Treason’ is for the betrayal of one’s own country. You being Kenyan, the charge should more accurately be ‘Sedition.’
God speed to the powers of right and true.
And may God bless America. We need a miracle, and we need it now.
