Yesterday a Muslim named Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein fired thirty or more rounds into a Copenhagen restaurant where a free speech seminar was being held, killing one person and wounding several. A few hours later, he attacked the principal Copenhagen synagogue, where a bat mitzvah was taking place, killing a Jew who was acting as a guard–European synagogues need guards these days–and wounding two policemen. The attack on the synagogue was obviously not a “random” event, as Barack Obama characterized the murders that took place at a Paris deli a few weeks ago.
I am the last person to suggest that the President of the United States needs to issue a statement every time someone gets shot in a foreign country. But in the context of the administration’s wrong-footing of the Charlie Hebdo/Paris deli attacks, its response to the murders in Copenhagen is puzzling.
President Obama is busy fundraising and golfing in California. To date, he has been silent on the Danish terrorist attacks. In has absence, National Security Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan issued this brief statement yesterday:
The United States condemns today’s deplorable shooting in Copenhagen. We offer our condolences to the loved ones of the deceased victim, and our thoughts are with those wounded in this attack. We have been in close contact with our Danish counterparts and stand ready to lend any assistance necessary to the investigation.
This statement was issued after the attack on the free speech seminar, but before the later murder at the synagogue. Since the synagogue attack, there has been radio silence from the Obama administration. Given his bizarre comments about the supposedly “random” murders at the Jewish deli in Paris, Obama’s silence will be construed by many as an endorsement of the idea that Jews are fair game for Islamic terrorists. I don’t think Obama actually believes that, but he is so disconnected, so inept, or so lazy that he can’t be bothered to interrupt his golf game to make it clear that he is opposed to anti-Semitic murders.
Obama did, conversely, take time out to denounce the murders of three Muslims by liberal Democrat Craig Hicks. Obama’s denunciation of the Hicks murders assumed that Hicks killed the victims because they were Muslims, even thought there is zero evidence to support that assumption. The contrast with Obama’s indifference to murders of Jews, obviously perpetrated on account of their religion or ethnic background, is obvious. Whether Obama’s behavior is due to animus or cluelessness, you can decide for yourself.
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