Manhunt on for attacker who screamed ‘I want to kill my first Jew’

While this offer is new, the attack by a radical Islamist took place during Chanukah last December.

By Robert Spencer, FrontPage Magazine

In a dispiriting sign of the times, the Britain-based Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) has offered a £10,000 ($13,000) reward for information that could lead to the conviction of a knife-wielding man who attacked a Jewish man in London.

While this offer is new, the attack took place during Chanukah last December. The details of this attack strongly suggest that the attacker is well-versed in Islamic theology and scripture, including the notorious hadith (report about Muhammad’s words and deeds) in which the prophet of Islam is depicted as saying that the end times will not come until Muslims kill Jews.

This has been a long time coming: it has been over a decade since [FrontPage Magazine editor and founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center] David Horowitz and I warned about this tradition and its possible impact on Muslim behavior, and for our pains were denounced as “Islamophobes.” The London attack demonstrates that our warning was entirely justified.

It all started, according to the CAA, on December 2 a little after seven o’clock in the evening, as the victim was returning home from work:

“He exited West Hampstead Underground Station and walked to the nearby Marks and Spencer supermarket located in West Hampstead Square.” On the way, he saw a man tearing down a public Chanukah display and stomping on it, all the while screaming “antisemitic abuse.”

The man who was tearing down the Chanukah display saw that he was being watched, and said to the man watching him: “You look Jewish.” He added that he was “looking for a Jew to kill.”

The victim, understanding that he was in danger, said that he wasn’t Jewish (although he actually was). The attacker replied: “Good, I want to find a Jew to kill.”

The victim then called the police, but despite the fact that the attacker had said that he was looking for someone to murder, the police didn’t think the case was serious enough for them to come quickly.

The attacker then began tearing down the Chanukah display again, as it had been repaired in the meantime. The victim confronted him, whereupon the attacker screamed: “I knew you were Jewish, you lied to me. You are Jewish. I am going to kill you.” Then he said something in Arabic and added: “I want to kill my first Jew.”

He pushed the victim, repeating: “You are Jewish. I am going to kill you.” The attacker began punching the victim and ultimately grabbed a knife, saying, “I will kill you now, you Jew,” while gesturing across his throat.

At that point, for some reason, the attacker fled. The police, whose station was only half a mile away, only arrived after the whole thing had ended.

Now CAA is offering a reward for information on the attacker, who is described as “black and possibly of Somali ethnicity, aged between 25 and 30 and between 6’0” and 6’1” in height. He had a slender build and bad teeth, and wore a dark green beanie hat, a dark puffer jacket with large pockets, dark trousers and no gloves. He wore a dark facemask when in the shop. He spoke in English, with a mixed East London and foreign accent, and spoke Arabic.”

Where did this man get the idea that he had to kill a Jew at all and wanted to get on with it and kill his first one?

A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.” (Sahih Muslim 6985)

This tradition is essentially saying that Muslims can help bring about “the last hour” by killing Jews. It has been quoted by Hamas and other jihadis.

Years ago, around 2007 or 2008, the David Horowitz Freedom Center began a campaign asking Muslim organizations in the United States to repudiate this genocidal hadith in the interests of peace and harmony between Muslims and Jews. The principal Muslim organizations in the United States either refused to do so or ignored our request.

Meanwhile, Horowitz and I were excoriated as “Islamophobes” for daring to suggest that this passage and others like it constituted genuine incitement that could lead to violence. The Leftist intelligentsia claimed that such passages were no less benign than forgotten sections of the Hebrew scriptures that spoke of violence done long ago to vanished peoples.

But where did this London attacker get the idea that he had some kind of responsibility to kill Jews? Clearly, this curious idea could only come from claims that there was some need to do this and that those who did this would be behaving in a meritorious fashion. The genocidal hadith does that. Many other passages in Islamic sacred literature do as well. But there is no other belief system, outside of National Socialism, that promises rewards for killing Jews.

We were trying to alert the world to this risk nearly 15 years ago. And in the near future, there are certain to be many other examples of how right we were to call attention to this and how short-sighted and ultimately suicidal for the West the Left’s approach has been and continues to be. But the suicide of the West may be what Leftists have wanted all along.

AntisemitismGreat BritainIslamophobiaRadical IslamUnited Kingdom