Magdi Jacobs on the Hamas sexual violence on October 7, 2023

Magdi Jacobs on Twitter, on the massive NYTimes report ("'Screams Without Words': How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7") on the rape of women by Hamas on October 7, December 29, 2023 (link to her thread: https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/1740815012271149478).

The @nytimes just published the most comprehensive report on the sexual violence of 10/7 that I have seen. It confirms what many have already suspected: that sexual violence against Israeli civilians did not only occur, but was used as a method of war.

Before I continue: This conversation is not about Israeli's military strategy/goals. Or its history. This is a conversation about an event that will have historical ramifications. It is not a conversation about justification, past or present. It is only a conversation about truth.

 Hand-to-hand combat against civilians is a rare kind of "first strike" in warfare. 

Something that has gotten terribly elided--if we care about history or truth--has been the overall nature of the attack by Hamas on 10/7. It was an attack where the primary victims were civilians. Hand-to-hand combat against civilians is a rare kind of "first strike" in warfare.

The swift violence of such an event. . . it is not something seen frequently outside the context of genocide  

This attack also happened very quickly, something people don't seem to have noticed. In the space of a few hours, over a thousand people were butchered. The swift violence of such an event. . .it is not something seen frequently outside the context of genocide.

It is important to sit with all of this--the true nature of 10/7--b/c so much truth has being lost, here. 10/7 was one of the most brutal--and swiftest--attacks on civilians in our modern history. Now, within this context, we must consider the sexual violence that was committed.

The primary question since 10/7 has not been whether or not sexual violence occurred, but whether sexual violence was used as a method of war. The preponderance of evidence has long weighed in favor of the latter. The Times' article makes it even clearer.

Every indicator is that the violence was systematic  

When determining whether sexual violence has been used as a method of war, investigators will look at the scale & scope: was the violence limited to one area & one group of men or was it much broader in its scope? The answer is: every indicator is that the violence was systematic.

The Times interviewed witnesses and reviewed visual evidence--photo and video--from at least 7 sites on 10/7. This entails that Hamas militants, in the space of a few hours, are alleged to have committed several *separate* acts of sexual violence across multiple sites.

This single fact would be of great interest to the International Criminal Court or to other bodies interested in war crimes. Several militants committing assaults across several different sites in a short time entails some level of planning/permission to engage in sexual violence.

To believe otherwise would entail asserting that, within the space of 6-12 hours, different men came to music festival, to a military base, & then to different kibbutzim & other sites & decided, independently of one another, to commit these crimes against women.

Trigger warning: I am trying to not be graphic, but here I do have to give some detail: Both genital mutilation & gang rape are alleged to have occurred at different sites. Different weapons were used for the mutilation. There are also accounts of broken bones across sites.

I'm not a war crimes investigator or expert in international humanitarian law. But, broadly speaking, this is how people answer the Q: "was sexual violence used as a method of war?" Was there planning? Was it systematic? Are only the soldiers culpable or are others culpable too?

I have many thoughts on this story and our reaction to it, but I am taking a break now. I encourage everyone to be faithful to the truth first & foremost. No justice has ever come from denying the truth.

 

The last paragraphs of the New York Times article are on the children of Gal Abdush, who was raped and murdered by Hamas terrorists, and her husband Nagi, also murdered by Hamas.

The couple had been together since they were teenagers. To the family, it seems only yesterday that Mr. Abdush was heading off to work to fix water heaters, a bag of tools slung over his shoulder, and Ms. Abdush was cooking up mashed potatoes and schnitzel for their two sons, Eliav, 10, and Refael, 7.

The boys are now orphans. They were sleeping over at an aunt’s the night their parents were killed. Ms. Abdush’s mother and father have applied for permanent custody, and everyone is chipping in to help.

Night after night, Ms. Abdush’s mother, Eti Bracha, lies in bed with the boys until they drift off. A few weeks ago, she said she tried to quietly leave their bedroom when the younger boy stopped her.

“Grandma,” he said, “I want to ask you a question.”

“Honey,” she said, “you can ask anything.”

“Grandma, how did mom die?”

Pro-Palestinian group "Within Our Lifetime" supported the Hamas attack from the beginning on October 7, 2023

 

On October 7, 2023, the very day of the Hamas attack on Israel, the pro-Palestinian group "Within our Lifetime" posted this statement on their Instagram page, and it's still there: "By any means necessary. With no exceptions and no fine print." From the very beginning they supported murder, rape, torture, and kidnapping of Israeli and foreign civilians. I hadn't realized how vile this group was. 

And they're planning another rally for tomorrow in New York City, with a slogan that echoes the name that Hamas gave to their terrorist attack - "Flood New York for Palestine." One of the cosponsors is "Jews Against White Supremacy" - in this case a more accurate name might be "Jews against Jewish existence."

They are calling to "end all attacks on our people." Well, if their heroes, Hamas, had not attacked Israel on October 7, Israeli soldiers would have remained on the Israeli side of the border, and there would be no Israeli planes bombing Gaza. (This is not an endorsement of the Israeli tactics in Gaza, which have now killed over 21,000 people, most of them civilians just as innocent as the people murdered by Hamas).

On October 7, this is what "Jews Against White Supremacy" posted on Instagram:

According to them, the Hamas terrorist attack was "decolonisation in action."

The Hamas attack was "Land Back" and decolonisation in action. 

No, it was rape, murder, torture, and kidnapping in action. 

And then, three days later, on October 10, they post that "There are absolutely devastating scenes in Gaza right now as Israel is annihilating the Palestinian people." And they supported, and continued to support, the Hamas attack on Israel, they urged "by any means necessary" from their safe places in the US, Canada, and other western countries - knowing that they would not suffer from the utterly devastating Israeli attacks on Gaza. When will it occur to them that the unconscionable course of action they supported and still support would do nothing but lead to death and destruction? This is "performative activism" at its worst.

Rasmea Odeh, convicted terrorist, pleads guilty to immigration fraud

In the recent annual conference of Jewish Voice for Peace, Rasmea Odeh, a convicted terrorist, was one of the featured speakers in the closing plenary session. She pleased guilty today of immigration fraud and she will be stripped of her American citizenship and deported. As many others have noted, JVP disgraced itself by having Odeh speak, thereby giving support to a person who murdered two young Israeli men in 1969.

As Legal Insurrection reports, Rasmea Odeh acknowledged in her guilty plea that she lied on her visa application and her application for naturalization, asserting that she had never been charged or convicted of any crime, when in fact she had been arrested and convicted in Israel of taking part in a bomb attack on the Supersol supermarket on Agron St. in Jerusalem, which killed two young men. The attack occurred in 1969 and she was convicted in 1970. The two young men, Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner, were students at the Hebrew University at the time.

At the time of the bombing and conviction in Israel, Rasmea was a military member of the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Rasmea was so important to the group that Leila Khalid, the first female airplane hijacker, formed to Rasmea Odeh Brigade to try to free her. Rasmea also was on the list of prisoners whose release was demanded by the Black September terrorists who took Israeli hostages at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Yet Rasmea’s supporters would have you believe she was just an innocent political activist. 

Rasmea didn’t serve her life sentences in Israel, however. In 1979 she was released in a prisoner exchange for an Israeli soldier captured in Lebanon. She made her way to Lebanon, then Jordan, then to the U.S. in the mid-1990s, when she lied on her visa application by denying any prior convictions or imprisonment, or being a member of a terrorist group. 

Rasmea again lied on her naturalization papers, denying that she “EVER” (caps and bold on application) was convicted or imprisoned. She also falsely stated that she never was a member of a terrorist group or was involved in terrorism....

After an initial conviction in November 2014 for obtaining naturalization unlawfully, Rasmea was given a new trial so a psychologist could testify on her behalf that Rasmea falsely answered the immigration questions because she was suffering from PTSD as a result of alleged Israeli torture. That claim was ludicrous on its face, but it was enough to earn her a new trial. That new trial was supposed to take place in May 2017.

Instead of taking the case to trial again, and obviously fearing a lengthy prison sentence, Rasmea accepted a plea deal. While Rasmea’s supporters claim the deal was a victory because it would keep her out of jail, in fact is almost identical to the plea deal Rasmea was offered and rejected in 2014.

The following is an excerpt from the plea agreement, as posted by Legal Insurrection on Scribd (https://www.scribd.com/document/346364164/Rasmieh-Odeh-Case-Plea-Agreement#from_embed):

Defendant Admits That the Following Facts Are True:

In 1969, Defendant Rasmieh Odeh was arrested and charged by an Israeli Military Court for participation in placing two bombs. One bomb had been placed in a supermarket. The other had been placed at the British Consulate. In 1970, Defendant Odeh was convicted of the charges and sentenced to life imprisonment, although she was released in 1979 after having served approximately ten years. 

In December 1994, Defendant Rasmieh Odeh submitted an application for United States Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration, Department of State form 230. Question 21 of the Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration required Odeh to list all places she had "lived for six months or longer since reaching the age of 16." Defendant Odeh's full response falsely stated that she had lived in Amman, Jordan, from 1948 onward, thereby intentionally omitting the fact that following her release from prison she had lived in Lebanon for approximately three years. 

Question 33 of the Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration asked whether Defendant Odeh ever had been convicted of a crime of moral turpitude, or of two or more offenses for which the aggregate sentences were five years or more imprisonment. Defendant Odeh falsely checked the box marked "No." 

Question 31 of the Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration asked if Defendant Odeh had ever been "arrested, convicted, or ever been in a prison[.]" 

Defendant Odeh falsely checked the box marked ''No." 

On June 4, 2004, defendant Odeh filed an application for naturalization (Form N-400) with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to afford her the status of a United States citizen. On November 3, 2004, an immigration officer interviewed Defendant Odeh regarding her naturalization application at the USCIS office in Detroit, Michigan. In defendant's naturalization application defendant made the following material false statements, which she reiterated and reaffirmed during her naturalization interview: 

1. Defendant falsely stated that she had never been arrested, cited or detained by any law enforcement officer or military officer. 

2. Defendant falsely stated that she had never been charged with committing any crime or offense. 

3. Defendant falsely stated that she had never been convicted of a crime or offense. 

4. Defendant falsely stated that she had never been in jail or prison. 

5. Defendant falsely stated that she had never given false or misleading information to any U.S. government official while applying for any immigration benefit or to prevent deportation, exclusion or removal. 

At the time she made the false statements, Defendant knew the statements were false. Defendant also admits that all of these false statements were material, in that they had a natural tendency to affect the decision of the State Department and USCIS. She made the false statements intentionally and not as a result of any mistake, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or any other psychological issue or condition or for any innocent reason, and notwithstanding any other statement or testimony Defendant Odeh may have made at any other time regarding those answers. At the time she made the false statements, Defendant knew that it was unlawful for her to provide false information to the United States Department of State and to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in connection with her application for immigration Visa and her application for naturalization.  

On December 9, 2004, defendant was sworn in as a United States citizen in an oath ceremony conducted by the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan. 

Defendant procured her citizenship by virtue of the false statements, because she would not have been granted citizenship had she revealed the truth.

On the Paris attacks and ISIS responsibility

I haven't posted anything to my blog since September, but the reactions that I have been reading in some leftist articles to the ISIS murders in Paris last night are infuriating me. The articles seem to focus on these themes: 1) Don't change your Facebook icon to the French flag because the French state is evil and has been doing evil things since the late 1700s. 2) Why are you so upset about what ISIS did? It's really all the fault of the US/UK/France because of Iran 1953/Iraq War/current attacks on ISIS in Syria or Iraq. 3) You weep for the dead of France but what about the dead of Beirut or Baghdad?

My answers:

1) France, like all nation states, has committed evil acts, both in the past and currently. However, when France joined the fight against ISIS, they did something good. ISIS is the enemy of all humanity.

2) The citizens of France and tourists visiting France do not deserve to die a horrible death because of the policies, good or bad, of the French state.

ISIS is guilty of their deaths, not anyone else. The members of ISIS chose to join a terrorist group, knowing that it engaged in terrible atrocities. They chose the path of evil.

People in Iraq who suffered from the American attack on Iraq have not, for the most part, become terrorists. It is not inevitable that those who are victims of a war will then choose to become terrorists and attack civilians.

Most of the victims of ISIS and Al Qaeda have been Muslims, both Sunni and Shi'ite. Both groups, especially ISIS, have a special hatred for Shi'ite Muslims. How is that the fault of the US, France, or the UK?

3) The articles that I have seen somehow avoid mentioning the other victims of ISIS - Yezidis and various Christian communities in Iraq, some of which have been there for 1800 years and are in the process of being driven out.

These articles also avoid mentioning the many dead of Syria, murdered by Assad - most of those murdered in Syria were killed by the Syrian regime, not ISIS.

They also assume that those of us who are upset about the murders in France don't care about the deaths of innocent people in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, or Palestine. Perhaps that is true of some people, but it's not true of me.

4) If we pay attention, many of these recent attacks are connected.

A) The bombings in Beirut on Thursday took place in the southern part of the city, which is controlled by Hezbollah, an ally of the Syrian regime. These two attacks murdered 43 people. According to Reuters, "The blasts occurred almost simultaneously late on Thursday and struck a Shi'ite community center and a nearby bakery in the commercial and residential area of Borj al-Barajneh, security sources said."

 Also according to Reuters, the bombing was committed by ISIS.

Islamic State said in a statement posted online by its supporters that its members blew up a bike loaded with explosives in Borj al-Barajneh and that when onlookers gathered, a suicide bomber blew himself up among them. The group said the attacks killed 40 people.

B) Two bombings yesterday in Baghdad were also been claimed by ISIS. The first attack, which killed 21 people, targeted a memorial service for a Shi'ite fighter who died fighting ISIS. The second attack, which killed five people, was at a Shi'ite shrine in Sadr City. This article is from ABC News.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a suicide blast and a roadside bombing that targeted Shiites in Baghdad on Friday, killing a total of 26 people and wounding dozens. 

The attacks came as Iraqi Kurdish militias, backed by U.S. airstrikes, seized the town of Sinjar from the Islamic State group in a major blow to the extremists. Following its blitz last year, the IS — which splintered off from Iraq's al-Qaida branch — now holds about a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in its self-declared caliphate. 

The suicide bomber struck a memorial service held for a Shiite militia fighter killed in battle against IS in the Iraqi capital's southwestern suburb of Hay al-Amal, a police official told The Associated Press. That explosion killed 21 people and wounded at least 46, he said. 

The militia fighter was killed in battle against the militant group in Iraq's western Anbar province, the official added. 

Also Friday in Baghdad, a roadside bomb detonated at a Shiite shrine in Sadr City, killing at least five people and wounding 15, police officials said. Hospital officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to reporters. 

Since the emergence of IS extremists, Baghdad has seen near-daily attacks, with roadside bombs, suicide blasts and assassinations targeting Iraqi forces and government officials, with significant casualties among the civilian population. 

The violence has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands of Iraqis. 

Shiite militia fighters answered a call to arms last year after the country's highest Shiite religious authority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sisani, called on Iraqi men to defend the country. The militias, which later formed an umbrella paramilitary force called the Popular Mobilization Forces, have been an integral part in the battle against the Islamic State group, supporting Iraqi forces in battles in Salahuddin, Anbar and Baghdad provinces. 

In a statement distributed on pro-IS Twitter accounts, the Sunni militant group said the aim of Friday's attacks was "revenge for our monotheist brothers in al-Fallujah, al-Anbar, and Salahaldin," referring to ongoing Iraqi military operations to retrieve land lost to the IS in those locations.

C) The Russian plane that took off from Sharm al-Sheikh was probably destroyed by a bomb placed on the plane by someone from ISIS.

D) The attacks last night were done by ISIS fighters.

The latter history of Kathy Boudin

Despite my leftist tendencies, I do have an online subscription to the Wall Street Journal, and I read the tweets of one of their writers, Sohrab Ahmari. He just tweeted today that Columbia University has hired Kathy Boudin, the Weather Underground terrorist who spent many years in prison, as an adjunct professor in the School of Social Work. As the New York Post reports, she is also the Sheinberg Scholar-in-Residence at NYU Law School. Sohrab is interviewed by Mary Kissel on the "Opinion Journal" part of the Journal website - Opinion Journal: Columbia Hires Ex-Con Professor.

Who is Kathy Boudin? She was a member of the Weather Underground, a leftwing terrorist group active in the early 1970s. She was one of the members of the group who survived the destruction of the house where they were living in 1970. It was destroyed by a bomb in the basement of the house - one of the bombs that they were constructing for a terrorist campaign. Three people were killed. She escaped before being questioned by the police, and was on the FBI's most-wanted list until 1981 when she was captured by police. See this New York Times article for more on the destruction of the house.

She spent 22 years in prison for her role in an armored-car robbery that killed two policeman and a Brinks guard. Her role was as the getaway driver for the robbery conducted by the Black Liberation Army on October 20, 1981. She was paroled in 2003.

It is actually not news that she is employed by Columbia. The Post has apparently just learned of her employment at Columbia - she has been teaching there since 2008. I can't figure out why they published the article today, perhaps because they just learned that she is a scholar-in-residence at NYU as well. In March, 2013, she delivered the annual Rose Sheinberg Lecture on the "politics of parole and reentry." According to the NYU article that reports on her speech, she spoke on the politics of parole for violent offenders, and I have to say, reading the summary, that she what she says is quite self-serving. She argues that the recidivism rate for people who have been convicted of homicide is the lowest of all crimes (I'd like to see the evidence for this). She also argues that long-term prisoners are the ones who undergo the greatest transformation during their time in prison. She also says that more punishment does not lead to more accountability. All three arguments certainly would support her release from prison in 2003.

If you go to the School of Social Work web site, her biography mentions nothing about her involvement in a terrorist group or her 22-year imprisonment for her part in an armored car robbery that killed 3 people.

Why would Columbia have hired her? According to the Wikipedia article about her, she was active in starting five programs while imprisoned at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York. The programs were intended for teens whose mothers were incarcerated, the parent education program for incarcerated mothers, the adult literacy program, the AIDS and Women's Health Program, and the College Program, for incarcerated women to take college courses and gain degrees.

When she was released she went to work for the HIV/AIDS clinic at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center. She earned an Ed. D. from Columbia's Teachers College.

Based on the work she did in prison, and her subsequent employment at the HIV/AIDS clinic, and her Ed. D from Teachers College, I can see that she would be qualified to teach at Columbia. But why would they decide to employ her in particular? And why would they leave out the very salient facts in her faculty biography about her history as a terrorist, accomplice to murder, and long prison sentence? It's not like these facts are a secret. If you just Google her name, you get many links to articles about her. If you go to the New York Times website there are hundreds of articles about her.

I feel the same way about her that I do about Bill Ayers (whom I wrote about earlier, in 2008). These people should not be lionized or honored. They committed horrible crimes. In Boudin's case, she spent a long time in prison. In Ayers' case, he avoided any punishment because the FBI case against him was tainted by improper surveillance. While they certainly should be able to get any kind of work that they are qualified for, I do not see why it has to be in the most prestigious universities in the United States.

Sohrab Ahmari and Mary Kissel raise a good point in their discussion - would a university in the United States ever hire someone with their same records if they had been involved in a right-wing terrorist cell that had committed bombings and had killed people? If, for example, Timothy McVeigh had not been executed, and had been paroled (admittedly unlikely), I don't believe that any college or university would have hired him regardless of how much he had "rehabilitated" himself in prison. Why do Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn, and now Boudin, get a free pass?

People I know who were murdered: Barry Smotroff and Ben Blutstein

I believe I've only known two people who were murdered, in sharp contrast to Aisha Roberts, the 19 year old quoted in the previous post, who knows 13 people who were murdered just this year.

The first person I knew was Barry Smotroff, a science fiction fan who lived in New York City, who was killed on July 29, 1976, apparently in a robbery. See a link to a photo of him. Here's a link to a story about Barry. I'm not sure exactly how I met him - either during a visit to New York to meet fans, or possibly at a science fiction convention or two.

The second person I knew was Ben Blutstein, who was murdered on July 31, 2002, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem by a terrorist who left a bomb in the Frank Sinatra cafeteria. Eight other people were killed in the same attack. I did not know any of them, but friends of mine in Jerusalem knew them. This was during the height of the second intifada.

Nine people - four Israelis and five foreign nationals - were killed and 85 injured, 14 of them seriously, when a bomb exploded in the crowded Frank Sinatra cafeteria on the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus campus shortly after 13:30. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. 

The bomber left the bomb in an innocent looking bag packed with shrapnel in the cafeteria. The device was professionally prepared, possibly in one of the factories in the Nablus casbah, which the IDF has refrained from entering since Operation Defensive Shield after Passover. 

Though classes were not in session, students were taking exams at the time of the blast, and the cafeteria was crowded with diners. There were also numerous students in the building registering for classes for the coming school year. 

The cafeteria is also near the Rothberg International School, where about 80 pupils from the US and other Western countries had arrived to prepare for the fall semester.
Most of the injured were between the ages of 18 and 30. The explosion gutted the cafeteria.

The murderers in this case were caught about two weeks later. They were also responsible for the Cafe Momento attack in Jerusalem on March 9, 2002, when 11 people were killed. The man who placed the bomb in the cafeteria was Muhammad Ouda, 29, who worked as a construction worker at the university.

The release of Gilad Shalit and the 405 bus attack in July, 1989

I was visiting Israel in the summer of 2006 when Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, and I remember the two-week mini-war that his kidnapping caused (and which has since been forgotten, since that was also the summer of the Second Lebanon War). I wrote a blog post then, but haven't written anything else about Shalit since then.

In my subsequent visits, I was puzzled by the emotion that my Israeli friends felt about Shalit, and about the many signs posted everywhere calling for his return home. As Ethan Bronner in the New York Times has noted, most Israelis see Shalit as being almost a member of their families - a son or brother who is missing in an unknown location, held by ruthless killers. I still don't quite get the emotion, since I'm not Israeli and don't have the same visceral connection to him. The only thing I can really compare it to in the United States is the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979-1980 - I remember watching "Nightline" with Ted Koppel, with the banner on the screen, "America Held Hostage." Even then, it was nowhere near as personal.

I do, on the other hand, feel more personally about some of the terrorists who are being released in return for Shalit, one in particular - Abd al-Hadi Rafa Ghanim, who attacked the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv bus 405 on July 6, 1989.

I was living in Jerusalem at the time. The bus was on its way to Jerusalem, and had just passed Abu Ghosh. The terrorist grabbed the steering wheel and drove the bus into the abyss. The road is very steep at that point in the climb up to Jerusalem, and there is a deep fall into the valley at that point. The bus tumbled into the ravine and sixteen people were killed, some of them being burned alive.

The attack was a horrible shock to everyone. Anyone living in Jerusalem had taken the 405 to and from Tel Aviv. It was so easy to imagine being on that bus as the terrorist wrestled the steering wheel out of the driver's grip. I remember taking the bus after that and peering out, trying to discover where the attack had occurred.

The Jerusalem Post article published the next day on the attack (retrieved via LexisNexis) is available after the jump:

Terrorism, retaliation, and what next for Israel?

What's happening in Israel right now is very scary - not just the terrorist attack that occurred on Thursday, but also the extensive rocket fire and shelling of the southern part of the country. A man has been killed in Beersheba, at least 18 have been injured, and there has been extensive property damage.

One person was killed last night when a Grad rocket struck a home in the southern city of Be’er Sheva. A woman was in critical condition and three others was in serious condition from the rocket strike. Dozens more were treated for shock.

Also last night, three people − a man, a young girl and a female infant − sustained minor injuries after four Grad rockets landed in Ofakim.

Three people were injured, one seriously and two moderately, when several Grad rockets fired from the Gaza Strip Saturday morning hit the southern city of Ashdod.
On Friday morning two Grad rockets fired in close succession hit Ashdod. One landed in a synagogue, causing damage but no injuries. The second, however, exploded inside a Gur Hasidic yeshiva. One person was seriously injured in the explosion, one sustained moderate injuries and four were treated for mild injuries.

Grad missile strike

“There were around 180 pupils who were praying shahrit,” said Avraham Mordechai Zand, who was in the yeshiva when the rocket hit, referring to the morning prayer service. “When we heard the first siren we took cover and then we heard an explosion. When we went outside I heard another explosion, and the rocket exploded about five meters from where I was standing. There was white fog, I couldn’t see anything and then two people who were bleeding came in. We started treating them until the rescue services came. The administration told the children to go home, and we asked them to pray gomel,” referring to the blessing recited when one is saved from injury or death.

Report from Ynet:

Dozens injured over weekend

According to police officials, Saturday was the worst day in terms of the number of rockets fired into Israel since Operation Cast Lead two and a half years ago – almost 60 rockets and mortar shells in 24 hours.

Massive police forces have been deployed in the southern cities and are working to maintain the citizens' safety.

Dozens of people injured from the rocket fire were evacuated to hospitals over the weekend, including three illegal Palestinian residents, who were hurt while hiding in an orchard near Ashdod. Ten people injured from a Grad rocket fired at Ashdod on Friday morning were evacuated to the Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot. Eight of the injured have already been released, while the other two are still hospitalized in serious and moderate condition.

Three people were evacuated to the same hospital on Saturday, and another woman was rushed to the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva. The Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba is still treating six Israelis who were injured in the terror attack on the Egyptian border. Three people, two of them children, were evacuated to the hospital on Saturday following a rocket attack on Ofakim. The hospital is also treating a woman in critical condition, three people who were seriously wounded and a person lightly hurt in Saturday evening's rocket attack on Beersheba.

More photos of Grad strike

From the reports in Haaretz and Ynet, it appears that Israel will now engage in graduated attacks on Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza, which I imagine will result in the deaths of civilians as well as terrorists. If we believe reports from Gaza, it already has - see the New York Times report from today:

An Islamic Jihad member was killed late Friday in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. A boy, 5, and another civilian were killed in that attack, according to Gaza medical officials. Islamic Jihad’s military wing said that it would force Israel “to pay a high price.”

At least 14 Palestinians, four of them civilians, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since Thursday. The Israeli military says it has been striking at Hamas training facilities, weapons manufacturing sites, smugglers’ tunnels, and rocket and mortar teams preparing to attack.

Terrorist Attacks in southern Israel - 7 Israelis killed

Seven killed in series of terrorist attacks in southern Israel

From Ha'aretz:

Seven people were killed and at least 26 people were wounded Thursday in a series of terrorist attacks on Israeli targets approximately 20 kilometers north of the southern city of Eilat, close to the border with Egypt.

The first attack, at around 12 P.M., was a drive-by shooting targeting Egged bus 392 traveling from Be'er Sheva to Eilat, near the Netafim junction.

Shortly afterward, IDF forces rushed to the scene and were faced with several explosive devices that were detonated alongside an IDF vehicle.

At approximately 12:35, a mortar was fired from Egypt to Israel. No casualties were reported.

At 1:10 P.M., a terrorist cell fired an anti-tank missile at a private vehicle, wounding seven.

Minutes later, another cell fired an anti-tank missile at a private vehicle, killing six.

The IDF Spokesman reported that two to four terrorists were killed during the clashes.

According to reports, the terrorists in the car opened fire at the Egged bus, which carried a significant number of soldiers leaving their bases for the weekend.

In the aftermath of the first attack, Israeli security forces launched a search for the vehicle thought to have transported the gunmen, setting up barricades in the area. A firefight erupted once the IDF troops caught up with the vehicle, in which several of the armed men were killed.

Two IDF helicopters were called to the scene in order to evacuate those wounded to Yoseftal hospital in Eilat and to Soroka hospital in Be'er Sheva.

Anders Breivik: Insane or Guilty?

Norm has a good post today on whether Anders Breivik (the Norwegian terrorist who killed 76 people a week ago) is insane. "It's puzzling this tendency to assume that someone who does something very bad - of a degree that we're even inclined to say of it that it's evil - must be crazy."

Plenty of people who were not mad shot and killed thousands of civilians on the eastern front during WWII. The Einsatzgruppen committed their murders of Jews, Communists, and others largely by shooting people. Altogether, they killed about 1.5 million people, including most of the Jewish populations of the Baltic countries - numbering among them my grandfather's uncle Mordechai Falkon and his wife Dvora Falkon, who were murdered in July and December of 1941, respectively. The Soviets who tried and executed some of the Einsatzgruppen members after the war did not consider them not guilty by reason of insanity - they held them responsible for their gruesome acts of destruction.

Does anyone consider the hijackers of September 11, 2001 to be insane? In all of the millions of words I've read on the subject since then, I've never heard anyone suggest that Osama bin Laden and his minions were crazy.

Why shouldn't we hold Breivik to the same standard? I've read some of his 1500 page manifesto, where he lays out the ideology behind his acts. His thinking is racist, distasteful, and obsessive but his methodical description of the process involved in creating the fertilizer bomb did not strike me as at all insane.

Calling Breivik or others who commit terrorist acts (violent attacks against civilians for political purposes, in order to sow terror) insane is in most cases a way to diminish their responsibility for their actions. I can understand why Breivik's lawyer is calling him insane. I don't understand why other people are, unless they wish somehow to diminish the gravity of his acts and his responsibility for them.

Terrorist attack in Mumbai today

Report from the New York Times:

Three bomb blasts shook the city of Mumbai at the height of the evening rush hour on Wednesday, in what appeared to be coordinated attacks on India’s economic capital. The Interior Ministry described the explosions as a terror attack, India’s NDTV reported.

Indian news outlets reported that at least 10 people were killed, and that dozens may have been injured. The explosions struck central locations in the city, including the crowded Dadar neighborhood; the Zaveri Bazaar, a jewelry market; and near the Opera House, according to news reports citing the Interior Ministry.

For the latest reports, go to Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23Mumbai. May this not be the beginning of more terrorism in India!

So now he's dead

So now he's dead. I've been thinking about it all day, but I haven't talked to very many people about it, except in two of my classes this morning.

It brings back all the emotions I felt on that day - that great blue-sky day - September 11, 2001. The feelings of shock, and fear, and grief, and then anger. The realization that we had been attacked. And then the days and weeks and months and years afterward. The having to listen to fools who blamed the United States. Anger burning in me. The feeling of "and you go your way, and I go my way." (That's what Dumbledore said when Fudge wouldn't believe him that Voldemort had come back - I know it's ridiculous to mention the Harry Potter books in this connection, but it captured how I felt). I supported going into Afghanistan, and screamed at a friend of mine who thought that this was a law-enforcement problem, and that Muslim nations should take care of bin Laden.

Supporting the war in Iraq, when hardly any of my friends did. I even thought of voting for George Bush in 2004, until the Abu Ghraib revelations early in that year.

It just brings back all of the rotten, twisted up, angry, grief-ridden feelings of that "low, dishonest decade," the 2000s. W. H. Auden's poem, September 1, 1939:

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

I don't know if bin Laden's death will change anything materially - how could we know yet? It feels to me as if his death might be part of a spiritual cleansing. He was an evil man, who did evil, knowingly, and he deserved to die.

Thoughts before Yom Ha-Shoah

Tonight I decided to look through the pile of old newspapers and clippings that I took out of the cupboard yesterday (I had needed more room to put the Passover dishes away). I was thinking of cutting some of them up and taping them to pieces of paper to put in a scrapbook that I’ve been keeping. I think it must be awfully old-fashioned to keep newspaper clippings and put them into scrapbooks, but I started doing it as a child – I think when I was 12, in 1968 – and I have articles that I’ve carried around from place to place since then.

Among the papers were a whole big pile of the New York Times from September 2001, starting with September 12, 2001 – devoted to the terrorist attacks the day before. Included in the pile about the terrorist attacks were editions of the Ithaca Journal from September 12 and 13 and of the Ithaca College student newspaper, the Ithacan. I started teaching at Ithaca College in late August, 2001, and I always associate the beginning of my teaching career there with that sunny blue-sky day in September when the World Trade Center was destroyed and the country was changed forever. (I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that – reading the articles from September 12, 2001 reveal how much the country has changed since the first shocked reactions to the attacks).

Other events also showed up in the saved clippings – a big collection about Abu Ghraib and the revelation of the mistreatment and torture of inmates there by American soldiers, from spring of 2004. I was talking about this the other day with the students in one of my classes, and getting frustrated that they didn’t seem to know very much about it. I realize now that the Abu Ghraib revelations came seven years ago, when the oldest of them would have been 14 years old. I should have more patience with them, especially considering how badly American high schools teach about current events, especially events that are politically controversial.

A few of the articles really called out to me, and I’m going to go through them in chronological order of publication.

The first one is a reprint – published on May 14, 2006, but originally from the August 31, 1958 New York Times magazine. It was written by A. M. Rosenthal, the executive editor of the New York Times who died the week before the reprinted article was published. It is about his visit to Auschwitz. He writes,

The most terrible thing of all, somehow, was that at Brzezinka the sun was bright and warm, the rows of graceful poplars were lovely to look upon and on the grass near the gates children played.

It all seemed frighteningly wrong, as in a nightmare, that at Brzezinka the sun should ever shine or that there should be light and greenness and the sound of young laughter. It would be fitting if at Brzezinka the sun never shone and the grass withered, because this is a place of unutterable terror….

By now, 14 years after the last batch of prisoners was herded naked into the gas chambers by dogs and guards, the story of Auschwitz has been told a great many times. Some of the inmates have written of those memories of which sane men cannot conceive….

And so, there is no news to report about Auschwitz. There is merely the compulsion to write something about it, a compulsion that grows out of a restless feeling that to have visited Auschwitz and then turned away without having said or written anything would somehow be a most grievous act of discourtesy to those who died here….

For every visitor, there is one particular bit of horror that he knows he will never forget. For some it is seeing the rebuilt gas chamber at Oswiecim and being told that this is the “small one.” For others it is the fact that at Brzezinka, in the ruins of the gas chambers and the crematoria the Germans blew up when they retreated, there are daisies growing….

There is nothing new to report about Auschwitz. It was a sunny day and the trees were green and at the gates the children played.

It seems appropriate to cite from Rosenthal’s article today, since Yom ha-Shoah is tomorrow.

I found two articles from early September, 2001, both about the second intifada in Israel. The first one is from September 3, 2001, and is titled “Back to School on Two Sides of Mideast’s Dividing Line.” It’s about the first day of school in Israel/Palestine (which usually occurs on September 1). It begins –

One of the more familiar routines in any country, the first day of school, became another reason this weekend for Israelis and Palestinians to worry about the fate that each might endure at the hands of the other.

Barbara Ben-Ami could not shake her disquiet today as she dropped off her 6-year-old son, Boaz, at the Adam School on Emek Refaim, a lively – one could almost say trendy – street in Jerusalem. Boaz was starting the first grade, a milestone if ever there was one.

Naturally, mother and son were excited. But it was the start of the first school year since violence broke out 11 months ago, and that made it harder to keep dread from creeping in at the edges, Ms. Ben-Ami said….

Young as he is, Boaz sensed that things were out of kilter, his mother said. “Whenever something like that is on TV, you try to shut it off,” she said. “He does feel the tension.”

Not only that, the Ben-Amis live close enough to the action to hear the tank shell bursts and the machine-gun fire that have reverberated across the Jerusalem development of Gilo and the next-door West Bank town of Beit Jala. The boy is well aware that this is not how life is supposed to be, Ms. Ben Ami said.

The daughter of a good friend of mine goes to the Adam School, so I can picture the entrance of the school where she goes every school day. Now the level of tension has dropped a great deal, and it’s much safer to walk the streets of Jerusalem. Nonetheless, there’s still the fear that something could happen, as with the terrorist attack last month near the Central Bus Station. I feel very uneasy about the new reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Hamas has called for the PA to repudiate the agreements with the Israeli government and says that the new interim unity government that will be formed will engage in no negotiations with Israel. The PA has been working towards a declaration of Palestinian statehood in September, and if that occurs, and the General Assembly ratifies it, what will happen? There have been a number of alarming articles in Haaretz this week predicting the start of a new intifada in the fall as a result of the declaration of statehood. I certainly hope not!

The next article is from September 10, 2001 – just before the Al Qaeda attacks the next day (not that anyone knew they were going to occur, except for the attackers). It’s titled, “Israeli Arab’s Suicide Bomb Points to Enemy Within,” and it’s about a day of attacks on September 9. The article begins,

Israel suffered a jackhammer series of terrorist blows today that the police and senior government officials said included the first suicide bombing ever committed by an Arab who was one of its own citizens.

Violence flared on the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and in this surfside northern town [Nahariya], and even its toll of eight dead, including three implicated in the attacks, and scores wounded understated the psychological impact on a nation that had already begun waking up each morning wondering where the next bomb would go off, and who would deliver it.

The attack in Nahariya was at the train station – three people plus the bomber were killed, and 71 were injured.

The day’s killing started at about 8 a.m. in the West Bank, when shots were fired at a van carrying Israeli kindergarten teachers to work. One teacher and the driver were slain. Then, at about 10:30 a.m., the bomb exploded here, less than 10 miles from the border with Lebanon.

That bomb was followed a few hours later by an explosion in a car south of here, near Netanya. That explosion, apparently by a bomb made of mortar shells, killed the Palestinian driver, injuring three people and burning several vehicles.

I visited Israel in the summer of 2001 for a few weeks, staying in Jerusalem at the intersection of Emek Refaim Street and Pierre Koenig, in the southern part of the city. I remember hearing the gunfire from the vicinity of Gilo – Beit Jala: the loud booms of tank shells and the smaller sounds of shooting. It was frightening, and I was glad to go home to the United States where it was safe. Or so I thought.

Terrorist attack in Jerusalem

There has been a terrorist attack in Jerusalem today - at 3 p.m. Israel time a bomb exploded at a bus station across the street from the Central Bus Station. One person was killed and many were wounded.

From the Jerusalem Post:

A 60-year-old woman died and 39 were injured after a bomb exploded at a bus station in central Jerusalem Wednesday afternoon. Police said the explosion took place outside Egged bus number 74 at a station opposite the Jerusalem Conference Center (Binyanei Ha'uma) in the center of town.

According to the Magen David Adom spokesperson, 39 people were injured in the attack. Three were injured seriously from the explosion itself, five moderately from shrapnel packed into the explosive device and the remainder were in light condition.

The injured were taken to Hadassah Ein Kerem, Hadassah Mount Scopus, Bikur Holim and Shaare Tzedek hospitals. All hospitals in the area were opened to receive casualties. One woman, 60, died from injuries sustained in the blast.

Police said that this was the first terrorist attack in four years that involved an explosion. Police were looking for one specific person who left the bag that contained the bomb.

There were reports that witnesses were able to identify the man who left the bag and police were searching for him. Police suspected that an explosive device inside a bag was left at the bus stop, which then exploded. Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said that the explosive device was between one and two kilograms and was packed with shrapnel.

Names of family killed in Itamar released

The names of the Israeli family murdered at Itamar were released today. These are their faces (from Ynet):
 

Yoav Fogel, 11

Ruth Fogel, the mother

Udi Fogel, the father

Hadas, three months old.

Elad Fogel, 4

The names of the five family members who were killed in the West Bank settlement of Itamar were released Saturday.The victims are Udi Fogel, 37, Ruth Fogel, 36, Yoav Fogel, 10, four-year-old Elad Fogel, and three-months old Hadas Fogel.

The Fogel family was killed Friday night when a suspected terrorist broke into their home in the West Bank settlement of Itamar and stabbed them all to death.

According to police, the suspect broke into the house armed with a knife and stabbed parents Udi and Ruth, along with three of their children, Yoav, Elad, and Hadas Fogel. Magen David Adom rescue services arrived at the scene and found them all dead.

The family's 12-year-old daughter, who was at a youth group activity, returned to her home at approximately midnight and her calls for the door to be opened for her went unanswered. With the help of a neighbor, they managed to open the door and came upon the horrible murder scene.

While many mourn, some depraved people rejoice. From Getty Images today, in Rafah, Gaza:

A Palestinian man distributes sweets in the streets of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on March 12, 2011 to celebrate an attack which killed five Israeli settlers at the Itamar settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus.

Fears and Hopes

I woke up this morning (actually, noon....) and turned on the computer and saw that there had been an explosion at one of the Japanese nuclear power plants that has been badly damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. Very scary. I hope all the officials who are trying to calm the Japanese people that there won't be a nuclear meltdown are telling the truth.

When I turned on CNN to get their typical minute-by-minute coverage, one of their more witless anchors was on, telling me no more than the online NYT coverage. So much for cable news.

In Middle East news, the Arab League to officially request UN impose no-fly zone on Libya. One wonders - will the UN do anything? And if the UN Security Council does approve it - who will enforce it? The Obama administration doesn't appear very keen on getting involved in yet another war with a Muslim country. And as Secretary of Defense Gates has said, enforcing a no-fly zone does require acts of war - like destroying the Libyan air defense system.

Egyptian state television said the Arab League had decided to open channels of communication with a Libyan rebel council based in Benghazi. The League said the council represented the Libyan people, the channel reported.

The Arab League decided on Saturday that the "serious crimes and great violations" the Libyan government had committed against its people had stripped it of legitimacy, Secretary General Amr Moussa said. Earlier Saturday, Moussa called for a no-fly zone over Libya in an interview with a German magazine, ahead of the group meeting in Cairo on Saturday to discuss the proposal. "I am speaking of a humanitarian action," he said in comments to Der Spiegel released on Saturday. "It is about assisting the Libyan people with a no-fly zone in their struggle for freedom against an increasingly inhuman regime." "The Arab League can also play a role," said Moussa, who is stepping down as secretary-general after a decade, intending to contest the Egyptian presidency later this year.

European states hope the Arab League will lead the way in shaping policy, particularly over a no-fly zone, towards the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi.

In his opening remarks to an Arab League meeting Saturday, the foreign minister of Oman said, "What is needed now is Arab intervention using mechanisms of the Arab League and at the same time in accordance with international law." "Based on this we must look at various options that [the] circumstances in Libya need," he said.

Oman Foreign Minister Youssef bin Alawi bin Abdullah also said that the Libyan crisis poses a threat to the stability of Arab states, and that Arab inaction on the Libyan crisis could lead to "unwanted foreign intervention" and fighting among Libyans.

And then there's the terrible terrorist attack against a family in the Israeli settlement of Itamar on the norther West Bank: Horror in Samaria: Terrorist murders family of 5

A terrorist infiltrated the West Bank settlement of Itamar, southeast of Nablus, early Saturday and stabbed five family members to death. The shocking attack occurred around 1 am as the terrorist entered the family home and murdered three children aged 11, 3, and a baby girl along with their parents. The victims were apparently sleeping as the killer came in.

Three other children at the home, a 12-year-old girl and her two brothers, aged 6 and 2, were able to escape to a nearby house and inform their neighbors of the attack.

A later article says that apparently two terrorists carried out the attack, and "Authorities also estimate that the attack was carried out by a local cell not directly affiliated with Hamas or any other organization, and that the murder was motivated by growing friction with settlers, growing incitement against the settlements on the Palestinian street, and a desire to avenge 'price tag' acts."

One of the Haaretz articles on the attack also says the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade took responsibility for the attack. The English article didn't have any details, but below is my translation of the relevant Hebrew article.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, by the name of Imad Mughniyah, from the military arm of the Fatah movement, took responsibility for the terrorist attack. An announcement by the organization said that "The attack was a heroic action and a natural response to the murderous actions of the Israeli occupation against our people in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip." Despite this, the reliability of the announcement was not yet clear, because in the past the organization has rushed to take responsibility for actions that they had no connection to. Hamas expressed support for the terrorist attack, but denied that its men were involved in carrying it out.

Representative Peter King, Hypocrite

Rep. Peter King of New York, who is hosting the bogus series of hearings this week on radicalization of American Muslims, has an awkward past - he was a passionate supporter of the IRA.

Long before he became an outspoken voice in Congress about the threat from terrorism, he was a fervent supporter of a terrorist group, the Irish Republican Army.

“We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry,” Mr. King told a pro-I.R.A. rally on Long Island, where he was serving as Nassau County comptroller, in 1982. Three years later he declared, “If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.”...

A judge in Belfast threw him out of an I.R.A. murder trial, calling him an “obvious collaborator,” said Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist and author of “A Secret History of the I.R.A.” In 1984, Mr. King complained that the Secret Service had investigated him as a “security risk,” Mr. Moloney said.

In later years, by all accounts, Mr. King became an important go-between in talks that led to peace in Northern Ireland, drawing on his personal contacts with leaders of I.R.A.’s political wing, Sinn Fein, and winning plaudits from both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, the former president and the British prime minister.

But as Mr. King, 66, prepares to preside Thursday as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee at the first of a series of hearings on Muslim radicalization, his pro-I.R.A. past gives his many critics an obvious opening. The congressman’s assertions that 85 percent of leaders of American mosques hold extremist views and that Muslims do not cooperate with law enforcement have alarmed Muslim groups, some counterterrorism experts and even a few former allies in Irish-American causes.

Mr. King, son of a New York City police officer and grand-nephew of an I.R.A. member, offers no apologies for his past, which he has celebrated in novels that feature a Irish-American congressman with I.R.A. ties who bears a striking resemblance to the author.

Of comparisons between the terrorism of the I.R.A. and that of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, Mr. King said: “I understand why people who are misinformed might see a parallel. The fact is, the I.R.A. never attacked the United States. And my loyalty is to the United States.”

But the IRA did attack one of our closest allies, Britain. And in fact, his loyalty was not to the United States, but to the terrorist IRA.

He said he does not regret his past pro-I.R.A. statements. The Irish group, he said, was “a legitimate force” battling British repression — analogous to the African National Congress in South Africa or the Zionist Irgun paramilitary in British-ruled Palestine. “It was a dirty war on both sides,” he said of I.R.A. resistance to British rule....

The I.R.A. was responsible for 1,826 of 3,528 deaths during the Northern Irish conflict between 1969 and 2001, including those of several hundred civilians, said the historian Malcolm Sutton

I grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and went to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Boston a number of times when I was a teenager, in the 1970s. One year I saw a contingent from Noraid - Northern Irish Aid, which raised money for arms for the IRA. I didn't go back to the parade again.

Fascists Still Want to Kill Jews - Al Qaeda bomb plot

As Shiraz Socialist says, Fascists still want to kill Jews. The Al Qaeda plot to bomb two synagogues in Chicago is unnerving - although fortunately only that, since the bombs were found on cargo planes a long way away from Chicago.

One of the targeted synagogues is a GLBT synagogue, Congregation Or Chadash. It's certainly not the biggest or most prominent synagogue in Chicago, so I wonder how or why it was picked. Did someone in Al Qaeda in Yemen used to live in Chicago? (Anwar al-Awlaki, who is one of the leaders of Al Qaeda in Yemen, is an American and used to live in the Washington area; his side-kick is Samir Khan who is also an American).

Some bizarre articles have come out about this in the Jewish press online already. Lee Smith published an odd one in Tablet whose point I really cannot figure out (it seems to be blaming President Obama for doing something bad - but since all the president has done is to work as hard as possible against this threat, I don't understand what he's done wrong). And the Yeshiva World website headlined their story "Bomb was addressed to Chicago 'Toeiva Synagogue.'" This is an ultra-Orthodox website that apparently cannot bring itself to utter the word "gay." (The word "toeiva" means "abomination"). Disgusting.

Radicalized in London?

It turns out that the terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attacked the Delta airliner on Christmas Day, was the president of the Islamic Society at University College London when he was there, according to this New York Times article: Quesions Arise on Why Terror Suspect Was Not Stopped.

There's a suggestion that he became radicalized in London:

A cousin of Mr. Abdulmutallab, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to offend the family, said in an interview on Sunday that there was no sign of radicalism in Mr. Abdulmutallab while he was growing up in Nigeria, though he was devout.
“We understand that he met some people who influenced him while in London,” where Mr. Abdulmutallab studied engineering, the cousin said. “He left London and went to Yemen where, we suspect, he mixed up with the people that put him up to this whole business.”
He added: “I think his father is embarrassed by the whole thing, because that was not the way he brought the boy up. All of us are shocked by it.”

An ordinary hero

Yesterday's attempted terrorist attack on a plane about to land in Detroit was again foiled by an ordinary person who jumped on the terrorist:

There were popping sounds, smoke and a commotion as passengers cried out in alarm and tried to see what was happening. One woman shouted, “What are you doing?” and another called out, “Fire!”

And then history repeated itself. Just as occurred before Christmas in 2001, when Richard C. Reid tried to ignite plastic explosives hidden in his shoe on a trans-Atlantic flight, fellow passengers jumped on Mr. Abdulmutallab, restraining the 23-year-old Nigerian. Jasper Schuringa, a Dutch film director seated in the same row as Mr. Abdulmutallab but on the other side of the aircraft, saw what looked like an object on fire in the suspect’s lap and “freaked,” he told CNN.

“Without any hesitation, I just jumped over all the seats,” Mr. Schuringa said, in an account that other passengers confirmed. “I was thinking, Oh, he’s trying to blow up the plane. I was trying to search his body for any explosive. I took some kind of object that was already melting and smoking, and I tried to put out the fire and when I did that I was also restraining the suspect.”

Mr. Schuringa said he had burned his hands slightly as he grappled with Mr. Abdulmutallab, aided by other passengers, and began to shout for water. “But then the fire was getting worse, so I grabbed the suspect out of the seat,” Mr. Schuringa said. Flight attendants ran up with fire extinguishers, doused the flames and helped Mr. Schuringa walk Mr. Abdulmutallab to first class, where he was stripped, searched and locked in handcuffs.

“The whole plane was screaming — but the suspect, he didn’t say a word,” Mr. Schuringa said. He shrugged off praise for his swift action, which he said was reflexive. “When you hear a pop on the plane, you’re awake, trust me,” he said. “I just jumped. I didn’t think. I went over there and tried to save the plane.”

The accused terrorist did not act because he was from a deprived family. On the contrary, he is from an elite family in Nigeria.

Mr. Abdulmutallab grew up in a rarefied slice of Nigeria, the son of an affluent banker. He attended one of West Africa’s best schools, the British School of Lomé in Togo. After high school, he went to Britain and enrolled at the University College London to study engineering.

University College London, in a statement, said that a student named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had enrolled in mechanical engineering courses between September 2005 and June 2008. But it cautioned that it could not confirm that this was the same individual apprehended in Detroit. In London, Scotland Yard was conducting searches of apartments around the college.

His father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, until recently had served as chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria, and his mother’s family is originally from Yemen, according to news accounts in Nigerian newspapers. Investigators are now examining how Mr. Abdulmutallab, at age 23, apparently rebelled against this privileged upbringing to pursue an extremist goal. It was while still in high school that Mr. Abdulmutallab began preaching to fellow students about Islam, according to a report in ThisDay, a Nigerian newspaper.

ThisDay reported that more recently, Mr. Abdulmutallab had moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and told his family that he no longer wanted to associate with them.

One wonders who his contacts were at University College. As Harry's Place has often reported, a number of extremist Islamist organizations are active on British university campuses. Perhaps his radicalization began in Nigeria, but it may very well have continued during his schooling in London as well.