Soccer Dad: Kamal what will

February 19, 2007

Kamal what will

Killer's daughter admits it was political

Ali Abu Kamal's relatives say they are tired of lying about why the Palestinian opened fire on the observation deck of Empire State Building, killing a tourist and injuring six other people before committing suicide.

Kamal's widow insisted after the shooting spree that the attack was not politically motivated. She said that her husband had become suicidal after losing $300,000 in a business venture.

But in a stunning admission, Kamal's 48-year-old daughter Linda told the Daily News that her dad wanted to punish the U.S. for supporting Israel - and revealed her mom's 1997 account was a cover story crafted by the Palestinian Authority.

"A Palestinian Authority official advised us to say the attack was not for political reasons because that would harm the peace agreement with Israel," she told The News on Friday. "We didn't know that he was martyred for patriotic motivations, so we repeated what we were told to do."

(via memeorandum)

A Blog for All gives a reasonable read of the situation.

So, we have a confluence of PA and American domestic political agendas to blind the American people to the fact that Islamic terrorists attacked on that day in 1997. It was also yet another example of how terrorist attacks were glossed over by the US government because of the desire to be peacemakers between Palestinians and Israelis despite the fact that the Palestinians had absolutely no desire to make peace with Israel - they continue to this day to seek Israel's destruction.

Unfortunately that may not have been the case. On February 28, 1997, Newsday reported that it was the Giuliani administration that played down the terror motive. "Rudy Kept Public In The Dark / 2 major Jewish groups briefed on Empire State gunman's note"

The evening Ali Hassan Abu Kamal shot seven people and killed himself at the Empire State Building, mayoral aides confided to two major Jewish organizations that the Palestinian gunman had anti-Israel motives. The Giuliani administration, however, announced to the general public that the gunman's motivation was that he had been swindled out of his life savings, which later proved to be false.

"The mayor made a decision to selectively release issues in order to maintain calm in the city," said David Pollock, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, one of two Jewish groups briefed by City Hall aides shortly after the rampage occurred at about 5 p.m. Sunday. Aides also advised representatives of the Jewish groups that steps were under way to increase security at high-profile Jewish and Israeli institutions.

It appears that the Mayor sought to keep calm by not disclosing everything relevant and allowed the "despair" motive to take hold. I'd guess that it's fair to assume that Giuliani thought that there might be a wider threat to Jewish interests and was interested in working quietly to defuse it. Still it would appear that it was a conscious decision of the Giuliani administration not to publicize the jihadi motive.

(It wasn't beyond the Clinton administration at that time to play down terrorism.

James Woolsey, former head of the CIA, criticized the American administration for its unwillingness to accept the version of events put forward by Israeli intelligence, according to which PA Chairman Yasser Arafat gave the "green light" to carry out the terror attack in Tel Aviv last week. "The Administration is ignoring the possibility that there is more than one way to encourage acts of terror," Woolsey said in an interview with Ha'aretz. "In the struggle against terror it is preferable not to get into a dispute over semantics," he said.

To illustrate the point, Woolsey cited the case of the British monarch, Henry II. "He did not give the order to murder Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury, but he went to the trouble of surrounding himself with people who would understand his intentions. I do not know if Henry II gave a green light or a strong flash of a yellow light, but it was enough to eliminate the Archbishop," he said.

I'm just not certain that it deserves the blame in this instance.)

Michelle Malkin points to another way this story could hurt Giuliani among Republicans, in that, as Riehl World View points out he used the incident to push for stricter gun control.

The gun control discussed had to with preventing people from bringing in guns from jurisdictions with gun laws that were more lax. (Kamal had purchased his gun in Florida.) Clinton used the incident to push for limits on gun purchases by foreigners.

It's good that the truth is out there for all to see.

Blogdigger tags: Ali Abu Kamal, Rudy Giuliani, Bill Clinton, Terror, Gun Control.