I find this in equal measures fascinating and disturbing. Though
I disagree with Liel
Leibovitz and his increasingly, or more increasingly manifest, right-wing
Zionist views, I do not therefore reject this account.
I'd never suspected a connection between Kahane's killer and
al Qaeda. Yet, as per Leibovitz:
On Nov. 5, 1990, the Israeli rabbi and politician Meir
Kahane finished a speech in the Marriott East Side hotel in Manhattan. He
stepped off stage shortly after 9 p.m., surrounded by well-wishers and
supporters. A man disguised as an Orthodox Jew emerged from the crowd, drew a
.357 caliber pistol, and shot Kahane from close range, killing him. He was
revealed to be El Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian-born American citizen living in
Jersey City.
Nosair, authorities soon learned, wasn’t working alone. He
was part of a network run by Omar Abdel-Rahman, known as the Blind Sheik. So
great was the jury’s contempt for Kahane, that they acquitted Nosair of murder
and convicted him only of assault and possession of an illegal firearm, a
decision that the trial’s judge, Justice Alvin Schlesinger, lamented went
“against the overwhelming weight of evidence and was devoid of common sense and
logic.” Nosair’s legal defense was paid by a wealthy supporter of Abdel-Rahman,
one Osama Bin Laden. Three years later, several of Abdel-Rahman’s other
disciples were arrested for attempting to blow up the World Trade Center.
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