Many killers of U.S. citizens walk freely in territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority or nations that America considers allies, such as Egypt and Jordan.
After the terrorist attack by an Afghan national on two members of the West Virginia National Guard in Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump labeled the murderer a “savage monster” and an “animal.” He also said about Rahmanullah Lakanwal: “We will bring the perpetrator of this barbaric attack to swift and certain justice.”
All of these remarks by Trump bring to mind that there’s another Islamic terrorist who targeted Americans, and all of the things that he said about Lakanwal apply just as much to this other man.
Two days before the D.C. attack, NPR aired an over-the-top favorable profile on another terrorist and completely left out that he also planned a deadly surprise attack on American diplomats. NPR’s editors decided to mark Thanksgiving week by broadcasting a story that allowed the convicted murderer to blame Israel for his crimes and to whitewash his terrorism.
With an example like this, it is hard to argue with Trump’s July quip, when he called NPR “atrocious.” It is entirely appropriate when they choose to publish articles such as this.
HonestReporting correctly criticized the NPR headline, “A Palestinian man who became a novelist while in an Israeli prison is now free,” by tweeting: “This ‘Palestinian man’ was a PFLP member who dispatched a suicide bomber to a Tel Aviv market, killing 3 and wounding over 30 people. So, @NPR, Bassam Khandaqji is not just a ‘Palestinian man who became a novelist.’ He is a convicted terrorist. Put that in your headline.”
Unfortunately, the journalistic failures go very far beyond just the headline here. The true story of Bassam Khandaqji’s evil is completely glossed over by NPR staffer Daniel Estrin. What is missing from the story is that while the attack that Khandaqji was convicted for relates to his involvement in a suicide bombing on Nov. 1, 2024, at the crowded Carmel shuk open-air market in Tel Aviv —a target he had personally visited the day before—the terrorists also carried out reconnaissance at the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem.
Estrin has a long history of being caught by HonestReporting for his bias. These reports go back more than a decade, when he was still with the Associated Press. All of the convicted terrorist’s claims about himself went completely unchallenged by Estrin, including this: “(h)e calls himself anti-colonialist,” as if, of course, an “anti-colonialist” has every reason to want to see Israel cease to exist as a Jewish state.
NPR’s Estrin could have explained to his audience that Khandaqji, who is now in Egypt, should be arrested and tried for planning a terrorist attack against Americans and a U.S. diplomatic office.
How many U.S. citizens would have been murdered by Khandaqji’s fellow terrorist if they had not decided just hours before to switch the U.S. Consulate to the outdoor market?
The U.S. State Department has a program called “Rewards for Justice,” which offers multi-million-dollar rewards for information leading to the capture of terrorists around the world. Its website specifically states that it will pay for information that “(l)eads to the arrest or conviction of anyone who plans, commits, aids, or attempts international terrorist acts against U.S. persons or property in the United States or abroad.”
The U.S. Department of Justice should launch an investigation into Khandaqji and ask the Egyptian government to arrest him. According to Estrin, Khandaqji was recently at the Cairo Marriott Hotel.
More than 150 Americans have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists since the 1960s. Many of their killers walk freely in territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority or nations that the United States currently considers allies, such as Egypt and Jordan.
Most Popular
The U.S. State Department’s “Rewards for Justice” website also lists attacks in which Americans were harmed and displays photos of many victims. The attack on the Jerusalem Consulate is not listed because, thankfully, it didn’t happen. But planning attacks against Americans is a crime.
Every American should be able to agree that terrorist killers should be subjected to “certain justice” and be placed behind bars. We should all come together to demand that our government make a serious effort to capture Bassam Khandaqji and everyone who plotted with him to murder Americans.
