I would like to hear a more thorough explanation as to why
American and British authorities now believe that the bombs
contained in the packages sent from Yemen were intended to be
detonated aboard the UPS and FedEx cargo planes carrying them
rather than inside the two Chicago synagogues to which they were
addressed.
While I do not discount the possibility that cargo planes
were the targets of this attack, absent more specific information I
am not prepared to dismiss the possibility the packages were
intended to land safely on U.S. soil and be deployed once inside
the synagogues. Suppose for a moment that the packages had not been
intercepted. Given that the packages were
discovered on Friday morning in London and in Dubai is it
unreasonable to conclude they would have arrived in Chicago in
plenty of time for Friday night Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath)
services?
It is also worth remembering that the explosives were to
be detonated remotely by text message or by phoning the SIM card.
As President Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan
noted, “They were able to be detonated at a time
of the terrorists’ choosing.” So why wouldn’t Muslim terrorists
choose to bomb two synagogues in Chicago?
If Muslim terrorists want to target synagogues and are
seeking to maximize casualties the most logical time to do so,
outside of a major Jewish holiday, would be during Shabbat on
Friday evening or Saturday morning. So what makes
the Obama Administration (and for that matter the Cameron/Clegg
coalition in Britain) think the terrorists weren’t targeting the
synagogues? If they weren’t being targeted, then
why was the Emanuel
Congregation getting so much
web traffic from Egypt? Somehow I don’t think those Egyptian
web browsers were looking to download Torah and Haftarah portions
onto their MP3 players.
It isn’t as if Muslim terrorists haven’t set their sights
on synagogues before. It was scarcely two weeks
ago that four men residing in Newburgh, New York, were
convicted of planning to bomb two synagogues in the Riverdale
section of the Bronx. Three
of the four men involved were born in the United States while all
four men are Muslim
converts. Plot ringleader James Cromitie was recorded on FBI
surveillance
stating he had “no hesitation” in killing ten Jews.
Fortunately, Cromitie and his accomplices were not successful in
carrying out their plans.
The same cannot be said of what happened during the
terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India in November 2008. While a
majority of the casualties occurred in the Taj Mahal Hotel and the
Oberoi Trident Hotel, Muslim terrorists reserved their most vicious
savagery for those inside the Chabad
House whom they tied up and tortured. Their heinous acts of
barbarism resulted in the deaths of six Jews including Rabbi
Gavriel Berkowitz and his wife Rivka, who was five months pregnant.
According to
Indian intelligence, the terrorists were instructed by their
masters in Pakistan that taking the lives of Jews was worth 50
times that of non-Jews.
Given what happened in Mumbai and what could have happened
in Riverdale, it is troubling that American and British authorities
and for that matter the media are downplaying the intent to attack
the Chicago synagogues.
Much of the attention the synagogues have received is that one
of the congregations is predominantly LGBT congregation. One must
wonder if Congregation Or Chadash would have received even less
media attention if it wasn’t predominantly LGBT?
Now it is certainly possible that American and British
authorities as well as the media are downplaying the threat to the
synagogues in Chicago because they do not want to create a panic
among the Jewish communities and the general public at large in
their respective countries. But if the lives of Jews are worth
fifty times more for Muslim terrorists than the lives of non-Jews
regardless if they are from Pakistan, Yemen, or within the United
States, then there must remain a suspicion the packages were
intended to be detonated at the two synagogues in
Chicago. And I will not believe otherwise until
President Obama can thoroughly explain why two synagogues in his
own backyard weren’t the target of a Muslim terrorist
plot.
