The shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego was a heinous crime that deserves to be looked at in depth and at length. And, to a certain extent, it is — but not the way the tragedy pleads to be looked at.
The New York Times’ headline on its deep-dive on the root causes that drove two young men to kill three people outside the house of worship pretty much said it all: “San Diego Killings Follow Rising Anti-Muslim Rhetoric.”
This was all, every bit of it, attributable to anti-Muslim sentiment. This was what drove two men to attempt a mass shooting which was repelled by asecurity guard at the mosque, but not before the guard was fatally wounded, along with two other community members.
The problems with this narrative are manifold. Yes, the alleged killers hated Muslims. If one is to believe their manifesto, it’s also clear that they hated virtually everyone, and from a mix-and-match list of targets that doesn’t fall neatly anywhere on the political spectrum.
As religious commentator Rod Dreher wrote inThe Free Pressabout the manifesto the two shooters left behind, “the pair hated Muslims, Jews, blacks, legal migrants, illegal migrants, Latinos, Asians, industrial society, gays, trans people, Donald Trump, ‘MAGAtard boomers,’ liberals, conservatives, moderates, and women.” Above all, they seemed to hate themselves.
“The manifesto reads like what you might expect teenagers marinated 24/7 in intersecting currents of internet hate to produce: crude, stupid, self-pitying, and overflowing with rage at all the people these self-described National Socialist Ecofascists identify as the Enemy,” Dreher noted.
What allows such rage to fester? The normalization of rage and slaughter of our enemies, innocent of actual violence they may be. See, they’ve committed adifferentkind of violence: The violence of being in opposition to one’s political aims, which is enough to justify the worst sorts of sanguinary air-quotes “justice.”
In this respect, then, it’s odd that the shooters chose the Islamic Center of San Diego as a target for their rage, because the clergy and clerisy there seem to have had one thing very much in common with the teens: They really,reallyhated Jews and wanted to see them dead.
Long before the shooting, in November of 2023, the conservativeWashington Free Beaconpublished an article that didn’t get the attention that it should have. Again, the theme is in the title, but it’s key: “These Mosques Pray for the Annihilation of Jews. They Also Receive Money From the Biden Administration.”
Also key is the date: This is one month after Hamas and its associated groupsmurdered, raped, and kidnapped thousands of Israelisbecause of their murderous grievances, too. Cheering them along was Imam Taha Hassane of the Islamic Center of San Diego, who said that killing thousands of innocents, including babies and the infirm, was merely self-defense.
Source: VidNews » Feed
