Have you heard about the Israeli serial killer/stabber who was apprehended this week while boarding a flight to Israel? Is he a Jew?
A suspect in a string of 20 stabbings that terrorized people across three states and left five dead was arrested in front of startled passengers at an airport gate as he tried to board a plane for Israel, officials said Thursday.
A judge in Flint, Mich., where the attacks began in late May, signed a warrant Thursday charging Elias Abuelazam, 33, with assault with intent to murder in connection with a July 27 stabbing.
Need a hint? Take another look at the name.
Elias Abu Elazam was arrested while waiting to board a Delta flight bound for Tel Aviv, Israel, on Wednesday night in Atlanta. A warrant charging him with assault with intent to commit murder was issued today in Flint.
Abu Elazam, who spoke a Palestinian dialect, was waiting to board a plane for Israel at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport when he was arrested. Michigan authorities had contacted Atlanta-based officials about 9:30 and U.S. Customs Border Protection officers arrested the suspect there about 10 p.m. Wednesday.
Isn’t it fascinating that although the fact that he is a dual-national, an Israeli citizen, has made every single news report, few are reporting that this serial killer is not a Jew. He speaks with a Palestinian dialect. That might even make him, you know, a Palestinian Arab serial killer. The Detroit News, however, seems to be the rare media outlet reporting that fact.
CNN managed to find two sources to call him an Israeli, but still couldn’t call him either an Arab-Israeli or a Palestinian. The headline? Israeli identified as man held in stabbings probe
Two sources said the man is an Israeli citizen who is in the United States legally. A federal law enforcement official involved in the investigation said the man was traveling on an expired Israeli passport.
The MSNBC headline: Israeli held in investigation of serial stabbings
ABC: Serial Stabber Suspect Named, Nabbed in Airport Trying to Flee to Israel
The WaPo can’t figure out he’s not a Jew.
And the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has mixed feelings.
The 33-year-old Israeli citizen was arrested last week in Arlington, Va., during a traffic stop. He was released a few hours later, according to the Flint Journal.
Little is known about Abuelazam — even his name.
His name is spelled four different ways in public documents. The Michigan Secretary of State records had it as Elian Abuelazam. It was Abu Elazam on his Michigan driver’s license that expired in 1997. Records show he had it changed in 1995 to Elias Abullazam. And the Atlanta police report and the warrant the judge signed listed it as Elias Abuelazam.
So this is your public service notice from Yourish.com: This creep is not a Jew. (Not that I don’t expect the neo-Nazi sites to claim he is, though.) One more time: The Israeli serial stabber/killer is not a Jew.
Update: The JPost says he’s a Christian from Ramle, a mixed Arab and Jewish town. And so, I repeat: Not a Jew.
Update 2: Flint Arab-Americans “fear backlash” over the arrest of an Arab-American serial killer. Because that’s what we do here in America: Mob justice. No, idiots, that’s what happens where you came from. By the way, countdown to the “Oppression by the Israelis caused him to kill people” excuse in 3, 2….
That’s why paid shills like Joan Walsh and Glenn Greenwald won’t touch this story. As soon as someone points out that the killer isn’t Jewish they’ll spike it.
To add a point to Trudy’s comment: if this guy was a Jew, I would expect people like Greenwald, based on their track record, to publish essays implying that all Israeli Jews are racist because of this one guy. Since he is an Arab, there will be no essays from these same people about how these attacks arose from the inherent racism of Arab society which the writer just invented right now.
I commented to some Hot Air peeps-before I learn that the guy wasn’t Jewish-that someone was sure to blame his actions on some evil Jewish plot.
I was relieved to learn that he was arab.
“He speaks with a Palestinian dialect.” Hilarious. That “dialect” is called Arabic.
PC is a mental illness.
“I was relieved to learn that he was arab.”
It really shoudn’t make a difference. If an individual does something bad it should reflect on him, not on everyone of his race/religion/ethnicity. But that is human nature. What ticks me off is Meryl’s point that they are emphasizing he is Israeli and you can be damn sure if he were Jewish they’d be talking it up but since he is not they aren’t mentioning his background at all. That’s why they call it the MFM.
Yourish, thank you for this!!! And thanks for the updates. You might add (and contact) Huffington Post (which I follow regularly since I am a great fan of Arianna H. for everything else) which listed him as a mixed-Jewish- (!) Arab Israeli!!!
The paranoia about offending Muslims, especially as Ramadan begins, with the NYC Mosque controversy in the middle and the insane Muslim-bashing at the other end, must be part of the idiotic non-stop reference to this turd as if he were an Israeli Jew — and no doubt, in some quarters, there is anti-Israel bias. The end result is a large population of African Americans, including his tragic victims, their relatives and friends and others, assuming that this is some “racist Jew”!
As for Palestinian dialect, I, too, chuckled, thinking “Maybe Arabic?” — although there are certainly dialect versions of Arabic as of most other languages — but either way, he is clearly not an Israeli Jew!
I was so glad to see this posting as I said to my husband this morning
why aren’t they giving the man’s racial identity.. The media
wants him to be Jewish NOT palestinian.
Palestinians are just
“freedom fighters” ha ha They can’t do any terrorism
You could have guessed his ethnicity by his first name. ONLY Arab Christians in Israel name their sons Elias. Sometimes Jews from Arab/Muslim countries have Arabic last names, but they would never name a son Elias. Arab Muslims would never name a son Elias. By a process of not very complicated elimination, you can figure these things out easily. (For example, if a guy’s first name is “Nissim” you just know he’s a North African Jew.)
The Guardian never fails to please:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/13/israeli-elias-abuelazam-accused-us-racist-murders
Check out that headline!!
They bury the fact that he’s a Christian Arab in the middle of the article.
The whole story is much ado about nothing; Christian, Jewish, or astafarian, had he made it to Israel, Israel would simply have extradited him back to th USA.