Michigan, we have a problem

In recent days we have witnessed how a synagogue in Michigan, which housed a daycare center, was about to be the scene of a massacre; and how synagogues in Canada, Belgium, Norway and Rotterdam were attacked. This is in addition to the massacre of Jews celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach and the terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester during Yom Kippur. Earlier, two Israeli embassy employees were murdered in Washington, D.C. Twelve people were injured by a Molotov cocktail thrown during a hostage release demonstration in Boulder.

These attacks, and hundreds of attempts around the world, are expressions of something very difficult to assimilate: the explosive growth of anti-Semitism as part of today's political and civic culture. According to a recent study by the Manhattan Institute, nearly half of Republican voters under the age of 50 believe the Holocaust did not happen. A quarter hold anti-Semitic views. A Yale University survey of young Americans found that young voters were twice as likely to say that Jews had a negative effect on America. More than 40% of young people agreed with at least one of the anti-Semitic statements read to them by pollsters. Jews are once again being scapegoated for an ideology forged by anti-Americanism more than 50 years ago.

Returning to the Michigan bombing, the attacker, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, rammed his car into Temple Israel armed and, according to reports, carrying a large quantity of explosives to massacre Jews. Fortunately, his atrocity was intercepted by security guards. Born in Lebanon, he became a naturalized American citizen in 2016, even though he had strong ties to a terrorist organization. Although he attempted to murder a group of kindergarten children, the media and even the mayor "justified" him because members of his family were said to have been killed in an Israeli airstrike. They tried to disguise their attack by blaming the victim. The narrative had little traction only because it quickly became known that Ghazali's deceased brother, Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali, was a Hezbollah commander who ran weapons operations from which hundreds of rockets were launched against Israeli civilians.

Nevertheless, the New York Times described the Michigan terrorist as a "quiet restaurant worker." But that's not all, Emir Balat, one of the terrorists who threw bombs at an anti-Islamization demonstration in New York City also received the indulgence of the media, which described him as follows: "At 13, he was selling sneakers. At 18, he's facing terrorism charges." The media is humanizing Islamic terrorism as it once humanized Antifa terrorism by romanticizing the killer of a health care CEO.

Michigan has been rocked by sectors openly supportive of antisemitism that dream of Israel's annihilation. But denouncing jihadist culture is risky. When, in February 2024, Steven Stalinsky wrote in The Wall Street Journal "Welcome to Dearborn, America's jihad capital," the article was accused of Islamophobia, a finger-pointing that serves to stifle public debate about Islamism. It is worth rescuing some paragraphs of that piece with denunciations that, by then, were already a wake-up call:

Thousands march in support of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Protesters, many with kaffiyehs covering their faces, shout “Intifada, intifada,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “America is a terrorist state.” Local imams give fiery antisemitic sermons. This isn’t the Middle East. It’s the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Mich.

Almost immediately after Oct. 7, and long before Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza, people were celebrating the horrific events of that day in pro-Hamas rallies and marches throughout Dearborn.

(...)

Imam Imran Salha of Dearborn’s Islamic Center of Detroit told the crowd that Israel’s past actions have put “fire in our hearts that will burn that state”—Israel— “until its demise.” In May 2023, Mr. Salha had urged his congregation to say “amen” in agreement with his prayer that Allah “eradicate from existence” the “sick, disgusting Zionist regime.” In October 2022, according to the Washington Free Beacon, his organization received $150,000 in funding from the Homeland Security Department’s nonprofit security grants program.

(...)

At another rally, held Oct. 14 in front of the Henry Ford Centennial Library, Imam Usama Abdulghani also didn’t hide his support for Hamas’s terrorist actions. The American-born, Iranian-educated Shiite Islamic scholar called Oct. 7 “one of the days of God” and a “miracle come true.” He described the attackers as “honorable.” He said they were “lions” defending “the entire nation of Muhammad the messenger.”

(...)

Support for terrorism in southern Michigan has long been a concern for U.S. counterterrorism officials. A 2001 Michigan State Police assessment submitted to the Justice Department after 9/11 called Dearborn “a major financial support center” and a “recruiting area and potential support base” for international terror groups, including possible sleeper cells. The assessment noted that most of the 28 State Department-identified terror groups were represented in Michigan. Many current or onetime Dearborn residents have been convicted of terror-related crimes in recent years.

(...)

Ahmad Musa Jibril is perhaps the most influential English-speaking jihadi sheikh. From his home in Dearborn he promotes holy war to his tens of thousands of followers on Twitter and Telegram. On Oct. 7, the day Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and took almost 200 hostage, a Twitter account bearing his name retweeted a post that said, “The hearts haven’t been overjoyed like this in so long.”

What happened in Michigan is the clearest example of the cowardly culture that has prevailed in the West in the wake of October 7. Jihad in the United States has become an everyday occurrence. Antisemitic propaganda (from the left and the right woke) does not always involve terrorist actions, but it is always a breeding ground for terrorism.

What is happening is a matter of national security. The latest attacks must serve as the canary in the mine. If American citizens don't want to live governed by jihadist law and morality, they should start by acknowledging it. There is too much at stake.