Daniel Pearl was not beheaded because he was a journalist.
Daniel Pearl was beheaded by Islamic extremists because he was an American and a Jew.
“My name is Daniel Pearl, I am a Jewish-American.”
On February 21, 2002, a videotape was released titled The Slaughter of the Spy-Journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl. The text from the video reads in Arabic: “My name is (Daniel Pearl), I am a Jewish-American.”
Yesterday Barack Obama signed the toothless Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act of 2009 named in honor of the Wall Street Journal reporter who was killed by terrorists in 2002. The bill promotes press freedom. The president declined to take questions from the media at the signing event.
Jennifer Rubin at Contentions Blog pointed out that Barack Obama forgot to mention that Daniel Pearl was murdered by Islamic extremists.
At a signing ceremony for the Freedom of Press Act, it is ironic and shameful that Obama could not bring himself to identify the killers who beheaded the man who fearlessly reported on the jihadist terrorists. Obama had this to say:
All around the world there are enormously courageous journalists and bloggers who, at great risk to themselves, are trying to shine a light on the critical issues that the people of their country face; who are the frontlines against tyranny and oppression. And obviously the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is, and it reminded us that there are those who would go to any length in order to silence journalists around the world. What this act does is it sends a strong message from the United States government and from the State Department that we are paying attention to how other governments are operating when it comes to the press. It has the State Department each year chronicling how press freedom is operating as one component of our human rights assessment, but it also looks at countries that are — governments that are specifically condoning or facilitating this kind of press repression, singles them out and subjects them to the gaze of world opinion in ways that I think are extraordinarily important.
That’s not all Barack Obama forgot to mention.
Obama also omitted the fact that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the Islamic terrorist who beheaded Daniel Pearl, could have cared less about his press credentials.
Photos of Daniel Pearl were released by Pakistani terrorists, along with a horrific video showing his decapitation.
After the Islamic radicals murdered Daniel Pearl they released a video of his beheading. This text was included:
“My name is Daniel Pearl. I am a Jewish American from Encino, California USA. I come from, uh, on my father’s side the family is Zionist. My father’s Jewish, my mother’s Jewish, I’m Jewish. My family follows Judaism. We’ve made numerous family visits to Israel. 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.”
Obviously, the terrorists were not as concerned about Pearl’s writing as much as his Jewish blood line. But, when you are incapable of understanding who we are fighting and when you are unwilling to utter the words “Islamic radicalism” then you tend to make these kind of mistakes.