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A History of Muslim Terrorism against Jews in the United States

by Daniel Pipes
May 21, 2009

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The arrest yesterday of four would-be jihadis before they could attack two synagogues in New York City brings to mind a long list of terrorist assaults in the United States by Muslims on Jews. These began in 1977 and have continued regularly since, as suggested by the following list of major incidents (ignoring lesser ones that did damage only to property, such a series of attacks on Chicago-area synagogues):

March 1977: Hanafi Muslims seized three buildings in Washington, including the headquarters of B'nai B'rith, and held hostages for 39 hours, leading to one death and one severe injury.
November 1990: El Sayyid Nosair assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane in a New York hotel.
February 1993: Ramzi Yusuf, the mastermind of the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, which claimed 7 lives and injured more than a thousand people,, declared the towers not a civilian target but a military one, by virtue of the fact that it might house a "Zionist official."
June 1993: "Boom! Broken windows. Jews in the street," is how one of the plotters described the carnage that would ensue from a planned "day of terror" with simultaneous bombings of the United Nations complex, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and other New York landmarks.
March 1994: Rashid Baz, a Palestinian immigrant, opened fire on a van carrying Orthodox Jewish boys across the Brooklyn Bridge, killing 16-year-old Ari Halberstam.
July 1997: 'Ali Hasan Abu Kamal, a 69-year-old Palestinian, shot seven tourists atop the Empire State building, killing one and severely wounding another; in his suicide note, he accused the United States of using Israel as "an instrument" against the Palestinians.
July 1997: Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Maizar's near-explosion of a pipe bomb in the New York City subway system.
July 2002: Hesham Mohamed Ali Hadayet's attack on the El Al counter at Los Angeles International Airport, killing two.
September 2005: Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh plot against two Los Angeles-area synagogues, disrupted due to a dropped mobile phone.
July 2006 : Naveed Haq assaulted the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, murdering one and injuring five.
May 2009: Four arrested in attempt to blow up two New York City synagogues.

(This listing is drawn in part from a 1999 article of mine; I shall add to it as needed.)

Comments:

(1) Inexplicably, Muslim-on-Jewish violence peaked in the years 1990-97 and has declined since.

(2) Muslims of immigrant and of African-American origins have each engaged in a share of the attacks roughly proportionate to their demographics.

(3) As I concluded in a 2005 article on this subject, "Even though most Jews resist acknowledging it, the Muslim threat is changing Jewish life in the United States. The golden age of American Jewry is coming to an end." (May 21, 2009)

The four accused New York City bombers: David Williams (top left), Onta Williams (top right), Laguerre Payen (bottom left), and James Cromitie (bottom right).

Related Topics: Antisemitism, Muslims in the United States, Radical Islam, Terrorism receive the latest by email: subscribe to daniel pipes' free mailing list This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.