Tangle - The synagogue attack in Texas.

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

On Saturday, four people — including a rabbi — were taken hostage inside Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. The small city of 26,000 people is just north of Fort Worth. A 44-year-old British man named Malik Faisal Akram was later identified by the FBI as the hostage taker.You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about the synagogue attack in Texas that happened over the weekend. Before we jump in, though, as always, we'll start with some quick hits. some quick hits. First up, in a court appearance, the Office of New York Attorney General Letitia James alleged significant evidence of fraud at the Trump Organization. Number two, the U.S. has

started accepting orders for free COVID-19 rapid tests. Number three, the House panel investigating the January 6th riots subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell for advancing unsupported theories of election fraud in their efforts to overturn the 2022 election results. Number four, President Biden will hold his first solo press conference at the White House in over 10 months today. Number five, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democrat from New York, is continuing a push to modify filibuster rules so Democrats can pass major

voting rights legislation. All right, Eric, we have breaking news right now. The FBI has released the identity of the suspect in the Colleyville hostage standoff. He is 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, a British citizen. He was shot and killed by the FBI's hostage rescue team more than 11 hours into the standoff. Now, as Sam mentioned, during this 11-hour standoff, the gunman repeatedly demanded the release of Afia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman serving an 86-year prison sentence for attempting to kill American soldiers. Let's bring it. On Saturday, four people, including a rabbi, were taken hostage inside Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. The small city of 26,000 people is just north of Fort Worth. A 44-year-old

British man named Malik Faisal Akram was later identified by the FBI as the hostage taker. Akram was let into the synagogue by congregants and sat through part of the Shabbat services before displaying a weapon and taking four men hostage. When he entered the synagogue, the service was being live-streamed on Facebook, and Akram could be heard demanding to talk to his sister, Afia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who was convicted of trying to kill U.S. military officers and is currently serving an 86-year sentence in a Texas prison. He can also be heard explaining that the congregants let him in, according to the Times of Israel, who reported on the live stream.

They let me in, Akram is heard saying. I said, is this a night shelter? And they let me in, and they gave me a cup of tea, so I do feel bad, Akram said. I like the rabbi. He's a good guy. I bonded with him. I really like him. I've only been here for a couple hours, but I can see he's a good guy. Akram spent 11 hours in a standoff with more than 200 law enforcement agents who descended on the synagogue. Around 5 p.m., one male hostage was released unharmed from the synagogue. Before 10 p.m., all the other hostages escaped. Ockram was fatally shot by the FBI, who stormed the synagogue after hostages were released. According to The Guardian, Ockram flew into the U.S. and acquired a gun despite having a criminal

record and an extensive history of mental health issues. Oram had a criminal record in the UK and in 2001 was banned from Blackburn Magistrate's Court after telling a court usher that he wished they had been on the planes that flew into the World Trade Center in 2001. He had no known terrorism convictions and had no previous connection to Texas, though he had traveled there earlier this month. President Biden told reporters the assertion was he got weapons on the street. He purchased them when he landed. Throughout the synagogue attack, Akram was demanding the release of Siddiqui, who has suspected ties to al-Qaeda and was charged with intending to kill U.S. military officers while in custody in Afghanistan. It is unclear if Akram and Siddiqui are actually related. Siddiqui's case is controversial and she has

many advocates in Pakistan who claim she was treated unfairly and is being held unjustly. Public protests in Pakistan have been held to support her, and her case has been called one of the most mysterious in a secret war dense with mysteries. Below, we'll take a look at some reactions from the left and the right, and then my take. All right, first up, we'll start with what the left is saying. So the left has called out anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories about Jews. Some asked how Akram got into the U.S. and got a gun. Others said attacks like this are a reminder of the danger in demonizing people we disagree with. In the Los Angeles Times, Rob Eshman said not one of those four hostages had anything to do with Siddiqui. Siddiqui was tried and convicted for grabbing a carbine and shooting

at U.S. service members while under arrest in Afghanistan in 2008. Considering why a British Muslim might threaten the lives of four Texas Jews in 2022 for the actions of a Pakistani in Afghanistan in 2008 tells you a lot about the poisonous reach of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and the need to call out and stop them, Eshman wrote. In 2008, Afghanistan police arrested her. She was carrying documents on making explosives along with descriptions of the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, and other New York City landmarks. During an interrogation, Siddiqui grabbed a rifle and shot at her captors and questioners. Before her 2009 trial for the shooting, Siddiqui tried to dismiss her lawyers because of their Jewish background and demanded that prospective jurors

undergo DNA testing to determine if they had Jewish genes, Eschman noted. When an FBI spokesman said after the hostage-taking in Texas that the standoff was, quote, not specifically related to Jewish community, a statement that made headlines and deeply upset many Jews, it was both right and wrong. The Jews have nothing to do with Siddiqui, but in minds twisted by anti-Semitic hate, they have everything to do with her. The Dallas Morning News editorial board said events like this draw out an important contrast to what really matters. We are so quick today to make enemies of those with whom we differ politically. We see everywhere around us the belittlement and dehumanization of people who think differently, act differently, love differently, worship

differently, the board wrote. We should stop. We should take a moment like this to calculate the differences between something with which we strongly disagree and that which is truly horrible The fact that a Jewish synagogue was targeted is a reminder of how an entire people have been scapegoated and demonized throughout history. It can happen again, and we must not let it, they wrote. The Washington Post editorial board asked how Akram got into the U.S. and how he got a gun. Mr. Akram has been known to security officials in Britain, the board wrote. The BBC reported that he had been investigated in 2020 by Britain's counterintelligence and security agency and placed on a watch list as a subject of interest before it was concluded that he no longer posed a threat. According to his brother, Mr. Akram had a well-known history of mental health problems and a criminal record.

How was he allowed to get a visa and acquire a gun, asked his brother. Good questions, the board said. After 9-11, strict security protocols were put in place to screen out people coming to the United States with the aim of doing harm. What were the circumstances of Mr. Ocrum's entry through New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 29th? Was there a human mistake or a failure in the system that needs to be addressed? It will be important for authorities to determine whether Mr. Akram acted alone. That it was seemingly so easy for him to acquire a gun, reportedly buying it off the street, underscores once again the complete folly of American gun laws. Alright, that's it for what the left is saying, and this is what the right is saying.

The right has also called out anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories about Jews. Some pointed to the threat of extremism inside Pakistan. Others asked how someone like Akram was allowed into the U.S. In 1945, Michael Rubin argued that it's time to designate Pakistan as the state sponsor of terrorism. In Pakistan, Siddiqui became a cause celebre, he wrote. Pakistan's president, prime minister, and foreign minister all brought up her case with their American counterparts, and the Pakistani state senate called on the United States to release her. While the news of Siddiqui's arrest passed with little notice in the United States, her conviction led to widespread anti-American demonstrations and to demands that Pakistani authorities suspend the delivery of supplies for the war effort in Afghanistan. Her incarceration

occupied headlines in Pakistan for months. With her brother's attack on Beth Israel synagogue, the prominence of her case will increase. While groups like Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State are filled with citizens of other countries whose governments denounce them, Siddiqui is different. Pakistani officials at all levels of government endorse her and treat her like a hero. Inevitably, many on the Pakistani street will now celebrate her brother or, at the very least, excuse his actions. Pakistan's embrace of Afiya is just the tip of the iceberg. The New York Post editorial board asked how Akram got into the U.S. Why was Malik Faisal Akram even in this country, the Post asked. That's only one of many questions

surrounding the Brits' attack on a Texas synagogue, but it's one of the biggest. As Akram's brother told Sky News, he's known to police, got a criminal record. Nor did he have any visible means of support. Goldberg Akram also says he was suffering from mental health issues. Yet, the feds say he somehow got a visa and flew into JFK around New Year's, listing a hotel on Queens Boulevard as his destination. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond

Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at

FluCellVax.ca. Thank God the rabbi managed to lead an escape after 10 hours, leaving the FBI free to use deadly force to bring him down. Good on the G-men for resolving the crisis without loss of innocent life, even if a higher-up later seemed to suggest there was nothing anti-Semitic about targeting a temple. But other feds plainly screwed up by letting this guy in the country in the first place, the board said. American travelers put up with a vast amount of security theater. Millions of man hours lost each year to unpredictably long TSA lines, intrusive pat-downs, the whole take off your shoes and belt rigmarole. Yet the vast security apparatus can't screen out a mentally ill Muslim extremist? In the Wall Street Journal, Dominic Green said politicians and media outlets should disavow

white nationalists and Islamic extremists in equal measure. I wasn't surprised that it happened. This sort of crime isn't yet normal, but it's starting to feel familiar, Green wrote. Familiar enough for Jewish parents to calculate the chances of getting caught in the statistical crossfire every time we take our children to synagogues, schools, and Jewish-themed events. and Jewish-themed events. When you're perpetually calculating these odds, the question of whether the person who might shoot up the place is a deranged Islamist or a deranged white nationalist is secondary. Yet, it's of primary importance to the media and political parties. After a white nationalist attack, the media devote considerable resources to tracing the attacker's ideas and search history along the ideological continuum and tarring the Republican Party with complicity in his crimes, Green wrote. After an Islamist attack, the imperative is not to establish politicians' complicity with the criminal, but to avoid any inquiry that might

amount to Islamophobia. Stifling the debate in this manner reflects the preference of most American media for the Democrats, but that shouldn't distract us from a reality that has implications for all Americans. All right, so that's it for what the right is saying. And that brings us to my take. So on Friday night, I was actually leading a Shabbat dinner with my family in West Texas. Every year since I was 13, I've been spending weeks or months at a time down here in this part of rural Big Bend. My time down here, my love of Texas and of the border has been formative in my view of politics, freedom, immigration, and just about every other issue you can imagine. It's about as vastly different of a place from Brooklyn, New York,

as you can find in the U.S., and I love it for a whole set of different reasons than why I love New York. Over the Shabbat dinner, I explained to the table, none of them observant Jews, why I felt such a deep connection to Shabbat. Because, I said, I know that all over Texas right now, there are Jews doing exactly what we're doing, saying the same prayers, eating challah,

opening a bottle of wine, and dialing into the things right in front of them for 24 hours. The next day, I got the push notification on my phone that a hostage taker had stormed a synagogue a few hundred miles from where I was sitting in Texas. I tried not to read the story, as I typically check out for 24 hours from the news and my phone and social media on Shabbat, but it was too enticing and horrifying not to click it. The normalcy of these events for Jews in the U.S. is becoming tough to wrap your head around. That I was in Texas when it happened made it all the more upsetting. Was Akram an anti-Semite, a terrorist, mentally ill, all of the above? The truth is we don't yet know. Maybe Akram really thought he was entering a shelter and had some

kind of mental break. Maybe this was premeditated and we'll learn the synagogue had been targeted for months. But we do know this. Akram didn't storm an FBI building, or a government building, or a school, or a church. He stormed a synagogue. Assuming he really wasn't in a manic state of confusion, either he hated Jews or he was convinced that his odds of holding a bunch of Jews hostage increased his chances of getting what he wanted, which is almost certainly tied into the conspiracy

theories of Jews running the world and being the ones pulling the levers of power. We don't know what his true motivations were, and we probably won't ever, because he's dead. What we can see is the failures of American policy abound. Akram easily passed through an international security system, the TSA, meant to identify people just like him. As a non-citizen with a history of mental illness, he easily found and purchased a gun after just a couple of weeks in the U.S. He was almost certainly influenced by anti-Semitism that is now rampant on the left and the right, and he was seeking freedom for a woman arrested for her role in our failed war on terrorism in the Middle East. An incident like this doesn't just highlight a returning hatred of Jews or the threat of Islamic extremism in Pakistan. It highlights failures across American policies on guns, immigration, and war. Of course, the sick and beautiful and twisted

thing about all of this was the positive power of the American spirit it also highlighted. That a man with ties to Islamic extremism walked into a Texas synagogue and was welcomed with open arms. But hours into his hostage taking of Jews, he conceded that he actually liked the rabbi and bonded with him and felt bad about what he was doing. Perhaps it's delusional rose-colored glasses, but I can't help but be struck by the fact that even in a situation as remarkably horrifying and extreme and absurd as this, we're reminded of the simple power of talking and listening to each other. All right, that is it for my take on today's story. In a little bit of a more lighthearted pivot, I'm going to answer a reader question that I got from like 100 different

people yesterday who all wrote in asking about the gold. Did I get the gold? I offhandedly referenced a wager I made last year where someone bet me $15,000 in gold that Joe Biden would not be inaugurated. Dozens of readers wrote in asking various questions about it yes i did take the bet yes i did get the gold no it's not buried but yes it's safely stored in a secure location and you'll never find it and yes i do have a picture obviously you can't see it on a podcast but i shared the photo of me holding up some of the gold in today's newsletter so if you want to check it out, you can go do that. All right, that brings us to our story that matters for the day. This one is about the new White House plan to distribute 400 million free N95 masks at thousands of locations like pharmacies and healthcare centers across the

country. The announcement came with a new mask guidance from the CDC, which was updated on Friday that says N95 or KN95 masks offer far more protection than cloth face coverings. The masks will be made available to everyone and distribution will not be prioritized based on vulnerability, age, or economic status. The mask distribution comes on the heels of a new government website to order COVID-19 tests, and some experts say the Omicron surge appears to have peaked. NBC News has the story. There's a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, finally, our numbers section. One in four is the number of American Jews in the U.S. who say they experienced anti-Semitism in the last year. 39% is the percentage of American Jews who said they have changed their behavior in the last 12 months,

such as avoiding wearing items that would identify them as Jewish based on fear of anti-Semitism. 60% is the percentage of Americans who say anti-Semitism is a problem in the U.S. 48% is, in 2017, the percentage of Muslims who said they had experienced discrimination in the U.S. And 53% is the percentage of Americans who don't know anyone who is Muslim. All right, we need our Have a Nice Day story today, and thankfully it is a good one. The world officially has a new oldest tortoise ever. Last week, a tortoise named Jonathan celebrated his 190th birthday, making him the oldest tortoise ever and the oldest known living land mammal on earth. Jonathan is believed to have been born in 1832, and his age is based on an estimate that he spent 50 years in the wild before arriving in St. Helena, a British overseas

territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. In all likelihood, Jonathan is actually older than 190 according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The veterinarian section is still feeding him by hand once a week to boost his calories, vitamins, minerals, trace elements, as he is blind and has no sense of smell, caretaker said. His hearing, though, is excellent, and he loves the company of humans and responds well to his vet Joe Holland's voice as he associates him with a feast. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support Tangle,

please, actually, you know, maybe just do it today. Go to the episode description, click a few links, see what you can do. Spread the word, share it with friends, give us a five-star rating, and subscribe. Subscriptions are the only thing that keeps the lights on, so we need them. Please consider it. Anyway, we'll be back tomorrow with a review of Joe Biden's presidency, the first year at least. So buckle up. See ya.

Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. So based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior chinatown follows the story of willis woo a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond chinatown when he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime willis begins to unravel a criminal web his family's buried history and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease.

Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection

is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.