The prisoner, an American whose father was born in Israel, was surrounded by cowardly men covering their faces. The prisoner looked into the camera and said, “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.” That’s the part the media covered so they could tell a story about Antisemitism. But Pearl added a statement about his Zionist history.
“Back in the town of Bnei Brak, there is a street named after my great-grandfather Chaim Pearl, who is one of the town’s founders.”
The media ignored that part because it told a story they didn’t want their audience to understand. Anti-Zionism is the same thing as Antisemitism. When Daniel Pearl was done with his statement, terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed brutally hacked his head off in front of the whole world, and a video of his beheading was posted on Facebook.
That incident occurred on February 1st. This year is twenty-one years after that horrific day. The memory of how Daniel Pearl was murdered still resonates in some people’s hearts in this country, but it’s been forgotten by most. Because the key lesson the world should have learned is that the terrorists hated Israel, so they killed a Jew. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed knew there was no difference, but most Americans don’t.
Pearl was lured into his capture because, as a reporter for the Wall St. Journal, he wanted to give the terrorists an opportunity to tell their side of the story. He was murdered because he was a Jew. Except for the Jewish media, most secular media reported his last words but explained that his head was hacked off because he was an American. Based on his final words, it wasn’t what Daniel Pearl thought.
Sadly, Daniel Pearl’s murder is relegated to the deep crevices of our collective memories. Many among us still view the man who hacked off Pearl’s head, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as a martyr because they put a towel over her head and poured water on his face. Those Americans remember the killer was waterboarded but forget his act of brutally murdering an American Jew, leaving his wife a widow and his son (who was born months after his death) to grow up without his father.
I ask you…which one act was real torture? Waterboarding the man who murdered Daniel Pearl or having one’s head hacked off with a knife? And by knife, I do not mean the swift executioner’s blade, but Daniel Pearl’s head was cut off with back-and-forth movements as one would slice off a piece of steak. I also ask why didn’t people speak out about that on the TV news? That one reason Daniel Pearl was murdered was his Jewish faith and his connection to Israel.
At the time of Pearl’s murder, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, tweeted a message that seemed to indicate that it was Pearl’s fault:
“Daniel Pearl’s story is a reminder that individual accountability and reconciliation are required to break cycles of violence.”
Powers was forced to take down the tweet but received no punishment.
Four years after Daniel Pearl’s murder, his dad, Judah Pearl, wrote an op-ed for the newspaper his son wrote for The Wall Street Journal:
“One of the things that sadden me most is that the press and media have had an active, perhaps even major role in fermenting hate and inhumanity. It was not religious fanaticism alone.
This was first brought to my attention by the Pakistani Consul General who came to offer condolences at our home in California. When we spoke about the anti-Semitic element in Danny’s murder she said: “What can you expect of these people who never saw a Jew in their lives and who have been exposed, day and night, to televised images of Israeli soldiers targeting and killing Palestinian children.”
“At the time, it was not clear whether she was trying to exonerate Pakistan from responsibility for Danny’s murder, or to pass on the responsibility to European and Arab media for their persistent dehumanization of Jews, Americans and Israelis. The answer was unveiled in 2004 when a friend told me that photos of Muhammad Al Dura were used as background in the videotape of Danny’s murder.”
Al Dura, readers may recall, is the 12-year-old Palestinian boy who allegedly died from Israeli bullets in Gaza in September of 2001. As we now know, the whole scene was a fraud, choreographed by stringers and cameramen of France 2, the official news channel of France. France 2 aired the tape repeatedly and distributed it worldwide to anyone who needed an excuse to ratchet up anger or violence, including Danny’s killers.
The Pakistani Consul was right. The media cannot be totally exonerated from responsibility for Daniel’s murder and the “tsunami of hate” that has swept the world and continues to rise.
Judah Pearl mentioned the Al-Dura case. The American media rushed to make that story a lead story in the mainstream media. It was the cause of the second intifada leading to the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians. But the hatred went beyond the Middle East. Antisemitism rose across the Western World, leading to attacks and murders of Jews such as Daniel Pearl. The MSM kept showing the pictures of the boy hiding behind his father as they were supposedly shot by the IDF.
The media didn’t investigate the Al Durah story as they would do with other stories. Eventually, the whole tape was found. It showed that the entire incident was a set-up, a false slander of the Jewish nation using Israel as a fake excuse, Fake because they are the same thing.
Twenty-one years and one day after Daniel Pearl was brutally murdered, Rep Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was tossed off a committee because of her putrid public Antisemitism and regular use of anti-Jewish canards on Twitter. Omar was tossed because of her hatred of Jews, but many in congress, the media, and their supporters are claiming it’s political.
If you ask people why Daniel Pearl was murdered, they will give several reasons but leave out the Antisemitism part. Because the key lesson was never learned.
May God teach the people in the world to recognize that Antisemitism is real and pervasive.
May God continue to comfort Daniel Pearl’s bereaved family, and may his memory always be for a blessing.
