Daniel Pearl was murdered 20 years ago today
“My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish. I am Jewish.”
Twenty years ago today Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl was murdered. I am running again the post I ran on the 15th Anniversary of his death.
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In my memory, there are certain place markers in the history of terrorism that led to where we are today.
The 1972 Munich Massacre of Israeli athletes (1972); the bombing of the Beirut Marine Barracks (1983), the World Trade Center attacks (1993 and 2001); the Jerusalem Sbarro Pizza bombing (2001) and the videotaped beheading of Daniel Pearl, February 1, 2002.
I don’t diminish the significance and horror of other attacks, it’s just that these are memory reference points for me.
In searching our archives, I can’t find a post we devoted to providing what happened to Daniel Pearl, though we have mentioned him. Shame on us.
This article from The Telegraph in May 2004 relates some of the basic details, Daniel Pearl ‘refused to be sedated before his throat was cut’
Horrifying new details of how Daniel Pearl, the murdered Wall Street Journal reporter, met his death have emerged from the interrogation of new suspects by Pakistani police.
Pearl, who was kidnapped in Karachi in January 2002, knew for several hours that he was about to be killed, but resisted repeated attempts to sedate him, police now believe.
He was fully aware of what was happening when the Arab extremists who took control during his final days cut his throat, according to information gleaned from Pakistani militants now in police custody.
Shocking video film of Pearl’s murder, seen around the world via the internet, was in fact a partial reconstruction of what had happened a few moments earlier, officers have been told.
The camera operator made a mistake and missed the moment of his death, which his murderers then re-enacted, before decapitating the reporter….
Armed with a video camera, three Arabs arrived, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, third-in-command of al-Qaeda – since handed over to the Americans.
On the day Pearl died, two of his Pakistani guards were present: Ali Khan, arrested just two weeks ago, and Fazal Karim, an employee of Saud Memon. One recently told interrogators how the Arabs tried to sedate Pearl, first by injection, then by doctoring his tea.
“I think he understood that he was going to be killed and refused to accept tea or to gulp pills. He even did not allow himself to be injected.”
Before he was murdered, they forced him to relate his Jewish background and express sympathy with detainees in Guantanamo Bay before putting the knife to his throat once – and then again, a second time, owing to the faulty camera.
The Washington Post provides more details based on investigations released in 2011.
It was that acknowledgement of his Judaism that makes this brutal murder so memorable.
What became known only in the months and years following his gruesome execution was that Pearl’s kidnappers, a local group led by Omar Saeed Sheikh, had turned him over to Al-Qaida, specifically to 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, who in the course of 183 waterboarding torture sessions at Guantanamo confessed to having slit Pearl’s throat.
In a video released on February 21, 2002 and titled “The Slaughter of the Spy-Journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl,” Pearl addresses the camera in the moments before his death: “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish,” he said, adding: “Back in the town of Bnei Brak, there is a street named after my great-grandfather Chaim Pearl, who is one of the founders of the town.” He remained proud and defiant to the end.
Bnei Brak is a well-known ultra-Orthodox city in Israel. Certainly his murderers knew the significance of Pearl mentioning Bnei Brak in his final moment.
Somehow, “Rest in Peace” doesn’t seem like enough.
Postscript: Someone on Facebook reminded me. Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch, to honor Pearl, pre-arranged for Pearl’s last words to be used on Koch’s gravestone:
“On my tombstone, which awaits me at the Trinity Church nondenominational cemetery at 155th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, I had inscribed the last words of Daniel Pearl — uttered at his publicly viewed murder — which were, ‘My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish,’” Koch wrote in a 2011 column for The Huffington Post.
Koch died on February 1. The same month and day as Pearl.
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Comments
Pearl was described as not being religious but he did not renounce the faith of his parents or his upbringing and simply said: “My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish . . .”, knowing he faced certain death. He resisted attempts to sedate him and instead met his end with quiet courage. In doing so, perhaps he revealed a depth of faith in God that he even did not realize was there. May any of us do as well if put to the test!
May he rest in the bosom of Abraham with the righteous of Israel.
The horror is that in 20 years, Jew hatred is not only worse, but there are four openly anti-Semitic lunatics IN CONGRESS!
Oh yeah – and Hollywood idiots like Whoopi Goldberg lecturing on world history. What a f***king ignoramus.
Four “openly.”’ And then all of the other Democrats who are not counted as “openly.”
I’m sure there are one or two who are not anti-Semites. Our of (IIRC) 270 plus two hanger’s on in Congress.
I firmly believe that atrocities like this should lead to very large numbers of dead Muslins. History makes it very clear that they do not understand anything except bruit force.
Just to put a little context here. if Pearl had been treated like the inmates at the infamous Abu Grahb facility, we might have been horrified to see his captors looking at the camera and shouting: Look! we have put women’s panties on the head of the Jew. Do you see how we treat the infidels!”
Yet the press was more horrified by Abu Grahb than it was by the beheading of Pearl.
but his wife and child weren’t
And, twenty years later, the vile, despicable Dhimmi-crats and their vile Party continue to brazenly whitewash, trivialize, downplay, rationalize, excuse and enable Muslim supremacist/terrorist violence against Israeli, American and European Jews, while indefensibly and contemptibly parroting, propagating and legitimizing transparently contrived and fallacious mythologies/propaganda regarding alleged Muslim victimhood.
I remember exactly where I was when this news came out and someone at work pulled up photos of this horrific event online. It was the most foul and blood curdling image I had ever seen. My worldview changed forever and I understood in crystalline exactitude what true evil looks like.
May he rest in peace.
HY”D (Hashem Yinkom Damo — may G-d avenge his blood.)
“in the course of 183 waterboarding torture sessions at Guantanamo confessed to” everything he was asked.
Murdering Pearl: Bad.
Torturing people: Bad.
Don’t murder. Don’t torture.
If only there were a vaccine for the pandemic of anti-Semitism.
Actually, there are several. Education is one. The ballot box is another. And, finally, ostracism.
The Israeli military is yet another. Especially its nukes.