All Roads Lead to Jewish Infamy

"The last hour or so of the standoff, he wasn’t getting what he wanted. It didn’t look good. It didn’t sound good. We were terrified."

"When I saw an opportunity where he wasn’t in a good position, I made sure that the two gentlemen who were with me that they were ready to go. The exit wasn’t too far away. I told them to go, I threw a chair at the gunman and I headed for the door. And all three of us were able to get out without even a shot being fired."

"When your life is threatened, and you need to do whatever you can to get to safety [training by the FBI, the Colleyville Police Department, the Anti-Defamation League and the Secure Community Network informed his self-preservation actions]."

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, Congregation Beth Israel, Colleyville, Texas

 

"He wanted this woman [convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui] released and he wanted to talk to her and he thought -- well, he said point-blank he chose this synagogue because 'Jews control the world. Jews control the media. Jews control the banks. I want to talk to the chief rabbi of the United States'."

"He lectured us. As long as he was talking and somewhat calm, we bought the FBI time to position."

Jeffrey Cohen, vice president, board of trustees, Congregation Beth Israel, Saturday hostage

A police SUV sits outside the synagogue Sunday

A Pakistani-UK national had flown to the United States from Britain. When investigators did a routine check on arrival, nothing untoward was found to identify him as a potential threat. He was there for a purpose only he was aware of...unless he had informed two UK teens now under arrest, rumoured to be his sons. During the ten-hour hostage-taking that ensued on Saturday at the Texas synagogue where he held the synagogue rabbi and three synagogue members hostage, he was known to be speaking by cellphone on a number of occasions to persons unknown. It was later revealed that the arrested teens were in contact with the man during the hostage-taking.

In the week or weeks after his arrival to the United States, the man identified as 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, spent his nights in homeless shelters. On Saturday when he finally approached the synagogue, ostensibly after having managed to secure for himself weapon sold on the street, he appeared at the synagogue doors as someone needing a place to rest. Rabbi Cytron-Walker described in an interview how he had welcomed the stranger, gave him a warming cup of tea, and proceeded to the evening service.

It was only when he concluded the Sabbath service that he became aware of something suspicious; a sound. When he turned around he saw the stranger withdrawing a gun from the folds of his clothing, likely an outer coat.  Which, obviously, was when he realized with clarity that this was not a good situation that he and three members of the synagogue community found themselves in. Their house of worship had quietly and firmly become their prison and the warden was a terrorist. Carefully, unobtrusively, the rabbi dialled 911 on his cellphone and placed it live on a counter.

Police respond to a  hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue on January 16 in Colleyville, Texas.  Brandon Wade/AP

 

The man was certainly a Jew-hater, spewing the usual anti-Semitic tropes of Jewish control of the world. Jews had no involvement in the arrest and trial and incarceration of a Pakistani neuroscientists who had attended prestigious American universities to obtain her scientific bona fides through a doctorate, but the intruder's mind was fixated in a pathology of belief in Jewish world control and could effect the release of Aafia Siddiqui, serving an 86-year sentence on a conviction of attempted murder of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents attempting to arrest her for planning terrorist attacks with al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Mr. Akram's strident conviction of malicious Jewish world control left no room for reasonable denials on the part of his hostages. And Mr. Akram had prepared himself to become a martyr for Islamist precepts, having expressed his belief that he would not emerge alive from this encounter. He wanted the Pakistani conspiracist freed from her life imprisonment and his intention was to inform law authorities in the U.S. that he was prepared to release his hostages in exchange for Siddiqui's release from prison.

It's quite strange that almost all of the Islamist jihadists who indulge in terrorism representing dutiful faithful in Islam are lovingly remembered by their families as good souls with the misfortune of having been mentally ill, not legally responsible for their acts of violence intended or achieved. And so it is with this man too, his Brother Gulbar posting a description of his now-dead brother as suffering from mental illness and the family fully in co-operating compliance with authorities.

"There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender", brother Gulbar wrote on the Blackburn Muslim Community's Facebook page. "We would like to say that we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident." The Blackburn Muslim Community also stated their position: "totally condemn any threats or attacks on innocent people. We stand in solidarity with people of all faiths as we believe they are all free to practice their religious beliefs freely without the fear of being attacked."

The Muslim Council of Britain, UK’s largest Muslim umbrella body condemned the hostage-taking as "completely unacceptable", that Akram’s "actions fall way short of what is expected of a Muslim. His family and local community in Blackburn have also condemned the perpetrator’s action and are shocked and saddened to learn of this incident."

"[Authorities] just don't have enough facts [to speculate why a man targeted a Colleyville, Texas synagogue, taking four hostages Saturday; the standoff] an act of terror."

"I don't-- we don't have I don't think there is sufficient information to know about why he targeted that synagogue, why he insisted on the release of someone who's been in prison for over 10 years, why he was engaged, why he was using an anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli comments."

U.S. President Joe Biden

Claiming to be the brother of the Pakistani neuroscientist in prison, he obviously meant that colloquially, and not literally; related by heritage, religion and religious extremist ideology. She collaborated with al-Qaeda and Islamic State as a trusted senior operative, and he obviously idolized her status within the jihadist community. CAIR went public with its support of Aafia Siddiqui, demanding her release, as did the government of Pakistan itself. Offers to release Western prisoners of jihad in exchange for her release tell the story of a prized jihadist taken out of commission.

In this July 17, 2008, photo, Aafia Siddiqui is seen in the custody of Counter Terrorism Department of Ghazni province in Ghazni City, Afghanistan. AP

"We North American Muslims need to have the morally required tough conversations about those ‘polite Zionists are our enemies,’ ‘The Benjamins!!!’ voices and realities within our communities."

"[Referencing antisemitic statements made in December by Council on American–Islamic Relations official Zahra Billoo and by US Rep. Ilhan Omar in 2019]."

"We MUST! Without ands and buts, without any further denial, dismissal and or trivializing of the issues … we need to honestly discuss the increasing antisemitism within various Muslim communities."

Abdullah T. Antepli, Associate Professor of the Practice of Interfaith Relations, Duke University