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Terror for Jews in Seattle Steve Malzberg Note from author: This column is dedicated to Mel Gibson. I hope he shares this with his father, the Holocaust denier, while they attend the Malibu Church Mel built which follows outdated Catholic doctrine that the Jews killed Jesus Christ. I'm so glad that Mel decided to take a leisurely drive this past weekend. His escapade finally set the record straight, as if "The Passion of the Christ" didn't speak for itself. Last Friday night I heard the report that I had been dreading. A gunman had opened fire at a Jewish Center in Seattle, killing one woman and injuring five others. I knew right away that this was no random act and soon I had my confirmation.
The details were at first a bit sketchy, so I hit the TV for the 11 o'clock local news. All three network affiliates led with the harsh weather in the New York City area.
That's when I tuned out.
Next stop: my computer, where I logged on to KIRO Radio in Seattle, a talk radio station, where I thought I would get the latest on the events. I wasn't disappointed.
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KIRO had reporters all over the story. One was at the hospital, one was at City Hall for a press conference with the mayor and the FBI, and one reporter was at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, where the shooting occurred. Soon the details came pouring in.
The gunman had forced his way into the Center at gunpoint and immediately opened fire on a group of women whose only crime was being Jewish and being in the center. The man, Naveed Afzal Haq, declared that he was a "Muslim American" and he was upset with Israel.
He used two handguns to do his dirty work, killing 58-year-old Pamela Waechter and wounding five others, including a pregnant woman, three of them seriously.
Haq called 911 from inside the Center and told police that he had hostages. They talked him into giving himself up. He's currently being held on $50 million bail and could be charged with first degree murder and multiple attempted murder charges.
Will he be charged with committing an act of terrorism?
Don't hold your breath.
The police in Seattle are treating this as a hate crime. I have no use for hate crime laws. If you murder someone and it fits murder one, then you should be subject to the most stringent penalties the law allows.
It shouldn't be any less of a crime because you didn't utter words professing hatred for your victim. The same goes for rape, robbery, assault, etc.
The FBI in Seattle stressed that Naveed Afzal Haq most likely acted alone, had no ties to an organized terror group, and had some mental problems that might have led to the whole incident. Sure, he could just as easily have walked into a candy store as a Jewish Center and shot up the place. Except he didn't.
Today I see that poor 30-year-old Naveed Afzal Haq is an unemployed loner with a history of mental problems that include a March arrest for flashing young women at a shopping mall. This according to the Seattle Times. Oh, that explains everything.
This shooting takes me back to 1994 and a shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge. A livery cab driver named Rashid Baz opened fire on a bus filled with 15 Hasidic Jewish students. Sixteen-year-old Ari Halberstam, a Rabbinical student who was riding in that bus, was killed.
Baz was sentenced to 141 years in prison, but it took years of political pressure before the State Department finally classified the murder as a terrorist act.
Baz chose his target carefully. He was after Jews, as was Haq.
So was Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, who in July 2002 opened fire at Los Angeles International Airport while standing in line at an El Al Airlines ticket counter. He killed two and wounded four before a security officer from the Israeli carrier shot him dead.
That has never been classified as a terror attack. Nor has the 1997 shooting by a Palestinian schoolteacher on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. He killed one and wounded six before killing himself.
He left a suicide note that talked of his desire to kill Jews.
Back to my Friday night encounter with KIRO Radio and the media coverage of the Jewish Center shooting. The host of the talk show kept calling the shooting a "tragedy." In an attempt to downplay the whole thing, he kept saying that every religion has its right-wing nuts.
He brought up Timothy McVeigh as an example. Callers called in to agree with him.
I lost it.
I dialed the phone and was soon placed on hold. (For full disclosure, I used a pseudonym.)
When it was my turn, I told the host that this was no "tragedy." I told him a tragedy is when a kid gets hit by a car. This was a deliberate, premeditated act of murder and terror. I told the host that this man was motivated by a worldwide movement of Jihad, Islamic fundamentalism and Islamofascism. I defied him to come up with another religion or movement that blows up people every day all over the world and is responsible for hundreds of deaths per day. He chose not to respond to my remarks.
What a surprise.
I stated at the beginning of this piece that I had been dreading the news of this Seattle shooting. Now that Hezbollah has threatened to go after Jewish interests all over the world, I fear that these events will become more frequent here in the United States.
We must expect it, confront it, beat it, and call it what it is: terror.
Editor's note:
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